it's channeling these two voices one of the few journalists that we're actually doing investigative work listening post as we turn the cameras on the media and focus on how they recruit on the streets demands as the rights to those stories but then he never publishes those stories or listening pounced on al it's easier what happened to i saw as a threat disappeared have they been defeated or are we kidding ourselves and upfront special. despite the horrific attack in kabul this week studies show that twenty seventeen was the third consecutive year when the number of terrorist attacks around the world went down and the number of attacks in the west claimed by eisel has gone down by around eighty percent this year so what does this all mean joining me on

this special edition of outfront to discuss the past present and future of our mia bloom a professor at georgia state university and author of dying to kill their leader of suicide terror john miller professor of political science at ohio state university and author of overblown how the politicians and terrorism industry inflate national security threats and why we believe them from london middle east and north africa research fellow at chatham house and from leon nicholas and i am a journalist a former eyesore hostage and author of jihad academy the rise of islamic state thank you all for joining me on from mir let me start with you am i wrong in saying that despite a few really bad eisel attacks like the one in november in melbourne australia the threat that poses at least to the west seems to have gone down in the media we don't talk about it as often politicians are talking about the threat from the attacks seem to have gone down compared to you're a target is it fair it to. and on what you're calling the west if you're calling

north america the west than absolutely the number of attacks have gone down the statistics for twenty seven thousand was that there were sixty five terrorist attacks or terrorist events in the united states last year more than fifty percent were extreme right wing but if you're looking at other places if you're looking at western europe or you're looking at the rest of the world we are largely ignoring places like nigeria where the attacks have actually gone up or places like southeast asia where in indonesia or the philippines we really have to be concerned so it's a combination of being concerned about the returning foreign fighters to europe but also the fact that there is a bit of a whack a mole that a lot of ice is propaganda and activity has moved from the west from the middle east or at least iraq and syria to other parts because about an old according to one recent study in twenty seventeen global terror attacks fell by a fifth and fatalities from those attacks fell by a quarter that's a good news story isn't it what is this situation in twenty certain twenty fourteen

was absolutely dramatic we had. people coming from our own countries leaving our countries and joining a terrorist group or in an incredible wave of departures. we never witnessed in the recent history so no for sure it is very relaxing at least to seize a flu volunteers for jihad as busy cli most stops for at least europe this is a very good news the the other thing that we need to look at is actually the mines and the fact that the check to fifty of the group has barely decrees that dissipates a lot. ok joe you of course from an entire book saying the entire idea of terrorism

threats in the terrorism quote unquote industry is overblown so what do you make of all the still right now well it seems to be very much indeed klein if you look at the american cases where they actually arrested people for trying to do the islamic terrorism in the united states they're about a dozen over a dozen each innocent the previous three years and this year there's been one and when you look at the actual cases many of these people are mentally disturbed completely out of whack. if any and they're not they're not i saw attacks and they were they are basically people are sort of inspired and i sold out for a while there was sort of the jihad is cool phrase to get so these many of these techs are simply not serious if they have they hadn't been interrupted like that anything they have my question to you we might agree now based on the numbers and even me is conceding in the u.s. north america attacks it down but even when i quote unquote you know everything's relative but when they were higher than they were now in twenty fifteen twenty sixty even then you were one of those voices saying let's not you know say the role

of a citizen as far as i'm concerned is looking at all the years since nine eleven the number of people who have been killed by islamic extremists in the united states is about six per year it isn't much different in most of europe and much much of the western world including australia and so forth that's six too many that we'd all prefer there to be zero but you know an incredibly small number of people i want to talk to somebody at the national institutes of health and i said suppose you had a disease that killed six people a year how much money would you spend trying to eradicate it and he looked back at me like i was crazy i mean there's you know so much more to go you've got a limited amount of funds and spending i'd hazard that small number of requests for the service waiting patiently in love but before i do me and you just want to briefly respond to john's point about. the spending on the compared to the number of deaths at least here in the well i'm going to agree with the madness of the spending so that's the point that i agree but at the same time i would say that we have to look at the way you. which it's inspiring the fact and to add to what

nicholas said this jihad this ice is attracted more foreign fighters than afghanistan bosnia and chechnya and the previous war in iraq put together so we did have this ideational of fact that i don't want to discount but john it we're going to come out as a very nice segue into relevance or who's in london based in the u.k. when i but you regularly travel to work on the ground in iraq where a lot of these quote unquote foreign fighters came into is it fair to say that which is lost i believe ninety nine percent of its territory now in iraq and syria territory that one point was almost the size of portugal is it fair to say that they've been defeated on the ground in iraq militarily they've been defeated is that. the network that existed since the late one nine hundred ninety s. going on through to the two thousand continues to exist of course they go through phases where they take more territory and lose territory but the issue here is a kind of draws on the conversation that we're having many people look at i saw as

