Four
hours after three suicide bombers killed at least 41 people and wounded
hundreds more at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, CIA Director John Brennan
said the attacks bore the grim hallmarks of ISIS and warned that the
fanatically violent Islamic terrorist group wants to conduct similar
large-scale attacks in the United States.
“I
am worried from the standpoint of an intelligence professional who
looks at the capabilities of Daesh … and their determination to kill as
many as people as possible and to carry out attacks abroad,” Brennan
said in an exclusive interview at CIA headquarters with Yahoo News.
Brennan credited effective homeland security measures and intelligence
for the fact that ISIS has been unable to attack America directly — the
Orlando and San Bernardino shootings were carried out by radicals
inspired by ISIS but not under its control — but he believes the group
will keep trying to penetrate American defenses.
“You
look at what happened in the Turkish airport, these were suicide vests.
It’s not that difficult to actually construct and fabricate a suicide
vest … so if you have a determined enemy and individuals who are not
concerned about escape, that they are going into it with a sense that
they are going to die, that really does complicate your strategy in
terms of preventing attacks.”
He
added: “I’d be surprised if Daesh is not trying to carry out that kind
of attack in the United States.” Daesh is an acronym for the Arabic name
of the Islamic State, better known as ISIS or ISIL.
Without
confirming that the airport bombings were carried out by ISIS, which as
of Wednesday morning had not claimed responsibility, Brennan indicated
that the method of attack — suicide bombers wearing explosives-laden
vests — pointed to the Islamic extremist group rather than to Kurdish
nationalists, who have been waging a campaign of violence against the
Turkish state. “It was a suicide bombing [which] is usually more a Daesh
technique,” Brennan said.
Moreover,
Brennan said that ISIS has a motive to spread its terror to Turkey,
which has been targeting ISIS terrorists across the border in Syria.
Until recently, Ankara’s failure to police its border with Syria was a
sore point with Washington. “Turkey has been cracking down on some of
the transit of foreign fighters who are flowing into, as well as out of,
Turkey, and they are part of part of the coalition providing support,
allowing their territory to be used by coalition aircraft, so there are a
lot of reasons why Daesh would want to strike back.”
Brennan
said ISIS is using terror tactics to “offset” tactical battlefield
setbacks and losses of territory in Syria and Iraq. But he was quick to
add that the wider offensive in the region and Europe and beyond is “not
solely” a reaction to losses in Iraq and Syria. “Over the past year and
a half they have made a more determined effort to carry out attacks
abroad, and we see in terms of their plans, their preparations, the
movement of people as well as propagandizing outside, exhorting,
inciting a much more determined effort to carry out these external
operations,” Brennan said.
In
the interview, Brennan was blunt about the slow nature of progress both
in the fight against ISIS and efforts to push Syrian President Bashar
Assad out of power. He echoed somewhat pessimistic comments he made
earlier this month before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the
enduring strength of ISIS as a terrorist organization with global reach.
“We’ve yet to really thwart Daesh’s ability to reach beyond the
Syria-Iraqi borders and put in place some of the plans and preparations
to carry out attacks,” Brennan said. He added, “I am very concerned we
have not had the success against Daesh in that environment as we’ve had
in the core areas of Syria and Iraq.”
A
key prong of U.S. strategy to defeat ISIS is the removal of Assad, whom
Brennan described as a “magnet” for a wide spectrum of extremist groups
in Syria. But the CIA chief acknowledged that Assad is getting stronger
rather than weaker. “Relative to where he was on the battlefield last
year, [Assad] is in a better and stronger position [today],” he said.
For that he blames Russia, which intervened last September to prop
up its flagging client with thousands of troops and sophisticated
weaponry. Frustrated with Moscow, Brennan said, “The Russians sometimes
want their cake and eat it too as far as having the cooperation with us
against terrorists but not wanting to do anything that’s going to lead
to a political settlement that will have a more durable future as a far
as a political agreement.”
Between
the Syrian conflict and Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, Moscow has
been a persistent problem for Brennan. More recently, he had to
confront his Russian counterparts over evidence that their intelligence
operatives have been systematically harassing U.S. diplomats both in
Moscow and Europe. According to a Washington Post report, Russian
agents have paid journalists to write negative stories about Americans,
have followed their kids home from school and, in one case, have even
broken into a U.S. defense attache’s home and killed his dog.
Brennan says he told his counterparts “in direct terms,” that the
behavior was “unacceptable” and “destructive” to the relationship.
CIA Director John Brennan testifies during a Senate Committee hearing
on national security on June 16. (Photo: Evy Mages/Getty Images)
Another
sort of irritant emanating from Moscow is Edward Snowden, the former
NSA contractor whose unauthorized disclosures of highly classified
surveillance programs infuriated and embarrassed the U.S. intelligence
community. A polarizing figure, who some see as a whistleblower and
others as a traitor, Snowden was granted asylum by Russian President
Vladimir Putin’s government in 2013 and later charged by U.S.
prosecutors with violating the Espionage Act. In the twilight of Barack
Obama’s presidency, there are mounting calls for Snowden to receive a
pardon. Brennan is having none of it. “He has dishonored his oath,” he
said, and should return to the U.S. to face charges. Asked to comment on
former Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent comment that Snowden,
while harming American interests, “actually performed a public service”
by sparking a debate on civil liberties, Brennan bristled a bit and
said, “I do not believe that at all. I respectfully but vehemently
disagree with the former attorney general.”
In the Yahoo News interview, Brennan also weighed in on reports
that state-sponsored hackers in Russia penetrated the computer systems
of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign in an effort to collect intelligence about the U.S.
election — potentially to try to influence it. “There probably are
concerns that people might have on this issue in terms of any types of
external influences ,” Brennan said carefully about an active FBI
investigation into the cyber-intrusion. “If there are efforts to get
into different types of networks and databases, there’s absolutely that
concern and I will defer to my FBI and Homeland Security and other
colleagues to address their concerns in that cyber realm.”
Brennan
was cautious in his comments about Donald Trump. Asked about Trump’s
anti-Muslim rhetoric, Brennan declined to criticize the presumptive
nominee directly but mentioned that his fellow spymasters, particularly
in the Middle East, are concerned that comments coming from “some
political quarters” in the U.S. are feeding extremist narratives. And
Brennan sidestepped a question about whether he would be comfortable
giving Trump a classified intelligence briefing, as protocol dictates,
the day after he becomes the formal Republican nominee. “The agency will
carry out its responsibilities as appropriate in the aftermath of the
conventions,” Brennan said.
Toward
the end of the interview, which took place in the director’s private
dining room in Langley, overlooking the lush woods surrounding the CIA’s
main campus, Brennan contemplated every spymaster’s darkest fear: the
possibility, however remote, that a mole has penetrated his service. “If
you’re part of an intelligence organization, counter-intelligence needs
to pervade everything that you do,” Brennan said. “One should never
assume that there is not a mole in your organization.” Lightning flashed
across a cloud-darkened sky as Brennan mused on the chances of an enemy
spy in his midst.
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