Terrorism & Extremism

If [foreign fighters] aren’t brought home, what happens to them very much depends on who captured them and what their policies are. I understand people are tempted to say these people did something brutal and horrible and they should not be allowed to return, but that is what our justice system is for. There's a real question of whether they'll face justice with a real rule of law. Some might be able to bribe their way out, others may try to find places to flee if they aren't allowed to go back to their home country and spend years in prison. A group of hundreds of people unable to go home hiding out who knows where with links to the Islamic State - that's a very scary possibility... It would leave us with the same question. Say they were tried by an international tribunal and found guilty, where would they be imprisoned? It won’t be an option... [while] Guantanamo is a logical possibility ... I just don't think it's one politically that Trump would want to do.

[Hezbollah regularly attempts to encroach on Israel.] Sometimes it is missiles, sometimes it is tunnels, and sometimes it is positions in Syria.

Pakistan’s main extremist challenge in 2019 and beyond is no longer a violent insurgency waged by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, as it was a few years ago. Indeed, Pakistan’s new extremists are hardliners who do not (yet) engage in mass-casualty terrorist attacks, but in massive, disruptive protests over the issue of blasphemy. Over the last few years, they have been emboldened by the state’s lack of enforcement against them and the failure to publicly provide a credible counter-narrative.The fight against these extremists, more than any other, will define whether Pakistan changes course for the better.