>> good afternoon, everybody. welcome to the washington stut for our lecture series. i am very, very pleased to have the pleasure of hosting this event on rehabilitation and reintegration of return inging foreign terrorist fighters. we have here in 2 room today several foreign delegations official government delegations civil society delegations.

>> not everyone is someone who is going do be rehabilitated. not guilty everybody is going to be someone who can be reeffect ily integrated in a society in a particular easy way. >> so fsz not soft or weak as a counter radicalization as a cve tool to be talking, also, about

how to reha bill tat and reintegrate people iert once they k078 e come out of prison. certainly once they are in prison. yesterday's serving as universities for terrorism is r as one official put it. but also those returning now else specially from syria and iraq. i was talking to someone the other day and they said why not just not let these people back into your countries. if you have legitimate pass pord holders, on top of that. >> you're going to find some of these people at home. many countries already do. so what do we do with these people? how do we rehabilitate and

integrate those people who fit into cat goirs where this might be possible. there will have to be vetting. there will have to be some type of connectivity to law own e enforcement and intelligence to know that you iran nuclear not mizing something. there is always if concern that someone might, at a later date, become further radicalized, reradicalized. think of the brothers five years later. but these are things that we have to address. these are things that we have to think about in advance. at the washington stut, we've been focusing on these issues now for almost a decade. we've been holding spth shl presidential task forces including one that led to this task force and con fronting the ideology and rewriting the narrative. so it's a tremendous pleasure today to host this event with three uniquely qualified vijss. i'm maet levett. i direct the counter terrorism

program and a recovering u.s. government official. but what he feel e what we have with us here, three really wond earlful panelists. fist, all the way to my right, your left we have doug stone, a retired marine general, someone who over saw all theater interrogation and intention in iraq during the post 2006 surjs and is credited with changing the u.s. military approach to detention policy there something that he did without some -- not without cig nif kantd push back from others. so it was a brave thing to do, which he did with great success. he now works with the u e u.n. and was directly invoefled with the memorandum, if best practices for rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremist measures.

>> immediately to my right, you have the post model rehabilitation program. i heard it e about it on npr. it has guarded significant international attention in its effort to prevent radicalization and strengthening people's networks. i am pleased not only to have you here, mr. mayor, but also keep people from your team. thank you all flg e for being here. we look forward to hearing about this really creative cutting edge program. and, last, but absolutely not lest e least, we are very privileged to have my long time friend, who is the eu count e counter terrorism coordinator a seechb i don't recall belgium official, previously served as director of justice and home affairs and the european union from 19 t 5 to 2007 among many other senior positions.

and if you want to understand the state of terrorism, counter terrorism, counter violence extremism, in europe your one-stop shop, the one meeting you need to have is with jill. so i'm very, very pleased 20 have you all here. we will start with jill and then we'll go to jakov and then doug. i will offer a few summary remarks. and then we will go to questions and answers. we do have hash tags available. the hardball tag for this event is ftf return. the washington institute. the mayors. please feel free to tweet and retweet. skriblt to the discussion with no further adieu. >> good afternoon. i'm really delighted to be here. thanks a lot, matt, for the invitation. thanks to the washington institute.

i'm impressed by what you said but you said equally to be on the subject where we discuss all but an expert. and i'm trying to explain that we need to lesh e learn much more, myself in the first place, but europe. because we are just at the beginning of defining policies in disrespect. there are several experiences that i will divulge. but i think we are not there yet. so i'm here to learn. and thank you for making it possible for me to meet the mayor. i haven't met him so far. and he's probably one of the few experiences which is always mentioned as a successful experience and i'm eager to learn more. >> indeed, not if foreign terrorists, but it's huge in

rurp e europe. and, therefore, the challenge for us is equally huge. i don't have the latest if i can yours. until recently, i was mentioning something like 3,000 europeans who went to syria and iraq. >> this is huge. probably, we have so far by enlarge 20-30 pnt of them who have already returned. why is it a challenge? we know. i don't need to bring that up because they've brainwashed in syria. they learn how to use and they've most likely raised the level of violence significantly and they will have to develop a huge network. there is nothing like fighting alongside others that create a lot of friendship.

and, therefore easy to develop networks later on. the challenge is it's extremely difficult to collect the evidence that children or teenagers in young aadulthood when they went to fight alongside alongside were not present in southeasterly ya. a bit more in iraq. we don't cooperate with the regime. unless they leave e lek tronl e tronic traces and the good news is that until recently they were not easy to collect the picture of themselves. how to prove that dherp involved in the material rigs organization that they have kmited actually a crime. and the konls kwensz will be that they will be probably not many. so far, if you take the french e french case they have 1,000.

not all of them have been to syria and iraq, but they've affected them. and i think there are only a hun dread cases in court for the time being. which it's the dif cullty to collect evidence. and even if we have evidence, that they joined the group, they're most likely, once again, we have a lot to show to the court. and, therefore, we have to find al terntive. and one of the messages i try to convey in the last months in europe to the diminish of justice and the minister of interior is, of course we need to define solutions. but we have to avoid maximum posz to send them to criminal court because sending them to a

jail, we know it would not help. first, if we send that message, it would be difficult to get them back. later, we don't have a common policy in that respect. we have a different approach along the states. and the resing is there for that some of those who would like to get back, because they are afraid to get back and to be acceptability by a jail might look for another hot spot. and we know that one of the main mistakes we collectively have done when the russian withdraw from afghanistan, we have not telt with the and they stayed between pakistan and afghanistan and created a lot of problem. some of them, we have a need to

assess. and that takes time. that requires to assess the dangerous in eness on a kaes-by-cay e case basis. very few of them made commitment and may fall into violence or a lot maybe dissolution. maybe affected by post-traumatic stress disorder, of course. a lot of beheadings. of killings. some who we believe the there because they needed to fight to support the syrian spring. and who may have the feeling with the duty as a muslim. they may just need to be redecorated in society and,

therefore, need social support. when we have evidence that they've committed crime, war crime or crime against humidity it's obvious we need to send them in court. finally, when we don't have evidence. i'm afraid it would be a quite high number. what to do? monitor them discreetly. but we know it's pretty demanding in term r terms of resource. i'm told to diskreetly observe someone 24/7, it requires at least 20 person from the service. so we have some experience in europe. we know that the german program through the channel program. we have other experience in the

past with neonazi, with gangs, with sekt. we can build on all of this. but my main point is that we're not there yet. what i see that's interesting in the white house two days ago, i had a great storming with the mayor of roterdam. from what you hear of the experience is it's a bit simplistic. but i think it's quite accurate. it's similar to belong to a set. that someone is the link of someone with the family, with the friends, with society: that is one as pekt.

