More than 20 years after the War on Terrorism began on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. is “back in the business of counterterrorism,” a senior White House official said.
Sebastian Gorka, senior director for counterterrorism at the White House, confirmed that since the start of the Trump administration, U.S. forces have taken out 250 Islamic militants, including almost half of those considered “high value targets.”
“We are stacking them like cordwood,” Mr. Gorka said Wednesday at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank.
Soon after his inauguration, President Trump was told that U.S. intelligence had been closely observing a senior ISIS fighter operating freely in a compound in Somalia for about 18 months. Mr. Trump immediately picked up his pen and signed an executive order authorizing action against him.
“Less than 30 hours later, I was back in the situation room under the West Wing with the National Security Advisor and with members of my own team watching on dark giant screens this leading ISIS Jihadi walk around this compound and then get turned into red mist,” Mr. Gorka said.
The U.S. has created the most exquisite counterterrorism infrastructure in the world. With only a few electronic clues, a target can be quickly identified and taken out, Mr. Gorka said.
“If we have your cell phone details, we can basically kill you anywhere in the world within 72 hours,” he said.
However, more than 77 million Americans voted for a commander-in-chief who would end the “forever wars,” or as Mr. Trump called them, “the stupid wars.”
“We’re not about doing this forever,” Mr. Gorka said. “I want to put myself out of business in the next four years.”
However, he backs efforts to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and described the group as the “granddaddy” of Islamist armed groups that have attacked the U.S. and its allies, especially Israel.
“If we can designate Hamas, which in its founding charter from 1984 says, ‘We are a chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood,’ then why haven’t we designated the Brotherhood itself?” Mr. Gorka said.
The U.S. under the Trump administration is preparing to launch a series of short, high-intensity missions to make the leading terror threats to America “combat ineffective.”
However, the goal is to eventually hand over the daily work of countering terrorist groups to local governments, Mr. Gorka said.
“We don’t want to be around every part of the world whacking terrorists forever. But if we need to have a small footprint somewhere because of [al-Qaeda] or ISIS, then so be it,” he said.
A month after President Trump ordered a bombing mission that crippled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Tehran, Mr. Gorka said, though he added that the White House’s strategy in Iran is “max pressure, max pressure, max pressure.”
“We are not in the business of deploying the 82nd Airborne to do regime changes anywhere,” he said. “We would like the people of Persia, including all the minorities in Persia, to eventually liberate themselves.”
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.