Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.
Articles & Testimony
Governments need workable answers to the question of how to create local community networks capable of handling radicalization cases that fall short of breaking the law.
As the Stockholm, St. Petersburg and London attacks tragically reaffirmed, terrorists continue to pose severe domestic security risks. If governments hope to get ahead of the curve and prevent the next homegrown violent extremist from being radicalized to violent ends, they must build programs to prevent and counter violent extremism. Early reports indicate the perpetrators of the St. Petersburg bombing may have been from "Russia's Muslim regions." More is known about Khalid Masood, the British-born London attacker who was the subject of an investigation for extremist ties, but was considered a "peripheral figure." But sometime since he was last the target of an investigation, Masood radicalized to the point of violent extremism with the tragic result of the attack at Westminster Bridge. The fact is that even the best intelligence and law enforcement capabilities will not be able to stop every attack...