therefore, any solution needs to require a response to these two elements. first, to reconnect the person with the family, with the society, there would be one set of solution and the other one is to deprogram the person and work on the analogy. so i gist want to mention the sixth element, which i think would be interesting to discuss in the q&a section. the first, indeed my feeling so far is that in europe, we don't have -- we've not been able to defien define a common criminal policy. nor have we been able to adapt accordingly. to maybe be again oversimilar pliszic, i would say, and you would correct me you have on one hand, an approach by which the danes tried to con vince the citizens to get back home and to undertake the program. that would be one extreme. and, on the other side, you may

have a more aggressive approach which is as long as we can keep them away -- the more we can keep them away, the better. so i think it would be good to define a more common policy. and the good news is that the justice has decided to brainstorm on this in the regular meeting. but we need to sort of adapt criminal law, i think. to explore to an extent and when do you try to bring someone in the habilitation program. it could be either an alternative to prosz cushion and, again, it's linked to the evidence problem. do we have enough evidence. but do we do that? it's instead of a prosecution. or do we do that douche e during the trial? we offer the person an alternative, either to go to jail or to take the

rehabilitation program. and, if someone is sentenced and is in jail, we have to design better mechanism not only to offer something which could lead to a reduction of the sentence but to have the person to reintegrate into e into society. i haven't looked at the sentencing in europe. but the best scenario is somewhere where we have the evidence and so forth. a membership to a terrorist organization will lead to something like ten years. so after ten years if we have not been effective and in jail, the person will just be even further radicalized. so that's the first need. the second point, it's more of a question. we had a short brainstorming before the session is on the role of ideology.

we traditionally, distinguish between deradicalization and disengagement. the first is to try to change someone's id, deradicalize. and if we agree, it's good to have radical ids, maybe. but it's -- you should not use violence to impose your ids. so what is it that we want to achieve? is it true that ideology plays a role? and what respect? the french, it's quiet interesting. the french were not investing a lot in cve or in the prevention of radicalization.

to decon instruct the rhetoric on jihad. does it work? i don't know. but we have to develop much more in europe to develop. to use the word of a french president to develop islam and europe, in some of the member states, we have a majority of imam who do not speak the language of the country. >> it is not contextualized and

may create an environment. if you look at the situation, in belgium, it's probably the member states which have the highest number of syria and iraq per capita. it's mainly beside the convert, mainly people from american decent. >> the third one is how do we improve the way the intelligence committees share information. it's not the tradition in europe

that's very much even with the accept tral police. so, even less with local police. and it would never the less, be extremely useful. because the debriefing of the return, may tell you something about the reason why this person went into iraq and syria. in the first place. and, therefore, may help the social workers to design an effective response. we heard during the brainstorming earlier in the day, for instance, the dutch have set up a system they call e-4 box where the different players, including the social, the mainstream charge of social affairs affairs, share sanctity of information. they have to keep this completely confidential. but they get access to the information. i think that may be something we should expend. the fourth element, from what i have seen, is it's of critically importance to have discipline.

i'm not con vinced that all member states do assess the dangerousness. but that is krilt kal. the next aspect which seems to be necessary is scorching. mentoring. and i understand from the experience now that is what makes the difference. it's someone who can spend an eye-to-eye, individual discussion time to understand good help advice the person and identify exactly on a taylor-made basis what can help the person to reintegrate into society. but it's time consuming. and i suppose it costs something. and i asked you earlier, what the kogs of all of this is. and, finally the problem of prisons and we hear more about what indicators are in this

respect, the wrong memorandum which was developed in the context con tix of the global documents, a lot of excellent ids. as i said to duke, i even read it in detail. my question is u and you said that yourself, does it work? how do you measure the effectiveness of these 20 -- 25 good practices? what is critical and a huge debate in europe on how to handle radicals and especially written in prison, early detection. that requires that we train prison stuff to destoeshlgts toeblgt as early as possible. the new generation of radicals hide themselves.

they try to hide your conviction in order to mislead the authority. and, therefore, training is important. to develop intelligence in prison. >> i don't know whether in all member states they are su efficient link between prison stuff anding in a two-way process. i know that's in some countries they are developing that relationship. the second as peblgt, which is what i'll disz cuss, else specially in france, they have had a very high number that are sent to jail. the question is asked where to put them. it should be in one single place or spread around the different prisons. how should we segregate them

from the other inmates? we know that this is major factor. if you take the most recent order of attacks in europe, and in koeben haguen these four cases where petty criminals got radicalized by being in contact with radicals or autopro-claimed demands. it's a problem if you take just france. it's difficult to know how many muslims are in prison. it seems to be more than 60% of the inmates. and the question is do they have enough chaplain -- mostly chaplain? it's not the case compared with

the number of catholics that needs to be increased significantly. they may play an important role, if not just in the building trust. that requires that they be trained themselves. and finally, what we do in prison. we set up compulsory program? should we leave it open and voluntary? that's something which needs to be defined. so i will stop at this stage just to say that it's -- it's a huge challenge, as i've said. we're not there yet. we need to refine our policy and maybe define more common standards in europe. alodge side prison and in prison, but i'm thankful for your invitation because i hope it will enlighten me further. thanks a lot.

there we go. well first of all, thank you for this opportunity to speak here today. it's a great pleasure and honor to be here and, thank you to you, matt. there's been in the recent month, a tremendous interest in the way that we try to handle returning fighters in and around -- and it's quite nice -- i think we have more than 200

international media asking us what are you actually doing? and it's quite nice to have more than a 30-second sound bite to actually explain some of our philosophy and our intentions. in our approach. just to set the stage, might not be all of you who knows where denmark is. it's right there. just north of the arctic circle. it's much warmer than it is here. and if we zoom in, this is denmark. this is east jutlin and the mus nis pal tea of aarhus, the most populated region of denmark is where i am mayor. we have about 330,000 people within the municipality and the police district is somewhat

differently organized and there's about 500 people living in the east jutlin police district, second largest city in denmark. and if we focus on aarhus, this is where we have the most -- the highest number of deprived areas which is one of the things that is important to focus on. so how do we go about preventing violent extremism? there are sort of three things at stake. obviously there's a policing issue where we need to have civilians and we have make sure our intelligence is working effectively and we have to investigate and prosecute and so on. but there's also a very important element of prevention