the disease itself but actually i saw is the symptom. and so the problem we have in iraq and syria is actually a bigger problem which is the failure of these governments the failure of these states that allow for groups like isis to emerge and it's also important to i think unpack the difference between the global jihad and the sort of local version of iso so the global jihad is version which really sprung up in two thousand and eleven after sort of what happened in syria but became part of the whole organization that's kind of calmed down but there are still local grievances and many local minded iraqis and syrians who are entertaining the ideas of groups like this because of more socio economic reasons not necessarily the idea of isis which is something that's come up already today so just to be clear though in terms of the territory that you're saying yes they've been pushed out of cities they've been pushed out of mosul they don't control ground so they're quote unquote caliphate but they're still there is

a force in terms of net woods in terms of ideas in terms of the a little too young disillusioned people i mean you know this is a very dynamic organization i mean it's gone through different i mean it's not it's not the first time that i saw has lost territories of the network if you look at it a bit longer term in two thousand and eight nine and ten of that also last territory and it makes an assumption that it will come back at some point given the fact that everyone keeps focusing on the military solution and on rather than the actual problem that allows it to emerge and i've already outlined those but nonetheless at the moment it has still has quite a bit of cash that it's made over the last few years it's still able to kind of reach out in parts of iraq particularly in some provinces like dean it's emerging the first attacks and most of the fuel. so it's emerging so it's not the kind of say to scare that it's back to the two thousand and fourteen fifteen levels well nonetheless it's important to note that it's. nicholas let me ask you this you of course were a hostage held. in the region you wrote very lucidly off do you came back about the

people who would hold you hostage and i think you said you know they watch the same t.v. shows as the same color tunes as a lot of people say well hold on come on these guys are religious fanatics what do you say to them having spent time with them against their will and that they're very humane and to some people it could sound just crazy to try to give a picture. of terrorists who are like is the is the ark image of the evolved to give them the picture of being in maine you know what is your main weakness is and this is what we should walk on much more you you mention the point about six people to the north american obviously you're an american political scientist you're looking at what the american government is doing at home and abroad but when you listen to renard talk about what's happening in iraq and when you look at for example recent u.n. report found musgrave's from some of the isis controlled areas that were taken back

they may have actually killed even more people than we thought when you see when you see what's happening in the middle east and north africa do you worry that your thesis about the threat being overblown is too american centric yes. in a lot of ways it doesn't really present a threat to the united states or to western europe is far as i can see it's basically. a massive threat in some of the countries well it's not a massive that is it's a minor threat it seems to me you know you can have you know small groups. still causes problems in somalia there are going to be people roaming around the middle east screaming that they're members of isis because it's what one does who are probably in create trouble but it's not it i don't think is even a major problem there overall. certainly far far worse than it was earlier when they control these and when they're able to actually do these massacres that you talked about i'm going to disagree with that a couple of them have to go to so the reason i disagree is a lot of the foreign fighters that have left iraq and syria have gone to places like libya they've gone to southeast asia they've gone to pakistan and afghanistan

and so the idea that these are not actual threats to the governments i disagree having spent time in pakistan having traveled through these areas talking to people who are former members of terrorist organizations this is an actual threat to some governments but he's right not to the american government you know you used the phrase earlier of what kabul is not part of the problem that if you've got this organization that can just pop up because it's an ideology is about as it is a physical group in different parts of the world when you when you bomb them here they go somewhere else where does that leave the overall strategy well it definitely resonates when the local government is corrupt and when people are feeling aggrieved then it starts to have all of these global politics be very locally relevant and that's where it becomes problematic so that the isis fighters go in but they link up with local groups who have local grievances and many of these governments are very imperfect and this is where it resonates and they become very popular with the rank and file really

a job is suggesting that even in the middle east the threat could be seen as overblown in parts that they're not a threat to a lot of governments is that you will. i think very clearly isis you know the organization has had a massive threat in the months of massive consequences on the populations in syria and iraq particularly but elsewhere in the middle east i mean having spent time over the years in iraq it's been devastating and it's been a very dark time in the history of the country and you have many families and many people affected by the organization including the governments of these countries that are still unable to kind of rebuild so how do you think for example western governments which are trying to formulate their own security strategies their own policies in the middle east how should they now be reacting in this new environment when i solute been physically removed from the scene in iraq in syria but as you say it still poses a threat what would you be saying to governments in the u.k. and from the united states about their position on i still in the middle east at

