Media, Law & Policy

To Politicize the New York City Terrorist Attack is Folly

Wednesday, November 1, 2017, By Sawyer Kamman
, Director of Research for the聽聽and Research Assistant Professor at 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Maxwell School, is available to speak on the domestic terrorism attack in lower Manhattan.
“The attack looks like another low-tech terrorist attack, similar to vehicular attacks in the last 2 years in London, France, Sweden, Germany, and elsewhere,” says Zoli.聽 “The inspiration for these attacks comes from ISIS and its online recruitment materials that advocate for the surprise killing of civilians using any available modern tools as weapons鈥攖rucks, knives, homemade bombs, etc. Europe has suffered hundreds of deaths due to this 鈥渓ow-tech鈥 but powerful strategy.”
“Congressmembers emphasize that we鈥檙e in a high-threat environment given ISIS attacks across the world and given thousands of foreign terrorist fighters returning to their home countries (after the fall of Raqqa),” says Zoli. “Recall that 60,000 foreign fighters joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq since 2012. While recruits are far lower in the US than in France and Britain鈥攏ot to mention other countries鈥攖hey were not zero: since 2014, 136 individuals have been charged for ISIS-related offenses in the US, with 79 thus far guilty.”
What can government do?
“Lawmakers and law enforcement need to stay ahead of global terrorist trends and changing strategies, especially after the fall of Raqqa when ISIS operatives are returning home or dispersing into other regions (West Africa-Mali),” says Zoli. “To politicize these issues or to wish them away is folly, as staying ahead of such attacks may likely require bipartisan new laws or procedures, as France issued this week. In addition to domestic/homegrown terrorism, our immigration systems are not immune from these threats, as both the Obama and Trump Administrations knew鈥攂oth required increased vetting to deal with the specific ways terrorist operatives adaptively targeted migration flows and programs during their respective Administrations. This is a bigger problem in Europe where ISIS operatives in the Paris 2015, Belgium 2016, among others, used refugee flows and passports to skirt border security measures.
“Likely, the VISA lottery program Saipov used to enter the US in 2010 will come under scrutiny for vetting candidates in light of the attack,” says Zoli. “While a small program, after the San Bernardino attack in 2015, President Obama鈥檚 DHS head Jeh Johnson and lawmakers鈥攊ncluding CNY representative Katko, who leads the House bipartisan Task Force on Combating Terrorist and Foreign Fighter Travel鈥攔eevaluated the K-1 VISA program (for fianc茅e/spouses), some recommending individual鈥檚 social media surveillance. The vetting process was determined to be less rigorous than refugee vetting processes and changed. In this case, as with Tashfeen Malik determined to be radicalized before entering the US, the question will be on whether Saipov exhibited signs of radicalization and if he was properly vetted鈥攐r whether program changes again need to be made.”
黑料不打烊 faculty are available to speak to media via phone, email, Skype, or LTN studio. Please contact Scott McDowell, executive director, regional strategic communications at聽semcdowe@syr.edu聽or 212-826-1449 or Ellen James Mbuqe, director of news and PR at 黑料不打烊, at聽ejmbuqe@syr.edu聽or 315.443.1897.