Thomas Ken Quotes

Throughout the world, terrorists are actively seeking their next recruit. Alarmingly, terrorist organizations are increasingly targeting school-age children as the next generation of terrorists.

We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.

Terrorists

Islamic terrorist organizations use sections of the Koran to recruit and brainwash idealistic young Moslems to engage in violent, murderous attacks on non-Moslems. The important question facing Moslem leaders … is, how do they teach and explain these passages from the Koran to their Moslem congregations and Moslem school students? Is it made absolutely clear that even though those passages are in the Koran, which is their Holy Book, they only applied in the 7th century not the 21st century? It is vitally important that moderate Moslem leaders … do not let Islamic extremists use these passages to recruit vulnerable, Moslem young people into any Islamic terrorist organization.

Nobody knows what self-radicalized means, and that's one of the weird things about the way that we talk about terrorism. We talk about radicalization as though it were a thing, as though you could sort of track it and identify it, and that's not the case.

I think that anybody can become a terrorist. That's my point of view. But, not everybody can actually kill. In order to reach that level, you have to be deeply convinced.

Terrorists, in ungoverned spaces, disseminate poisonous propaganda and training materials to attract troubled souls around the world to their cause.

There has been a failure to grasp how competing narratives fight for the attention of angry young Muslims, and we have grossly underestimated the appeal of the jihadist brand.

Staying in a very public fight with the U.S. is exactly what Al Qaeda wants.

Come to the so-called caliphate and live the life of some sort of glory ...; and if you can't come, kill somebody where you are; kill somebody in uniform; kill anybody; if you can cut their head off, great; videotape it; do it; do it; do it.... Kill, kill, kill.

The terrorists of today are not wild-eyed, illiterate fanatics who merely obey the orders of their evil leaders. They are educated, well-off, normal people with wives and families to love and look after. We cannot know they are terrorists until they have committed their horrible crimes.

Terrorist groups always want to believe that they represent a general aggrieved group far larger than they really do.

The Internet has made it easier for those who want to attack the American way of life to identify like-minded individuals to carry out their terroristic plans

Terrorists regard themselves as a vanguard. They're trying to mobilize others to their cause. I mean, every specialist on terrorism knows that.

ISIL is inspiring groups that already exist to rebrand themselves, but in rebranding themselves into a more radical ideology. That's what makes it dangerous.

We're dealing with an enemy now, ISIS, that has a very sophisticated social media program.

The Islamic State has proven that terrorists can seize and deploy modern military equipment on lesser-armed opponents.

ISIL particularly is very slick, very sophisticated, proselytizing and recruiting, and they are very astute users of social media.

Since 9/11 we have somehow come to accept the 'radicalization' narrative, which basically holds that people become terrorists through a series of consecutive, traceable steps laid out for them by large international Islamic organizations. Reality is messier, and also smaller.

ISIS uses traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its ideology. With the broad distribution of social media, terrorists can spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize vulnerable persons of all ages in the U.S. either to travel to foreign lands or to conduct an attack on the homeland.

Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.

We need to be aware of all different forms of brainwashing and radicalization.

The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. It is in producing terror. It sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror.

If there is one Osama bin Laden now, there will be 100 bin Ladens afterwards.