least i mean you know we get this question all the time and there are many different governments that are you know trying to figure out what to do very clearly what's happened is now that the territorial victory has has been made now the military solution has been achieved there's almost like ok well let's pack up and go home and that's exactly what happened in two thousand and six seven eight when at the time it was then iraq and there's logic state of iraq or only to have to come back again a few years later because the actual solution didn't include some of the more political and societal socio economic solutions so if my recommendation would be if you want to fight so although you want to really get rid of this organization isn't there isn't there's a slight contradiction to really talk about root causes and nina symptoms versus disease and you say corruption and you say you know misgovernance and we know about sectarianism in iraq but you say come back a few years later some would argue the ice is all tied in iraq our response to the u.s. occupation in the first place. to some extent i mean to question the earlier years

but certainly in two thousand and fourteen it wasn't a direct response to american invasion what it was was a direct response to the failure of the state to rebuild itself in two thousand and three so the point i was trying to make was if you really want to combat isis it's about building these states you know it's about corruption it's about governance it's about letting the people in anbar or mosul or fluid or the other know that there is something there an institution that can represent them and that can respond to that means if that is a very briefly we're not we we need our way over in iraq from your perspective we need a point in law no we're not we we are close because no one's focusing on it. let me ask you this me i mentioned earlier foreign fighters in the number of people who went into iraq in syria from around the world to fight a lot of those people have left to go to other war zones quote unquote but a lot of those also come home to denmark to the u.k. to the united states canada is there a threat posed by those people actually what we have we have

a couple of hundred who came back and they are currently in jail in france and they do you know rip present a big stress. there are another couple of hundred who have currently detained under soon in syria mostly known as in syria and these people will have to be taken care of. for me people as a bigger risk at the moment is the people who have been prevented from joining and he says because these people had been arrested like a couple of years ago they had been arrested it was very loot charges just for a project of travel and these people are not disappointed about this because the people who are left as though. richen is all of them somehow disappointed by what

they have experience with p.f. caliphate the posers those who have been arrested. there. and these people have a dream of a caliphate and they have been prevented from dining this dream and these people have a lot of rage do you believe there's a threat to western countries from quote unquote returning no i think it's not there. the. multiple reports in two thousand and sixteen after the returning attacks on. brussels and in paris there are continuous reports coming from the police as well as defectors that there are hundreds of people already they are in europe waiting for orders to take take take action now none of these guys have shown up in the last two years so that means either they didn't exist or they are there and they're just watching pornography needing pizza where are they going on to other pursuits so that it is time to show you an entire book on the subject but

just for often several books several took the book over blue which catches the imagination the phrase overblown what is pushing about a little bit what he said ok why would western governments want to overblow a terrorist or why would they behave in an alarmist fashion doesn't have a duty of care to their citizens it's basically bottom up done a recent report of the cato institute on public opinion the united states and its height when they asked people do you think isis presents a serious threat to the survival or existence of the united states seventy seven percent of the people who had been following this story said yes and fifty percent of that seventy seven percent said strongly feel that way so this is what happens if you're a politician you have to give in to the whims of the of the masses and so this money has been frittered away basically on a threat that basically in any reasonable sense assuming he doesn't exist overall and there has been the media pushing the whole story so that it used to be. if there was an attack the media would wait to ascertain what what the nature of the

attack is now we start with the presumption of terrorism and then crawl it back when we find out that it isn't terrorism we find out so what do we find out if the why do we stop it is not terrorism don't use the word rid of let me ask you this in iraq when you're on the ground in iraq which iraqis do they do they feel as if you know what i mean you mentioned to talk about you know people moving. do they feel as if they've been forgotten or ignored in some way in this whole debate about terrorism which is very western centric while it's as you say it is western centric i mean terrorism for iraq means something completely different or force here than it does to an american because if you want to talk about terrorist sort of numbers many iraqis and syrians have been killed it is a very real threat to the to their lives and to their say being livelihood and safety in their countries so but iraqis have to some extent they understand the threat there certainly the syrians are also happy that you know there's no longer

this islamic state caliphate or iran iraq and more so i mean there is a sense of joy that we've gone over as i mentioned a dark part of the country's history but there's also a sense of disillusionment and a sense of fear that they've been here before me let me ask you this is there a danger that. over focusing on our soul we've lost track of other groups which also carry out all sorts of violence atrocities around the world john mentioned earlier you know in parts of africa and in kenya you've got al shabaab in nigeria you've got book or there are other groups in syria itself apart from the plenty of other violent and quote unquote extremist groups is there a danger that the focus of iceland whether it's up or down destructions from other violent actors in other parts of the world so there's two things the first is that with the focus on jihadi terrorism the united states and the government and all of its agencies have completely ignored the rise of the extreme right to demand their domestic terrorists that are perfect. rated so that in the statistics i gave you before of the sixty five attacks and twenty seventeen thirty seven were extremely

