Travel banTravel ban has “scant national security justification”: Terrorism expert

One of the leading authorities on Jihadist terrorism warns that while the travel ban, which was announced by the Trump administration on Friday, has “scant national security justification,” it does have serious negative consequences for U.S. national security, and for its ability effectively to combat Islamist terrorism.

Peter Bergen, the author of many books on Islamist terrorismthe (among them: United States of Jihad: Who Are America’s Homegrown Terrorists, and How Do We Stop Them?; Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad; and The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda), yesterday wrote:

While there is scant national security justification for Trump’s executive order, the order has taken its own toll on American national security.

It has played into ISIS’ narrative of a West at war with Islam.

It has undermined the trust of locals supporting American counterterrorism missions abroad by denying entry to US military translators who have been promised visas.

The ban also risks upsetting relations with Iraq at a time when the United States is relying upon the Iraqi government to help defeat ISIS.

And while it remains in effect, it wreaks havoc on those now stuck in detention, sometimes split from their families.

The facts support Bergen’s argument:

• Since 9/11, twelve Islamist terrorists have perpetrated deadly terrorist attacks in the United States, killing ninety-four
• All twelve were American citizens or legal residents, and none of them has emigrated from or born into a family which emigrated from one of the seven countries subject to the Trump administration’s travel ban
• Seven of the twelve terrorists are native-born U.S. citizens
• Of the twelve terrorists who perpetrated deadly jihadist attacks in the United States since 9/11:
  • Three are African-Americans
  • Three are from families that hailed originally from Pakistan
  • Two came from Russia as children
  • One was U.S.-born and descended from family that emigrated from the Palestinian Territories
  • One emigrated from Egypt and carried out an attack a decade after arriving
  • One each had families that originally came from Kuwait and Afghanistan
• None of the 9/11 attackers came from any of the seven countries listed by Trump’s executive order
• Since 9/11, nearly 400 individuals I the United States have been accused of jihadist terrorism or terrorism-related crimes; almost half of them are native-born American citizens, and more than 80 percent are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.
• Half of the deadly terrorist attackers in the United States since 9/11 come from families with origins either in the United States or in Pakistan (Pakistan is not on the travel ban list)
• The only terrorist who perpetrated a lethal jihadist attack in the United States, and who had immigrated to the United States as an adult, and who carried out an attack shortly after arriving, is Tashfeen Malik, who was born in Pakistan. She entered the United States on a K-1 visa for spouses of American citizens in July 2014 and obtained her green card a year later. A few months later she and her husband killed fourteen people in San Bernardino, California.
• Tashfeen Malik would not have been denied entry to the United States by Trump’s travel ban because she was born in Pakistan (not covered by the travel ban), and she entered the United States not as an immigrant, but because she married Syed Rizwan Farook, an American citizen born in the United States.
• In addition to the twelve terrorists who carried out deadly attacks in the United States since 9/11, fifteen other would-be terrorists plotted to carry out lethal attacks inside the United States, but were stopped by the FBI and local law enforcement before they killed anyone.
• Three of the fifteen plotters were planned by terrorists from countries on the travel ban list — two from Somalia and one from Iran: Mohammed Taheri-Azar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from Iran, crashed his SUV into a crowd at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2006, injuring nine people. Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali who entered the United States as a refugee, drove his car into a crowd at Ohio State in November. He was killed by police before he could kill anyone.

— Read more in Peter Bergen et al., In Depth: Terrorism in America After 9/11 (pt 1: Terrorism Cases: 2001-Today; pt 2: Who are the Terrorists?; pt 3: Why do they Engage in Terrorism?; pt 4: What is the Threat to the United States Today?) (New America, 2016)