Peter Bergen Quotes

There is no doubt something has happened that is lasting in terms of attractiveness of the nightmare that is the Islamic State.

Hamas and Hezbollah operate within geopolitical norms. They can be negotiated and reasoned with. ISIL is a different animal altogether - a religious cult an order of magnitude more extreme than even the most extreme Islamic groups of the past.

It is now abundantly clear the source of Muslim terrorism is situated within the body politic of Islam and its adherents, irrespective of how many times, on the one hand, some Muslim spokespersons try to obscure this reality and, on the other, politicians of whatever stripe for electoral purposes behave as ostriches with their heads in the sand

Boko Haram Translation: Western education is sinful

There is a cancer of extremism that infects Islam today.

Muslim nations provide recruits for fundamentalism, terrorism, insurgency, and migration.

Think of ISIS as a pathogen that preys on weak hosts in the Muslim world. In fact, there is something of a political law: The weaker a Muslim state, the stronger will be the presence of ISIS or like-minded groups.

ISIL does something al-Qaida would never imagine: they test people by tasking them.

We can put a stake through the heart of Islamic State as an army. We can put a stake through the heart of its leaders. You can take away its territory. But you can't put a stake through the heart of the ideas, of the ideology, that sadly, tragically, still has some attraction for some small numbers in the Islamic faith.

ISIL is more threatening to the Muslim world than it is to western civilization.

When mainstream Muslims defeat the Islamic State, that lessens the ability of the Islamic State to recruit and fund-raise.

The threat from radical Islam is real.

Boko Haram has pledged its allegiance and support to ISIS. The Northern Nigerian-based Islamic terrorist group wants Sharia law throughout Nigeria and beyond.

We need to make sure these Islamic terrorist organizations don't become mainstream. We're fighting an ideology as much as a group of radical terrorists.

We know that in the Muslim communities around the world, they do not like us. They recruit people from poor areas and turn them into terrorists.

This is a global effort we're going to have to lead to overcome this jihadist effort. It's more than Osama bin Laden. But he is going to pay, and he will die.

If there are Muslims who believe that they've got to kill Christians to make a way for the Islamic faith in the West, not only would they be disappointed, but it will lead to conflict, there's no doubt about that.

Our work in Britain suggests that radicalization is driven by an ideology which claims that Muslims around the world are being oppressed and - and this is the key bit of the argument - which then legitimizes violence in their supposed defense.

Terrorism is a real despair. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they're willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies.

Terrorism takes us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.

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.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the parent organization of extreme ideology. They are the godfather of all terrorist organizations. They spread it all over the world.

The Wahhabists are the boogeymen, the guys who will chop the head off any American they catch. And they will destroy Iraq without a second thought if they believe that the instability will benefit them.

I don't think Osama is a Muslim. I don't think Osama is a human being.

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.