TerrorismU.S. strategy for fighting ISIS includes outreach to Muslims-American communities
The White House is planning a summit in October to consider domestic extremism – a summit which will include Muslim faith-based organizations, mental health providers, social services groups, and youth-support organizations. The leaders of U.S. security services agree that Muslim-American communities should be seen as the “front lines” against the efforts of terror groups to recruit impressionable youth.
While tensions continue to mount due to increasing warnings of ISIS threats to the mainland United States and the first retaliations against the terrorist group through a U.S.-led coalition that also includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain.
As Government Executive reports, President Barack Obama’s administration is using diplomatic resources in order to identify and handle any Americans who might be contemplating joining ISIS.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), have all created programs to administer community outreach in the hope for leads.
“We can be both innovative and aggressive in countering violent extremism,” Holder said, “While keeping with our core democratic values of freedom, openness and inclusion.”
The White House is also planning a summit in October to consider more fully domestic extremism and will include Muslim faith-based organizations, mental health providers, social services groups, and youth-support organizations.
DHS secretary Jeh Johnson told a House Homeland Security Committee last week that “Within DHS, we have programs to engage in outreach to communities which themselves are able to reach young men who may turn to violence. I have directed that we step up these programs and personally participate in them. In June, I met with a Syrian-American community group in a Chicago suburb. Later this month, I will meet with a Somali community in Columbus, Ohio.”
This approach seems to bond together the leaders of most security organizations, recognizing that Muslim-American communities should be seen as the “front lines” against the efforts of terror groups to recruit impressionable youth.
Matthew Olsen, the departing director of the National Counterterrorism Center, summarized the new tactic, “Neighbors and the communities at risk are best positioned to identify the locals who might be influenced by propaganda to pursue terrorism.”
Many American faith-based groups are also responding favorably to the new program – an encouraging sign for security and intelligence services that have to grapple with a shifting and dynamic threat from terror groups that have more and more ability to be heard through internet connectivity and the prevalence of social media.
Yasemin Aksoy, a spokesman for the New York-based interfaith non-profit Alliance for Shared Values, told Government Executive that “We need to remind our youth that all terrorist groups, including ISIS, are simply hiding behind a false flag of religious rhetoric to serve individual or political interests.”
