Michael McCaul Quotes

I think ISIS is achieving the objectives that they have set out to achieve. I think that they feel probably very emboldened. They feel pretty good. Their resiliency is extraordinary.

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.

Terrorists

How did ISIL grow? It's real simple: social media.

I think it's important to note that after the airstrikes began in Iraq and Syria, ISIS began a very aggressive social media campaign calling for these types of attacks, these lone wolf attacks.

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.

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.

We've got to recognize that when we march into Iraq, we're setting up the card tables in front of every university in the Arab world, the Islamic world, to recruit for al-Qaida.

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

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.

ISIL are already using the Internet for hideous propaganda purposes - for radicalisation, for operational planning, too.

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

Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to die on the battlefield.

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.

ISIS has leadership, just like al Qaeda has leadership. It's important to be able to eliminate the individuals that are leading the organization.

One of the scariest things about ISIS is their ability to leverage social media to inspire individuals who have never been to Syria and Iraq.

Unfortunately, we have seen terrorist groups use social media to spread hateful propaganda, to recruit members, and to incite violence with alarming effectiveness.

We have already seen ISIS use Donald Trump in their propaganda directly. I mean, I will go so far as to say Donald Trump is the ISIS candidate.

We need to view ISIS as an enemy.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, straps a bomb on their body because they were recruited from the Internet. It takes an enormous amount of personal face-to-face contact and time in order to recruit a young person into the cause of jihad.

It is the thing that keeps me up at night - the notion that you have individuals in the United States who are looking at computer screens and who are becoming radicalized.

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

I think what Osama bin Laden does is to take the fact that some peoples lack hope and lack opportunity, and twist it to his own ends.

ISIL's widespread reach through the Internet and social media is most concerning, as the group has proven dangerously competent at employing such tools for its nefarious strategy. ISIL uses high-quality, traditional media platforms as well as widespread social media campaigns to propagate its extremist ideology.