CIA chief: Social media hampers fight against 'terror' (John Brennan says new technologies help groups like ISIL...)

Social media and other technology are making it increasingly difficult to combat "extremists" who are using such modern resources to share information and conduct operations, the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has said.


John Brennan, the CIA director, said such communications only added to the difficulty of dealing with diffuse threats and attacks across the world from groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and others.

"New technologies can help groups like ISIL/ISIS coordinate operations, attract new recruits, disseminate propaganda, and inspire sympathisers across the globe to act in their name," Brennan said.

"The overall threat of terrorism is greatly amplified by today's interconnected world, where an incident in one corner of the globe can instantly spark a reaction thousands of miles away; and where a lone extremist can go online and learn how to carry out an attack without ever leaving home," Brennan said.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Brennan cited a recent spate of attacks, including shootings at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, at a cafe in Copenhagen, Denmark and a Pakistani school.
"These attacks underscore a disturbing trend that we have been monitoring for some time: The emergence of a terrorist threat that is increasingly decentralised, difficult to track, and difficult to thwart."
The security concerns over the last year underscore an increasingly volatile world with more outbreaks of instability since the fall of the Soviet Union, Brennan said.
And while agencies such as the CIA have worked to boost their capability of fighting cyber-based threats, those bent on committing "acts of terror" have used technologies to romanticise their ideology, he added.
"A lot of it is inconsistent with realities of Iraq and Syria. But this phenomenon now has generated a lot of appeal.".........Reuters...............http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/03/cia-chief-social-media-hampers-fight-terror-150314093054095.html
14/3/15
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