right wing which are white the majority but also if you look at the pew and the a.c.l.u. and other data that's come out from new america foundation since nine eleven seventy one percent of the terrorist attacks have been from extreme right wing with twenty six percent being jihadi so we have over focused on one thing and ignore the other but there's a second part to it which draws from what you were saying about trump i worry about europe in the united states with the rise of this rhetoric anti immigration anti muslim anti immigrant rhetoric we are we are laying a foundation for people to be so alienated and outraged that when there is a isis two point zero or some new manifestation people will start to feel that what their message is it's resonating because they've been alienated and treated so badly we shouldn't do that to worry about i says to put not very much no i think it's the dying and unlikely to be revived even isis course was not really it was

really revived by incredibly bad polls in the milwaukee government in iraq going after sunni's and so forth you mentioned by the way earlier on about the issue about the americans helping or the west helping american foreign policy in the middle east has been an abject failure for this whole bloody century and the whole idea that they know how to do anything correct in iraq or in any other countries including syria is ludicrous it seems to me so let me let's are you calling upon the guys who created the problem in two thousand and three to try to solve it is a literature so let me pick up on the before we finish and ask a broader question about the west as a whole is it fair to say that you all agree with the idea that the quote unquote war on terror how is it being a success because a lot of people in the street would say your cause is really a failure and yet you see government leaders doubling down on the same policies run out there first i think i mean it's a good point i think people are so. focused on the short term and they're so

focused on the minute details of you know what's the organization who are the fighters how many are there numbers that they kind of lose truck at the greater picture right i mean even the question of is there going to be an i says to cornell it's the same organization as existed as i said for decades so it's a bit of sort termism that you see in governments especially in the west where you have different cycles and also in think tanks and others that leads us to not actually get the opportunity to sit back and reflect and say you know is this the right strategy nicholas do you feel you do it your message in from is well heard people in power are receptive to what you'll saying about terrorism. it's not obvious because there is of course some political pressure but i'm struggling to send this kind of messages and but i'm personally afraid not of an. zero but of a now yes three to zero because for me is already the i s.

. because the original as was founded in two thousand and six and almost defeated four years later ok meir what do you think we've got this statistic that i came across. that in two thousand and one one in five conflicts in the middle east all of africa in the style of quote unquote violent extremist element today it's three out of four conflicts in that part of the world have a violent extremist element to use the language of report that's a dismal failure for governments across the world in terms of fighting quote unquote violent extremism is it not it is and the problem has been that because the american foreign policy has relied almost exclusively on military solutions that in many ways whether it's drones in pakistan or boots on the ground in iraq they have definitely exacerbated the situation and it is been almost the the flame for which all of the mosques have congregated and been attracted to areas. as to fight the americans that is a great rallying cry and the problem is going to be whether or not this kind of

ideology continues to be the inspiring north star so we have to we have to be very . saying line about how we approach foreign policy but what we've seen in the last two years has certainly not helped moving the embassy was not a good idea to where the u.s. embassy and that was a terrible idea and so i think that this kind of approach is going to continue to cause other problems and reverberate throughout the middle east job. you've written on this is you say for many years you've been trying to get your message through about the scale of the threat do you believe now that the fold in attacks in places like north america in the west from groups like i saw will help you get your message through to the public or to policymakers are you optimistic that people will now start to go you know what maybe we did that threat. and i doubt it sort of very frustrated i've been trying a long time they see the media never talks about the statistics they never say

there were more people killed by terrorists in the seventy's or eighty's than that are now that should be in every story they never see their six people killed per year and so the question is is it worth it so you can say that's a success it's only six it could be twelve is it worth spending a trillion dollars more than a trillion dollars of domestic homeland security in order to to reduce that number by that by that small amount on that note we'll have to leave it there joe mia nicholas thank you all for joining me on the show up front what we've got next week . impoverished excluded and under attack roma communities are paying the price of heightened nationalism in a country at war with itself. people in power

investigates the surge in hate crimes at the hands of far right groups. ukraine romel repression on al-jazeera. al-jazeera. where every new. born in palestine under british rule. education in america. controversial in new york. he realized that he was a voice. other people. expose what made him an influential right. and champion of the palestinian cause in the west and what's out of

place. anger over fuel prices ignites violent scenes in the heart of paris. i'm sammy's a down this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. i will always stand by little. britain and spain settle their last minute dispute over a tiny rocky peninsula clearing the way for sunday's briggs's summit. to newseum activists call for protests against a proposed visit from the saudi crown prince following the murder of journalist.

to daughter's football finalist perspired one desires after an attack on a team boss fighting in the streets. central paris has been cloaked in tear gas and smoke after fighting between protesters and riot police along a famous shopping avenue it was the violent end to demonstrations against president emanuel micron is being blamed for rising fuel prices catherine stansell reports. i a wave of yellow in the french capital the anger fueled by a proposed tax rise. for the second successive weekend the so-called yellow vests.