'Strategic blindness': Experts fear another 9/11 as Trump sidelines counter-terrorism vets
U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. first lady Melania Trump attend a ceremony marking the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States at the Pentagon, in Washington D.C., U.S., September 11, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstei
Bureau of Counterterrorism senior advisor Michael Duffin tells MSNBC the Trump administration fired him and many others from the Office of Countering Violent Extremism.
“I was one of more than 1,300 State Department employees fired by the Trump administration in July,” said Duffin, despite his expertise at neutralizing the recruitment appeal of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) and other terrorist groups.
While the U.S. military did its thing battling terrorism in battlefields, Duggin’s department worked behind the scenes to defuse welling terrorism outgrowths before they evolved into a threat or successfully filled the ranks of violent organizations with new recruits.
They forged successful partnerships with a Belgian municipality that had become an ISIS recruitment hub, with dozens of young people drawn to the group’s propaganda. After valuable training from U.S. officials, the mayor of that Belgian town managed to undermine and eventually shut down ISIS recruitment.
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And when Al Qaeda tried to radicalize vulnerable communities in Bangladesh, Duffin said the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development “worked together to build economic resilience and social cohesion among the refugee population,” which was desperate and vulnerable to overtures from terrorist organizations. Duffin said there is no evidence of large-scale radicalization among the population today.
According to MSNBC, Trump tossed many of these valuable counterterrorism officials in his rush for fealty among employees.
“The Trump administration forced us out because we allegedly had a ‘radical political ideology,’ in the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio,” said Duffin. “But the administration fails to acknowledge the grave risk it just placed on our country and so many of our global allies by exposing innocent people to radical ideology of an entirely different nature.”
Duffin warned that reducing Counterterrorism Bureau staffing and funding “will lead to strategic blindness at a time when this threat poses a grave threat to the homeland.”
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“The Trump administration’s oversimplified strategy of eliminating the terrorist threat through military action ignores the very essence of how terrorist ideology spreads across communities around the world and online,” Duffin warned. “We need smart, coordinated counterterrorism policy shaped by people who know the physical and digital terrain.”
“At the time my office was closed, we were supporting the rehabilitation of ISIS family members in northeast Syria and developing strategies to counter ISIS-Khorasan, which has proven capable of attacking the United States,” said Duffin. “Now, it’s unclear how — or whether — the State Department will continue these efforts despite evidence that terrorist radicalization is increasing.”
Read the full MSNBC report at this link.
