Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute.
Articles & Testimony
Pundits and politicians alike tend to think of the war on terror against al Qaeda as a completely disparate phenomenon from the battle against other terrorist groups. This is, in part, a logical supposition as groups like Hamas and Hezbollah do not belong to the more tightly knit family of al Qaeda-associated terrorist groups. Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorist groups do not conduct joint operational activity with al Qaeda, and despite some ad hoc cooperation and personal relationships, they have no official or institutional links. Nonetheless, these groups are no less benign for their independence from al Qaeda. Indeed, the overall strength and effectiveness of the war on terror is undermined by the failure to appreciate these overarching connections. The interconnectivity between radical Islamist terrorist groups, including those that do not plan and implement attacks together, demands a more coordinated and comprehensive counterterrorism strategy....
