Calling the terrorist rampage of 24-year-old Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez an act the domestic terrorism, the FBI admitted that the University of Tennessee engineering graduate flew under U.S. radar. Threatened with domestic terror attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the FBI warned U.S. citizens on the Fourth-of-July holiday to be on the lookout for suspicious activity. U.S. counterterrorism officials, including National Counterterrorism Center Chief Nicholas “Nick” Rasmussen, CIA Director John Brennen and FBI Director James Comey, have no answer for how to stop U.S. citizens or foreign nationals radicalized by foreign terrorist groups. Yesterday’s massacre proves the Obama administration still has gaping holes in U.S. counterterrorism strategy designed to stop foreign or homegrown radicals from terrorist mayhem.
When 39-year-old Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at a Fort Hood, Texas deployment center killing 13 and injuring 43 U.S. soldiers Nov. 5, 2009, the White House took months to admit it was an act of terrorism. As the dust cleared, investigators found on Hasan’s computer email communication with Yemen-based al-Qaeda chief Chicago-born terrorist Anwar Awlaki. Whether Hasan proved psychotic or not, he was brainwashed as a programmed assassin for Awlaki, before a predator drone’s Hellfire missile ended his reign of terror Sept. 30. 2011. White House officials were reluctant to admit that the April 15, 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings, killing three and injuring 280, by Chechen-born terrorists Tameran and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was also a carefully orchestrated but preventable form of radicalized domestic terrorism.
Killing four marines at a Navy Operation Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center July 16, Adullazeez was well equipped with numerous 30-round magazines for his AK-47 assault rife. Before murdering the four marines, Abdulazeez sprayed bullets from his convertible silver Ford Mustang into an Army recruiting center forcing staff to take cover, duck under tables and huddle for their lives. Why Chattanooga law enforcement didn’t intercept Abdulazeez during the 15-20 minutes before he struck and killed four at the Marine Recruitment center is anyone’s guess. Abdulazeez had plenty of time to drive to the next target, open fire before police finally stopped his terrorist binge. Former Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) wants personnel at military recruitment centers and facilities to be properly armed to guard against the kind bloodshed seen in Chattanooga.
Arming recruitment centers and retail military facilities won’t stop the kind of homegrown and foreign radicalization that fueled Hasan, the Tsarnaev brothers and now Abdulazeez from planning and executing terrorist acts. U.S. counterterrorism officials have to beef up computer-and-law-enforcement-based terrorism monitoring at every police department in America. No matter how small the department, every law enforcement department should have a dedicated counterterrorism unit, following national leads, working with the community, including local mosques and Islamic centers or anywhere else terrorists can be tracked. With information coming out about Abdulazzeez’s father, once on a terrorist watch list, it’s surprising authorities would have ignored his son. Tracking potential homegrown or domestic terrorists is law enforcement’s biggest challenge.
Beyond national, state and local law enforcement, the White House must urgently reassess its global terrorist strategy, prone toward using law enforcement over the military. When Osama bin Laden lashed out at the World Trade Center and Pentagon Sept. 11, former President George W. Bush went to the military in what became known as the Bush “preemptive war” Doctrine. Whatever the mistakes of the past Bush Doctrine, including starting the Iraq War March 20, 2003 and toppling Saddam Hussein April 10, 2003, the Obama administration shouldn’t throw the baby-out-with-the-bathwater. Taking a more passive approach in Iraq and Syria, allowing the rise of ISIS and other terror groups in the power vacuum created by toppling Saddam, has now spread terrorism to American soil. Taking a more aggressive approach with ISIS would send a very different message to homegrown and domestic terrorists.
Looking at the Chattanooga massacre, the White House needs to take inventory of its law-enforcement-oriented counterterrorism policy. Letting ISIS mushroom into the most lethal terrorist menace in world history, seizing some 30% of Iraq and Syria, has emboldened extremism, radical recruitment, terrorist acts and mayhem around the globe. Whatever the ultimate causes of terrorism, including the world’s failed states and the misanthropes drawn out of desperation to terror groups, the Obama White must reevaluate its current boots-on-the-ground policy in Iraq and Syria. Regardless of what happens in Iraq or with Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, the U.S. must pursue independently its own counterterrorism strategy, including, if needed, degrading ISIS militarily. Obama’s bombing campaign isn’t enough to stop ISIS, but, more importantly, deal with more terrorism on U.S. streets.
