"New book traces the evolution of terrorism since bin Laden" PBS NewsHour 8/15/2017

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who identified the 9/11 hijackers, felt both joy and worry the night Osama bin Laden was killed.  He worried that the U.S. didn't have a strategy to combat bin Laden's message, which lived on even though the Al-Qaeda leader was dead.  The evolution of terrorism is the subject of his new book, "The Anatomy of Terror.”  Soufan joins Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  You, in almost a novelistic way, look at bin Laden or al-Zarqawi, who was the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq; or Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.

ALI SOUFAN:  Ya.

MARGARET WARNER:  Was there a common thread among them?

ALI SOUFAN, Author, “The Anatomy of Terror:  Well, ya, absolutely.  And the common thread is their own belief.

It is people who believe that there is an ongoing war between the West and the United States.  And anyone who does not in their way of interpreting events around the world is an infidel, regardless if you're a Muslim or you're not a Muslim.  That doesn't matter.

And that's why almost 95 percent of the victims of this form of terrorism are Muslims.