CEP Senior Advisor Edmund Fitton-Brown writes: "As we pass yet another anniversary of 9/11, let us think back briefly to the eve of that watershed moment: In the 1990s, this author worked on counterterrorism issues in London, Cairo, and Kuwait. There was a lot going on: attacks on tourists in Egypt, the early days of what became al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula. But international CT efforts were unsophisticated with objectives that were variable and not always clear. In those days, it was the norm (albeit infuriating) for one government to lie to another about in-country terrorist threats and hold back information except in the immediate aftermath of major attacks. State sponsorship of terrorism was also common in those days, and it was difficult to achieve international consensus on how to react in such cases. If all that sounds familiar, it is because we now find ourselves dealing with those same unpropitious circumstances. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 and Hamas’ attack on Israel just under a year ago, international CT cooperation is the weakest it has been in 23 years."

CEP Senior Advisor Ambassador Edmund Fitton-Brown: "Bill is joined by Long War Journal and Generation Jihad regulars Edmund Fitton-Brown and Caleb Weiss to discuss the latest report by the UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team on the status of jihadi groups in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East."

"The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team has released its latest report on Afghanistan and the myriad of jihadist activity therein. To discuss, Bill is joined by former director of this team at the UN and longtime friend of the show Edmund Fitton-Brown. Edmund is now a senior advisor to the Counter Extremism Project and previously served as the UK’s ambassador to Yemen."

CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy writes: "Even considering the usual moral squalor of jihadist violence, Merah’s spree stands out for its depravity. Yet, for some reason, he is still widely revered. Nicole Yardeni, a deputy mayor in the city, tells me that his name is sometimes viewed positively even outside of jihadist circles, as “a symbol of rebellion” against society. After all, Merah is the man “who brought France to its knees”, as one local youth reminded the mother of his first victim. Even at the time of the police manhunt and siege, Facebook posts and pages honouring the gunman attracted thousands of likes, while police prevented people from laying flowers at his apartment. (It goes without saying that the overwhelming majority, Muslim and non-Muslim, were horrified."

"'It means we need to be perfect 100% of the time. They need to be perfect only once,' said Hans-Jakob Schindler, Sr. Director of the Counter Extremism Project, in an interview.
Schindler said terror groups are essentially waiting for the right opportunity to attack western countries.

...'In their eyes, they defeated the international community in Afghanistan,' he said. 'They defeated the international community and French forces, which are withdrawing from West Africa. In the grand scheme of things, the jihadists really feel they have the upper hand right now.'"

CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy gave a presentation for the "Jihadism in the West" workshop at the World Summit on Counter-Terrorism: "It’s right that we focus on individuals and attacks, but I think we only focus on individuals and attacks to the exclusion of almost everything else. And I think that leaves us in danger of missing the woods for the trees. So we focus on these individual perpetrators, we look at the thing that happened in their past… instead of moral and intellectual drive behind their actions…”