and this is our main focus as a municipality. the police are -- and the intelligence services are focusing on the first two and on the third and i'll return to that in a minute. but our primary focus is on prevention and we do that to make sure that we are moving as much as possible to have young people on radicalization or encounter young people in the risk of starting a risk towards radicalization. so this is our focus. just a couple of thoughts and perspectives on the organization of our efforts because it's -- i think that's important for understanding it. we have had since the 1970s a

very sort of countried organization which we call ssp. it's social services and police. and they have a legislative framework and they have a responsibility to communicate and to share information and to intervene very early both in terms of sort of ordinary crime prevention but also in the development of tackling these issues, a focus on radicalization and after the bombings into madrid and london we started focusing intensely on this issue because we were

worried, for good reasons, that we did not have enough focus on young people on a path of radicalization and how the instruments and tools to pull them in another direction. but we're building on existent structures and also in terms of funding. we have easier access to allocate resources, existing resources towards this intervention and this -- to this area. and building on this ssp model, we have formulated the so-called aarhus model of dealing with the radicalization. all right. just to -- this is the -- i think this is called risk triangle which is what our

efforts are of sort of conceptualized around. i'll do quite close to real life because that is what makes most sense. there are a number of risk factors that needs to be accounted for in understanding what is the process of radicalization. it actually involves a number of poor living conditions you probably know these factors. and also a number of poor factors. on the other hand you have a number of protective factors that will lose people from the red towards the green area. and i'll get into what we actually do in real life and

it's about purpose and meaning in life and having an identity and so on and so forth, also known factors so our sort of center of this effort is what we call the information house. it's a unit that is organized within the police but it's -- the employees in the info house is very very closely connected to the municipality and the two departments, main departments in my administration which is the children and youth department and the social and employment department. so this is most likely the point of entry for any initiatives in this field. so they have a hotline where

parents can call. all of our employees are trained and educated in knowing that this is where you can go for information and if you have a concern regarding a young -- obviously a young -- often a young male but also who had a few girls traveling to syria, unfortunately, this is the point of entry. they have the opportunity and the obligation to work in a number of ways and they will do general workshops in the schools, in the local communities where they educate parents and also within the municipality in the signs that young people send the signals they send when they are on a path of radicalization so they

do presentations also to raise awareness in saying this is an issue that you need to be aware of. this is an issue that you need to address locally also and be aware of and do seminars for public -- for the public and for professionals. they have -- when we have a case, they have a number of different instruments that they can use. as i mentioned we have a mentor and i think -- i don't know how it is internationally but in denmark most solutions to any problem these days are a sign of measure and obviously it's very, very important that the people that we assign as mentors are very very

well-educated in handling young people. they know the psychology they know the risk factors, they know as much as possible and they have the personal skills needed to connect to the young people. i mean, these young people don't have a lot of trust in authorities. so we really need to have a very special people handling this task. they will also do survey and risk assessment and this is all incorporation. these are social workers it's people from the police. it's psychiatrists and psychologists. so it's a broad range of different competencies that we bring in and use to make she's assessments and make sure that we have exactly the right intervention.

and we also offer parent networks especially in connection with our efforts in our contingency program for syrian fighters, we experience that the parents are in despair. they are, for good reason, very worried about their young people when they go to syria. many of them have been killed. i'll give you the numbers in a few minutes. and we addvise them to take part in a parent network where we educate them how they should communicate with their children while they are away in syria. what can they do in terms of influencing their children to come back and the reason why we want them to come back is the longer they are away, the more

damaged they return. so we can help them in how they should communicate with the young people. traditional or a normal way of communicating would be that the father of the family will yell and be very angry at usually their son and telling him to you must come back in and it must be now. that might not be the most effective way to communicate because they have been alienated. they have cut off communications and relations with their parents in the process of radical lie zag. they have denounced them. so you need to reconnect and so this sort of education and information is shared with the

parents and then we have a specific exit program building on some of the same knowledge that we have for exiting from the gangs. it has not been used that much but we have had a few instances where this has been useful because they want to -- they need to change their environment and they have difficulties exiting themselves. all right. to make it even more close to reality, a specific case -- i just wanted to run through it quite quickly. this is a young man at the age of 18 with a somali background living in the suburb of aarhus. he's attending first year of high school. we have a different educational

system but it fits the age. one year earlier he had begun to attend a mosque in western aarhus. he becomes a member of a specific group within the mosque within the christian youth center which is a radical salafi organization within the mosque and becomes increasingly radicalized and also becomes increasingly passive in his studies. and starts to withdraw from work, his afterschoolwork at a supermarket and the high school and supermarket starts to notice that he's changing his personality. he's changing from being an outspoken, kind, dedicated person to becoming very introvert and showing a withdrawn personality.

in march 2013 he is seen several times with other members of the muslim youth center as spectators to a trial in aarhus where two somali brothers were eventually convicted for supporting terrorism. the spectators wouldn't stand when the judge entered the room as they didn't recognize the danish court system. in april, a month later, his academic skills are now plummeting and he's not paying any attention to his studies at all. this is the observation from the high school. the supermarket manager confronts him because he has absence from work and at this confrontation he quits saying that i cannot work in a store where there is pork on the shelves and where you sell alcohol. after that, the manager, a muslim himself, is disturbed at

finding out that he has completely changed his facebook profile with now a number of religious citations and aggressive rhetoric. in may 2013, this person leaves for syria with a friend and the family is left in shock. initial talks with this point of entry, the info house and with the parents, they are advised to participate in the parent network and they are quite often participating and after he returns in a little bit, they continue to be part of this network. on the 24th of november 2013, he returns to denmark and his father contacts us through the

info house immediately on return and the person here, he is physically and emotionally and mentally extorted. he is open, he's friendly and repeatedly says i just want my old life back. i just want my old life back. and he appears grateful for the reception on his return and many of the signs of radicalization are gone upon return. so he's introduced to a mentor and subsequently also is reintroduced to his high school with some reluctance. they weren't very keen of having returning fighters in the high school but they are persuaded to

let him back in. under the conditions of continuous mentoring and counseling by caseworker and psychologist. and the mentoring so far has been successful and obviously we are following him very closely. and this is one case. but it shows to me anyway that it is actually possible to do something here and to have an approach where obviously the first thing we're telling returning fighters because it's important to have an open and honest dialogue with these people, because they don't have any trust, the first thing we say is that if we find out, if we learn that you have committed a crime, we will do anything in our power to convict you. and this we must do as authorities. this is our obligation.

