Bashir Assad Quotes

Transnational terrorism, in the form of the Salafi Jihadist movement, is fundamentally a function of globalization.

The jihadists come from many European countries, Russia included, and some even from the United States; hundreds of them - if you take Europe, Russia and the U.S. - are fighting in the ranks of extremist groups.

Members of al Qaeda and other affiliated organizations spent a great deal of time blending into the populations of several nations around the world and exploring all aspects of life there.

The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.

I think we should be very worried because, with technology, Boko Haram and other terrorists have become very mobile in all continents, not only in Africa but also in Europe, America, and Asia.

Syria is hosting the most dangerous terrorist organizations.

I think these al Qaeda franchise groups have clearly evolved into a much more dangerous strain.

Bin Laden actually is the most European or westernized of all the Arab leaders. He's the one who is the most polished ironically. He's smart and handsome and rich... you know, he's quite the eligible guy. Well trained by the CIA. He's a very dangerous man indeed and he now has this franchise called Al Qaeda, which rivals Starbucks in its ubiquity.

Bin Laden is not well read and he's not sophisticated, but he will have worked out very coldly what America would do.

If you don't understand what al Qaeda was trying to do on 9/11, if you don't have a sense of who Osama bin Laden is as a person, if you don't have a sense of what al Qaeda, the organization, was on 9/11, 9/11 appears to be more or less inexplicable.

What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain.

Since September 11, 2001, the powerful coalition of nations, led by the United States, has seen many successes against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It is imperative that we remain united and steadfast in the quest to defeat terrorism around the world.

We all know the epicentre of terrorism in the world today is Pakistan. The world community has to come to grips with this harsh reality.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

As far as Zarqawi is concerned, there is a network of extremists; it's not just Zarqawi.

The relevance for 9/11 is that what 9/11 marked was the beginning of a struggle in which the terrorists come at us and strike us here on our home territory. And it's a global operation. It doesn't know national boundaries or national borders.

The Taliban, broadly speaking, are Afghans - farmers, subsistence farmers. As I say, most of those people can't find the United States on the map. Al Qaeda, traditionally, are much more educated, middle-class people, often from Egypt, from Saudi Arabia, North Africa.

Al Qaeda will always focus on us, the United States. And they will take advantage of any situation.

Al Qaeda has significance beyond its numbers, frankly. And so for us, our 24-hour-a-day objective is to seek out those al Qaeda cells. And, as we seek them out, to target them and eliminate them. And we're doing that 24 hours a day.

There is no question that Iraq is one of the main problems. You'd have to be blind not to see what a magnet and generating force it's become for terrorist groups.

Thousands of mercenaries, who have trained in camps on the territory of Chechnya as well as come in from abroad, are actually preparing to impose extremist ideas on the whole world.

We need to defeat al Queda and other terrorist organizations.

They may be rich, they may be powerful, they may have atom bombs, but Americans and British are no longer safe anywhere in the world…. They may perhaps be able to put Al-Qaeda out of commission, but that does not mean that there will not be other groups. They have been killing so-called terrorist all these years, but there'll simply be more and more terrorists

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

Al-Qa’ida members -- including some who are US citizens --have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.