“My own take is that the Saudis were really caught off guard with the reaction from the international community,” says Colin Clarke, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy. “They’ve done so many things before that would likely be considered more severe.”
Read MoreAli Soufan Quoted by The Daily Beast: Counterterrorism Pros Warn That Trump’s Rhetoric Will Yield Violence
No one yet knows who sent improvised bombs to current and former Democratic Party leaders, CNN, George Soros, and now Robert De Niro. But counterterrorism professionals are warning—tentatively—that the incendiary rhetoric from President Trump is conducive to political violence.
Read MoreAli Soufan Quoted by NBC News: Trump May Have Lost his Risky Bet on Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Other former officials said the demotion of Mohammed bin Nayef was an ominous sign. “Letting Mohammed bin Salman push out Mohammed bin Nayef is the original sin of this relationship,” said Ali Soufan, a former FBI official who has written extensively about counterterrorism in the Middle East
Read MoreAli Soufan Interviewed by Der Spiegel: Former FBI Agent on Saudi Crown Prince’He Wanted to Send a Message’
Why would someone want Saudi Arabian Jamal Khashoggi dead? The former FBI agent Ali Soufan says that the journalist posed a threat to the House of Saud
Read MoreJeffrey Ringel Quoted by Wired: The Collateral Damage of Trump’s Extreme Declassifications
“I do not recall anything like this happening in the past,” says Jeffrey Ringel, director at the intelligence consultancy The Soufan Group, who spent 21 years as a national security specialist at the FBI
Read MoreAli Soufan Interviewed by The Guardian: Former FBI Agent Ali Soufan: ‘ISIS is not Over – it Will Take a Different Shape’
Some American teenagers dream of a glamorous career in the FBI, a chance to shoot guns and catch criminals, but the idea had not occurred to Ali Soufan. At least, not until The X Files. “Mulder and Scully were going round the world looking for aliens,”
Read MoreJeffrey Ringel Quoted by CNN: US Has 1,000 Open ISIS Investigations but a Steep Drop in Prosecutions
Despite its losses on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State remains a grave national security threat, according to the Trump administration and terrorism experts.
Read MoreAli Soufan Featured on AFP: From Lebanon to American Dream, Via the FBI and 9/11
To television viewers, he is the FBI agent who hunts down Al-Qaeda. But in real-life, Ali Soufan is just as extraordinary, a Muslim immigrant who fled war to live the American dream.
Read MoreMartin Reardon Cited by Al Jazeera: Why Did the Houthis Attack Riyadh?
missiles into Saudi Arabia was ostensibly a response to its northern neighbour’s three years of air attacks, the armed group told Al Jazeera.
Read MoreAli Soufan Cited by CNN: America Will Have to Confront its Past on Torture
When the next pick to head the CIA comes before the Senate and the nation for her confirmation hearings, it will not just be Gina Haspel…
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