and you need to know this and we will tell you it honestly but if we cannot prove you committed anything wrong or you have not committed anything wrong we will do our utmost. just a few numbers. we have had about 150 approaches and instances in the last four years. the profile is 15 to 25 years. most of them in terms of radicalizations are extremists within -- the islamists extremists and we have quite a few right-wing extremists also, and very very few left-wing

radicalized, which might be quite interesting looking at history, why is this more acceptable. that's a different discussion. and most of these cases have been dealt through counseling or counseling of counselors. and as of now we have had eight person in our mentoring program, seven is currently being mentored. we have one person as of now loosely attached to our exit program. and we have one unsuccessful mentoring. so these are just a few of the numbers in terms of syrian fighters we have had 31 persons from december 12 until now

traveling from aarhus to syria. 16 -- actually, 17 just returning within the last few days and they have returned. ten are still known to be in syria. very different background. many of them danish citizens with somali background, turkish background sudanese danish ethnic danish background, mixed heritage. four have converted to islam. so it's very mixed and there's no specific set of parameters that you can use to identify these young people. so this is one of the things that i think is important in our efforts that you cannot -- there's not one relation between

risk factors and who become radicalized, which make it is a bit difficult but makes it important to understand. so this is just a few insights to our efforts. a minister of -- sorry. social affairs have done a number of publications on this, which is available online. we also are trying to publish something ourselves to share this information that we have. i think it's very important to understand that all young people that want to have a happy life. they all want to have good experiences. they all want to reach some of the goals set out for themselves in life and build a family and

build a life and one of our mottos as the mayor is that the biggest task for me is to create the framework, the conditions that make all citizens of aarhus able to build their life in the way they dream of, that gives them the best possibilities to do that. so this is -- i mean also a matter of creating opportunity for people in general to remove the base that is tapped into when young people are pushed driven or inspired to enter a path of radicalization.

thank you. [ applause ] >> well, good afternoon. i'm doug stone. and i have to tell you that i know a lot of people in this room. i used to say i know a lot of older people in this room. now because i'm at that age i refer to you as wise. there's a lot of wise people in this room and some are good friends that have actually been with me on this journey since the very day that i started. some i have met through the process. so today i am really representing the united nations in a very focused effort but i feel the need and have been asked to give you a bit of my own background so you can understand how the two fit together and why, in fact, i have been asked by the u.n. to do the things that we're doing. first of all, it's rare to see my name with general on it anymore. i was sort of you know, excited about that when i walked in. i felt like i should have lost weight or something you know.

but i don't normally see it nor frampg frankly do i see doctor. mostly now with the u.n. you just see mr. and to me that conveys the most important title because like you we are a member of a community and the topics that we're wrestling with today really affect us all. in fact i have to go back and tell you that some eight years ago when i was picked up as -- with an assignment to take over in iraq for what had been post abu ghraib and to take overall of the interrogation and all of the detention i was surprised. i thought -- and in fact, my country had done a great job of breaking out the -- and separating intelligence and separating out the care and custody of prisoners. but why, then, when i looked at the 18 to 19,000 detainees that we had in 1,000 person areas,

why, then were they cutting at each other's guys and meeting and talking about very very radical perspectives and planning about where they might take all this? why was all of that happening? and the answer is because we were addressing only a small component of the real issue. so instead of being a general, i jumped to being an act of commission and we swept in and with every individual on a battery of questions that would take us all day to talk with you, in fact, two days individually, began to study them. and my first observation for you is do not assume what you're hearing on a global basis is necessarily accurate. do not let the headlines necessarily grab you. from the u.n.'s perspective, we deal with multiple countries today who come to us and ask for assistance. and, in fact, we give them that assistance. but you know one of the first things we ask and involve

ourselves with is an assessment, what really is the issue? and so let me jump back to iraq. when we looked at the numbers we found that clearly only 4% of the 20,000 that we had had strong core. i mean, really deep, sacred value, ideological motivations. in fact, 80 some percent were unemployed. they needed money. they had been intimidated. i could go back and tell you what their jobs were who he were this how many kids they had, why they were married et cetera, et cetera. but it was a bit astonishing to me that after looking at the research and the reality on the ground, it didn't seem the same. it didn't seem that there were 20,000 extremely hard core idealogues doing things. so i reached out to my good

friend in saudi arabia and i asked him, what would you do if you were me? and they said, i don't know. you have a hard problem. but here's a suggestion. why don't you think about working with those that may be beyond that extreme. maybe there's not a lot you can do with the 4% but maybe there's a lot you can do with the others. so, in fact we incorporated our own program along with other programs across the world and there were, i think, about five of these kinds of programs out there. some had actually been started and some had failed. but when we reached out, we gathered a lot of information from a lot of people and we began to bring it back in and here was sort of our approach and here was the lesson that we learned and i'm going to roll right from this into the row memorandum because that was our united nation's response to this kind of thinking. what did we learn?

we learned that individuals are not necessarily committed to an extreme ideology for life. it may be temporal. so the question is can they be migrated back to something else? the next question that you have to ask yourself, if they are that way, should they stay in prison for the rest of their life? of course, all of us under the rule of law know that doesn't make sense. so then you know if they are not going to remain in prison, then where are they going? they are going home. and, in fact, they are all going home. i mean, there are some rare exceptions so if they are all coming back, what do you have to do? work with the individuals sometimes individually, sometimes in mass, sometimes in a group. you have to allow for changes in definition that are helpful in their education. you have to be able to articulate what they are going to do when they get back, you

have to find the community that they are going to and ask them to receive them back. to be a part of the process to bring them back, to be part of the celebration or not of them coming back. to comply with or not with the rule of law, whether it be tribal or governance or state or community. they are coming back right? so as you think about that, then we backed up and like ambassador of the c.t. -- counterterrorism coordinator in the department of state, she's supportive along with other nations what we're doing in the u.n. and what we said was, we need to bring a lot of countries together and we need to ask them, do they have the same philosophy? it's so exciting to be in washington on this topic. mostly when i come to washington i am not excited but i'm excited

that we have people here because i can tell you you could not have put in a conference room -- half a conference room individuals that would sit down and talk about this topic eight years ago. in fact, i have to tell you -- and i think you will probably support this -- if we had brought up this concept that we're talking about, they would have looked at us as if we were not speaking the same language. but for those of us, 10 maybe 12 years ago, we knew that this rise would happen and ultimately we would have to deal with this on a global basis. so with that kind of leadership and support, we brought 35 40 countries together. i think we've now had a total of maybe 60. we all sat down in a series of meetings that took us almost a year because we wanted to get the language right and we developed in rogue what is now known as the row memorandum of violent extremist offenders.

this came out and was endorsed by and grabbed and wonderfully supported by the global counterterrorism forum. it was the final meeting when this was all adopted was done in italy and rome. so it got the rome memorandum. so we had tremendous influence from a lot of countries and what are these 25 best practices? let me very tersely give you the cliff notes of this and then just encourage you to look it up. because it has since been used as a pioneering effort in at least five other countries' programs that has started since then and today we are looking and celebrating 14 program that are alive around the globe. this is doing well. not only at the country level but at the community level. so this document talks about the goals and objectives. and let me say at the offset if there's any one thing -- and there are people in this room

that have helped off of this but if there is anything that we can agree on and the thing that we say all the time is that it is one size does not fit all. okay? one size does not fit all. i actually only know one program on the globe that actually is practicing all 25 of these or pretending to and got measured. but some of these practices don't culturally fit, they don't from a government standpoint fit, they are not even a part of the society. so it carries with it a message that there is hope and there's a methodology that actually can work but it starts with a first clear message about what is your goal and what is your intent? and no doubt for those of you who have been here for the last couple of days have heard this sort of what are we doing? what are we doing? is this criminal? what is this? that's the suffering that you have to go through in your community. and let me tell you there ain't no book you can go to that's going to give you the answer.

it has to be just as it was for me in iraq. you have to study the problem locally and you have to know it so well that you know what will and won't work and then take the guidance from others and develop some subset of this for yourself. but the first one is goals and objectives. the second one that we adopted and i didn't mention to you but i'm now a reserve california cop, so i spend about 50% of my time working on human issues and about 50% of my time worrying how this relates to the state of california. yesterday some of you were with me at a three-day panel in california. so they've got to be tired there, the sergeant. what they are doing is the same thing. the mayor said it well joseph said it well. how do we prevent this from happening? how do we get in front of this issue? how do we tamp down the recruiting that is likely to

continue unless we do something? and, oh, by the way, do something wrong and you help recruiting. important metrics. so we decided to do this in the context of prison. and, in fact prisons are very interesting. prisons across the globe are very interesting and we've been asked to participate. prisons are a portion of the system that is used to correct behavior or hopefully at least forestall behavior by taking them out of society. but prisons themselves are not always designed with this in mind. so as you think about it, as it relates to your country prisons are a portion of in my opinion, but not the only looked for solution. the next one is, what are the different roles of different actors? it isn't just a law enforcement officer, it isn't just a mill military person and a military scene. it isn't just a philosopher or a psychologist or social worker. it is a composite of a lot of

different people some who will pop out of the community and you'll say, holy makeral, that is a good idea. in fact, prit af citizens stood up and said, i know how to do this. will you support me and the country and the community was wise enough to watch them and to bring them up and to elevate them and those volunteers those societal volunteers stepped up and actually provided the ongoing guidance for that community. so it's very different actors. do not think it rests in the office of solutions or don't say i've got a book, somebody has written a book, i'll read the book and i know about ten authors i can identify right here. i have a thousand books. it isn't in a thousand books

either. good ideas are principles are but you'll have to write your own book, is my guess. and then there's the entire concept about how do you reintegrate and again to my point, they are coming home. they are all coming home. they may die in prison they may die elsewhere but they are coming home. so the question then becomes what's your responsibility to those that are there and to those that are younger and younger and younger who will soon be holder and older and older until they are ultimately wise. what's going to happen? that's the responsibility for the mayor and civic leaders in this room. and lastly, there's just a hand wave at other relevant fields. so i would encourage you, if you have the time, to take a look at the rome memorandum. it's been converted into multiple other languages. it's been used quite extensively now as a set of guidelines and

please take it as simply one of the many things that you can get your hands on as you deal with this issue. in summary, or moving to a bit of a summary what i want to be clear about is that this alone and the problems today are not the same as the problems were last year. the population is not the same the way in which it has evolved is not the same. so everything has changed a little bit but on the margins, if you were in a room eight years ago or maybe ten years ago, you would hear echos of the same concepts boiling and bubbling and going over and over. people here have been studying this for a long time and they are probably saying echo echo, echo, i've heard it, i've heard it, i've heard it. there's a discovery process for many people going on. but the real reality of this is, there are still some very troubling and unsettling issues that from the united nations'

perspective and i don't know how many i have been to in my u.n. community, but i'll be in four separate countries and i hope to be doing one-on-one with isis. people come into and go out of the community. extending these to the community are vital. there's a vital role for intelligence. in fact, the rome memorandum calls for the importance of it and calls for good police work and good correction officers work in the prison. it calls for all of that. but the reality is, you have to be careful with intelligence. if i'm making friends with you because i simply want to know what is happening, my friendship won't last and the truth won't bear out. so intelligence is important. and then i want to stop and comment and remind you some of

the most nents that have happened on the globe have been stopped by family members of individuals who told that in these two cases family members were going to do this and we listened to it. so that intelligence is vital. why was the trust there? so the point here is not just about intelligence, which is critical, but it's about the trust that you must build in order to get that relationship. it is about assembling subject material experts not just one but multiple. and listening to some, not all. subject material experts like you, like everywhere the globe has an interested party of individuals. there are conferences that bring 300 or so individuals together who care about this topic and they have become a wealth of subject material expert, not that they apply directly in your community but there's an idea that might. that's what i've learned from our u.n. participants.

i've learned that there are going to have to be alternate means of -- and let me use the word sentencing some way to adjudicate, if it's perceived to be a crime did it or did it not, the act violate the rule of law. and if the rule of law was violated in that particular country, you have to find some way to adjudicate it, as the mayor said, as we find in -- everywhere and in every country. not every country adjudicates it the same way. so sentencing, all of this becomes a part of a solution that is not the same in every country but they are all trying to do the same thing. there are authority issues like evidence, like law enforcement like religious motivations. let me go back all the way to my experience in iraq. we had more than 200 religious leaders working in that facility for those 20,000 and we do not have any other programs anywhere on the globe that don't include

that discussion about beliefs. they are there. so that's a part of the process. and we welcome that in every nation that we've engaged with. just about last, every nation that we've been with has -- i don't want to use the word pleaded, but asked very very intensely what should we do about the returning foreign fighters? what should we do? in iraq when we were there, we had about 79 separate countries that had showed up. i can't even tell you in my time in afghanistan how many there were but it's probably at least that or more. i don't know today but i'm told it's 84 separate nations have contributed to the effort in syria. so those nations are getting these individuals back. and there's nobody sitting in this room that cares about this who won't indeed have that

reality to deal with. so that program is yours to develop. and from a united nations perspective, all i can tell you is that every country we've dealt with has expressed deep concern about how to deal with this. not necessarily because of the individual, although there's clearly that but it's really a societal issue. what impact could that individual have on their country's gornvernance, on their rule of law, on the citizen ree, on the others. so the tools and practices that we're seeing that are in the rome memorandum and in the minds of the individuals here i think on balance represent the best hope to the future and if i can give you any one counsel, and i say this knowing that most of you have probably already done this, is get the e-mail address of the point of contact of almost everybody in this room because in this room, with the right motivation is the right answer to where to go forward.

and it's been my honor to be a part of the effort to help the globe drive this forward. my director jonathan lucas, is 100% committed. i can tell you of countries that he worked his heart out for that just as we were boarding the plane to go in with an engagement, the country collapsed. that's how hard we have been working and he has been working to support this. so for jonathan, who i wish could have been here to share this with you and for all of the other members of the global population, for the great panel lives and for the work that you have done and great leaders like us in this room, i thank you for being a breath of fresh air and great hope for the future. >> we really do have an amazing gathering here today. we do have a lot of people to

thank, whether it's ambassador or jonathan lucas we have people here from word doing phenomenal work on this in our backyard. there are a whole lot of interesting questions, some of which you raised, for instance, outside the prison system can we mandate, require people to participate in off-ramp or exit programs short of a plea bargain or something. there is one last issue i want to raise. it's basically been the issue that everyone is talking about this week. mostly in a partisan way but let's deal with it in a serious way here in terms of where is the role of religion here? i want to be clear, i think the president was very articulate in saying that we are not dealing with islam. full stop, there's no question about that. each of our panelists there's been a constant theme -- and i heard a shift in the president in the last few days in terms of the need not to deal only with

the local grievances with the identity issues, seeking adventure, the jihad cool, whatever it is, all those cognitive opening issues but also what mobilizes people to actually engage in violent activity and that is ideology. they have called on members, in our case, the muslim american community and muslims worldwide to play a role as so many are, so many in this room are. because while this is not about religion per se and it's not about the vast majority of muslims, it is, as the president said, about people engaging in disturbing violent actions in the name of a distortion of islam. and most of us nonmuslims can't engage in that part of the discussion, can't engage in that part of the reintegration process, can't explain people what is and is not actually part of the islam. and that has to be part of the answer and i think that's

critically important and also because in part to be successful, we need to be dealing not only with violence but we need to be dealing with radicalism. i'm not a big fan of the cve title, countering violent extremism. to me, that's a few minutes too late. people are already violent extremists. when we're doing this really well, we're not catching people when they get back from syria and iraq but keeping them off or directing them off the path of radicalization in the first instance as word and others are doing here. so we have time for a few questions. i'm going to ask the questions to be very brief and to be questions. i'm going to ask the panelists to be brief in their answers so we can get in as many as possible and we'll start right here with hamdir ramadi. >> fascinating panel. thank you for that. mayor, first i'd like to say i'm so thrilled to see how remarkable the resemblance is

between our intervention program and yours. i'm enthusiastic because that means it works in multiple countries. i have a question about some of the specifics you gave us. 150, you said, approaches in the past four years but they are mixed, right wing and muslims so i'm curious how many were muslims and were any of those later -- did they ever go and fight overseas? so do you have any instances of failures? >> i have to say the most of the 150 approaches are from within the muslim community in aarh um s umaarhus. i would say it's about 110 of the 150. we have -- i'm not quite sure how many of the approaches that

we had are prior to people leaving and us not being able to prevent them from leaving. but this is a field where there's no guarantees. i mean, it's not illegal to have radical thoughts and it's very difficult to give guarantees and one instance where we tried and failed. but i'll see if i can find the numbers for you to be more precise. >> thanks. right here. wait for the mike. thank you. >> would you please address directly -- this isn't on? okay. if you could address directly this is a very politically sensitive issue in europe but

talk directly to those who would say in the european political context that a necessary part of the solution should be tougher sentencing. for example, just going to syria and involving yourself with eisenhower should be a serious criminal offense and obviously talk a bit about the immigration debate because that obviously is a part of what is swirling around this issue now, especially because of the terrorist acts in paris and copenhagen over the past month. >> on one foot. >> well it's something that definitely is in the process of toughening the sentencing brackets for trials and in many ways it's -- these are young people willing to give their life. they are not going to be very

discouraged about what sentence might await them when they get back home. so i don't think -- i think -- that we need to address this issue in another way, also. it might give a slight contribution and might give us a int point of entry insisting the young people upon return cooperating with us otherwise they will go to prison. but other than that it's not what will deradicalize or reintegrate them into society. >> if i may supplement the answer, i think -- and it's -- under chapter 7 of the u.n. chapter, each and every member state would have adequate provision in criminal law in order to investigate, prosecute and convict who are going to syria and iraq and it's important because we need

these -- in one way to stop them from going there because in europe we need to stop this phase as early as possible so they can be stopped at the border. one of the problem that we've had is he was in the database but since the french had not enough evidence, they could not put him with you to be arrested. just to be monitored discretely. and so as soon as we can start the judicial phase, we can mobilize the judicial phase and that's the first element. the second, from what i said, you have heard very much in favor to promote to prison but it's necessary to send a strong message the the same time. because for many of these kids it's not much ideology or even the need to help.

they are attracted by the trail and spending one year following some of these kids they had exhausted the pleasure of playing on internet and they thought it was exciting, what i call too much testosterone. and you have to send a strong mess average message. that's why in france they have opened up a judicial fine to send some sort of message. but if we can reduce the number, the better. and i will repeat what i've said. it's difficult to get the evidence with a terrorist organization. it's not a crime to have radical ideas. it's not a crime to lose your life with the free syrian army. >> phil brennan? up next to the pillar.

>> >> phil brennan from the university of maryland. i have a question for all three panelists if you're aware of any instances where ngos or private sector organizations are involved in rehabilitation. we've started to see them do engagement and interfaith efforts or cve intervention programming. are you seeing anyone outside of government doing rehabilitation work? >> if i can just be terse i don't know of a program that does not have ngos involved. >> but they will have a government role? >> i don't know of -- that have no government role. >> if we can i'm going to -- we only have a few minutes for questions. we have lots of questions. so please right here.

>> there is news about to rehabilitate their returning fighters who come back to their countries and we think it requires a very accurate mechanism and influencing priorities. this mechanism and is there any list to the priorities and what is it exactly these priorities? and like from your perspective, what's your perspective for priorities to rehab those returnees? thank you. >> if i understand the question correctly, i mean this might sound a bit strange but basically what we do when there is a returning fighter and we get -- we always get information right when they arrive from their families because we have

spoken with them prior to their return, and we will make a risk assessment of the individual and this is basically based upon some very very skilled people that we have working for us and they will sit down one on one and have a conversation challenge them and see where are they at the moment in their lives psychologically emotionally and so on and so forth. so this is basically a question of skilled people working in this field and this is one person. i mean, they are not that many cases. this is one person that is extremely skilled at doing this. >> thanks. from the atlantic council. if each of you could tell me what you got out of this week's summit, and that includes you,

matt, i'd be very grateful. and also just a point of clarification, did you say that 60% of the prison inmates in europe are muslim? >> in france. >> 60 in france. >> those are the figures that i've seen. >> and what does that suggest about the underlying problem? >> one question. >> what did you get out of the summit? >> no? >> that's not a good sign. >> go ahead. >> look like any conference some panels were better than others. you had in one room the most significant gathering of prak practitioners and at one point yesterday in particular that i

have ever seen. and so as important -- or even maybe more important than what was being said on the podium at any given time what was happening in the corridors and i think that was tremendously useful. that's always the case. the networking is tremendously useful. as you heard already hearing some of the questions, people hearing that the program they are doing has parallels to something else that actually things are different there was a lot that was learned. there were all kinds of different criticisms that went on and that's great, too because the purpose of something like this is to spark and initiate discussion and debate. to me again as i said, i was really -- the main attack away for me was how much more of a willingness there was to talk about the need to also -- not instead of but also address ideology, that even if it is the case, especially now with people going to syria and iraq from europe where a majority of people either are from broken

homes or criminal background or both, that if it's not ideology pushing people in the first instance ultimately they are clicking into an ideology. and isis is extremely ideological. this is not instead of community issues and grievances, very, very much in conjunction with -- these are two halves to the same coin and there's a lot more to say about it but i think it started a real conversation. the proof in the pudding is always what happens next. if the outcome is to call for more research and more meetings then there's going to be a lot of disappointments. but if the deliverables, ngos and the government and alike we have an opportunity to turn the corner and get a lot more focus and funding private and public for the issues.

funding is perhaps the most significant stumbling block. >> if i remember, when i was when i was appointed seven years ago, it was a lot if not only about the global war on terror. and now it's about prevent. you call it tv or otherwise. and what struck me is some international consensus on the need to do more in terms of education in terms of woman, in terms of mobilizing civil society, the private sector. and i thought that was very nice. maybe 7 years ago, very few people would be in the room. here, you had people from all the nations in the world really keen to do more and sharing the same assessment and wanted to do not only the security response but the more subtle and soft response. so that's the main aspect. i do agree it is important.

the president said something else about geopolitical gain, war by proxy and so on. which are equally important. i would take it more, the need to work with civil society, private companies developing -- strong consensus. >> some of the participants are here today learning more about what can be done whether it's in social media or in the arts and cartoons. learning from pr people there's a lot in the private sector. we have room for one more question, and it's going to be right here. and we're going to wrap up for the afternoon. >>. >> what amazed me yesterday at the white house summit was that the first time ever that leading politicians mentioned the spectacular role mothers could play, that was the first time

ever i should say. i wonder and i'd like to hear from your experience how or whether you already include mothers and in which way you do accompany the rehab and the bring back process of the young adults or adolescents. >> excellent question. >> well, one of our experiences is that -- in order for motivating the young people to come back, the mothers play a vital role. i mean, they have been brainwashed. and they are on a path that make them very, very difficult to reach. but one of the things that will still melt their hearts are the mothers. so that does play a significant role. but it's about their entire network and making sure we connect them to people of importance in their lives on all levels. >> well, my mother always taught

me to thank my guests. hi, mom. so, please join me in thanking this wonderful panel. i want to thank you all for taking the time today. we have a lot of work cut out for us. let's get to it. thank you. on the next "washington journal," walter jones discusses a new authorization for military force being debated in two house committees this week. then, texas representative sheila jackson lee looks at immigration issues and the current gridlock over homeland security spending. after that blake ellis and

melanie hicken of cnn money talk about state and local government debt collection practices. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern and you can join the conversation with your calls and comments on facebook and twitter. the c-span cities tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. next weekend, we've partnered with comcast for a visit to galveston, texas. >> see ya at home! >> with the opening of the suez canal in 1869, sailing ships were almost dealt a blow. with that opening of the canal coal fired ships had a shorter route to the far east to india, to all of those markets. so sailing ships really needed to find a way to make their own

living. so instead of high value cargo, they started carrying lower valued cargoes coal, oil, cotton, et cetera. so alyssa really found her niche in carrying any kind of cargo that did not require getting to market at a very fast pace. the connection to galveston is really unique in that she sailed and arrived here in galveston, probably about 100 yards from where we're standing right now back in 1883 with a cargo full of bananas. and came a second time in 1886 and it was real important for galveston historical foundation to find a vessel that had a connection. the fact she was a sailing vessel was all the more important. >> watch saturday march 7th at noon eastern on c-span 2's book

tv and sunday on american history tv on c-span 3. >> now a look at the ongoing violence in yemen and libya. including a former u.s. ambassador to yemen. they discuss some of the factors that led to the violence, how it's being dealt with and the role of the u.s. from the brookings institution this is an 1:20. >> i've just returned from libya and i can't emphasize enough this is a conflict that is reached really dire proportions. since the civil war started, you know, last year in may about 2,500 people have lost their lives. that may seem somewhat -- this is a country with a small population. and the other, you know, ripple effects of this conflict have been quite dire. massive refugee flows the

plummet of oil production and most recently as we've seen, the growth of the islamic state in libya. you know how did we get here? we can walk back the clock to the nato intervention, the failures after that intervention to assist the libyan government. but i think what we're really living with is the aftershocks of gadhafi's divided rule policy. this was really a civil war that reflected his 42 year rule. the way he played communities against one another. and i think obviously the biggest failing of the transitional government period after the fall of gadhafi was the absence of a government that could project its authority that had the means to enforce its rule that had a monopolization on force. we're talking about the absence of a cohesive army and military.

where are we at today? what we're really facing today is a civil war between two factions. one in the east recognized by the international community based in tolbrook that is broadly antiislamist. the other faction is based in tripoli, unrecognized, it has an islamist hue. although, this distinction between islamist and nonislamist is a simplification. what we're talking about here is multiple powers. that have banded together against common enemies. it's an incredibly complex civil war. if i was to point to one dividing line in libya that i see as sufficiently explanatory that helps us understand this conflict, it is really the split between the old order, the old officer class, the old

technocrats and the younger what i would call the revolutionary camp. and some of this are islamist, some are former fighting group some are brotherhood. but i think that's the real dividing line. where we're stuck right now is in a vicious cycle of mutual demonization. on the b one hand you have the camp in the east that is led by general heftar. an excellent profile of him in the new yorker this week. that is using the counterterrorism card to paint his domestic opponents as terrorists. and on the other side i was in tripoli on the islamist side, you have this camp saying that this is a conflict about the return of the deep state. we don't want the old officer core coming back. gadhafi part ii, and we're stuck

in the cycle of mutual delegit mization. i think one worrisome development we've seen in the last several weeks is the fragmentation of authority on both sides. we speak about these two camps. the dawn camp in the west the dignity camp in the east. these are loose coalitions of militias, different power centers and they're fragmenting. and on the one hand that fragmentation is encouraging because it allows you to identify moderates that you can peel off and bring into a dialogue. that's what's happening with the u.n. sponsored peace talks underway. but at the same time, that's worrisome. you have spoilers. just as these talks were underway, you had carrying out an air strike yesterday, which is very worrisome. and i think threatens to torpedo the peace talks. let me say a word about the rise of isis. the idea of libya as a base, as

a haven for extremism is not new. obviously it existed under gadhafi with the city of durna and syria. after the revolution, you had the growth of al qaeda affiliated groups, and, indeed general heftar's campaign was designed to root out those groups. i think what you've had in the wake of the campaign is not the decisive defeat of those groups, but rather their mutation. and this is what we're seeing now with isis. isis in libya is really peeling away a lot of members of these older post revolutionary jihadist groups that had affiliation to al qaeda. you've had the influx of volunteers that went to iraq and syria to fight with isis, libyans that went started returning last spring and last summer. and that formed the nucleus of isis. you had isis spread to all three of libya's major provinces.

i think one of the things that makes this problem so confounding is we're faced with a terrorist problem in libya. that is embedded in a complex civil war. there's no government to work through. there's two competing factions. so the question again, and we face this obviously in iraq and syria and yemen is what partner do we assist on the ground. how do we work with forces on the ground? there's a danger that really if we provide counterterrorism assistance to one faction that assistance will be used politically against opponents in the civil war. where are we at right now with resolving this conflict. you had the united nations came out today and said if the peace

talks don't resolve themselves, lead to some sort of resolution, there's a possibility of a u.n. intervention. and we may be moving toward that toward that possibility. i think what the u.s. is trying to do is persuade more pragmatic factions of the islamist in the west to move toward a peace agreement with the government. the first step is obviously a cease-fire. there has to be a policy of noninterference from regional states. the egyptians are conducting air strikes. but my sense from u.s. policymakers in my own opinion, the strikes are unhelpful. they're going after camps in the east, but what it's having, what it's doing is having a polarizing affect on the civil war. i mean, egyptian intervention is not helpful in terms of resolving the broader political conflict. i think the u.s. has a number --

and the international community has a number of coercive measures they can use to try to force this conflict to an end. one of them is an asset freeze on libya's central bank reserves or oil funds. again, both sides in this conflict, ironically, both the dawn coalition and the dignity coalition are accessing oil funds. they're drawing from this pot of money to fuel the conflict. to pay their militias. so the idea is you cut off that stream of revenue, freeze the assets, put sanctions on individuals who are known to be attacking civilian facilities. and that will somehow end the conflict. there's a lot of operational questions. because most of the central bank assets are hold in europe. and my sense is that the europeans are a little reluctant to do that. the question of a u.n. intervention force. this is often heralded as a

silver bullet. send in the u.n. there's real questions about the mandate, who would pay for such a force. where it would be deployed in libya. there's been work about the numbers of troops you would -- combined, they have a population of 3 million. and by some calculations, you would need about 30000 troops to actually secure those areas. again, a u.n. resolution, intervention force is not the panacea. my hope i just got back from the city of misrata, the central port city in the west which fields the most powerful militias on the dawn side. this is a business community. they're merchants, but they also have the most powerful militias. they're tired of fighting. and you do have pragmatists

emerging. bring them into the dialogue process. on the other side, on the side identify people you can work with. there has to be some sort of confidence building measures on both sides. the most polarizing figures on both sides have to be moved out of the equation, i think for unity government to emerge. and i'll leave it at that. and we can -- >> thank you, friend. that was really an excellent beginning to our conversation. i'm going to try again. can you hear us? and would you like to give your remarks now? i will take that as a no. so -- can you hear us? okay. i'm going to move on and we'll try again.

>> good morning, everyone i'm happy to be here to talk about yemen. i want to point out that a few years ago we were talking about yemen in relationship to tunisia as the success of the arab spring, and now i'm talking about it as relationship to libya and even in relationship to syria. i think this is an opportunity to kind of quickly glass over what went wrong. i think maybe could be a cautionary tale of what the u.n. should not do in libya. if they have an opportunity for a dialogue. so just a quick look at what's happening now in yemen. you have a healthy rebel movement that's been all over the news. they have control of 11 -- you have a strong secession movement. you also have popular committees in the south of yemen that used to belong that's the former

president, who just resigned. you have these three main agents taking place. and you also have tribes and al qaeda and the arabian peninsula. that's been america's biggest concern. putting all of these players aside, of course, there are a lot more than those. of course, i can discuss them in a question/answer section if you guys want. but looking at yemen. what is going on in yemen right now. you have a healthy rebel movement that took over the capital senaa that has taken over most of the government institutions. you have a president and government that resigned. and so what the group proposed for yemenis is the creation of a 551 transitional national council that will take yemen through another transition for two years. this council will select five members and the five members are going to form at presidential

council that's going to take care of yemen for two years. the threat of this is we just finished a transitional process that's led by the u.n. so the risk is are we recreating another transition that's just a lot of work but no actual work would be implemented on the ground. so i just -- i just want to quickly give you guys an explanation of who the hothies are. it started as a shiite sect in yemen. it then morphed in the mid-'90 into a rebel movement. by the early 2000s, they were an enemy of the state. and engaged in six wars with them from 2004 to 2010.

national dialogue with 33 members, and they also were able to secure an entire committee in this dialogue just to discuss their concerns. so while they were engaging in the dialogue, they were engaging in warfare outside of the dialogue. they were fighting which is a group in yemen that belongs to the sunni sect. what happens happened were portraying it as if it was sectarian war. in reality it's all about power and politics. and i think we need to keep that in mind. so they came to power by protesting a subsidy lift that the president decided to do to save the economy. it was an essential movement that yemen had to make in order to keep its economy from collapsing. so when the people took to the streets, they decided to capitalize on that. they demanded that the subsidy lift would be