During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) asked Acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Bureau of Counterterrorism Gregory LoGerfo about the balance of counterterrorism efforts.
00:00Appreciate that, Mr. Lawler. How are you doing today?
00:03Chairman, it's an honor to see you.
00:05Nice to see you as well. I want to get into the FY26 budget requests, and something specifically I want to ask.
00:13It includes $215 million for anti-terrorism assistance, $45 million for the terrorist interdiction program, the PISIS system.
00:22And I just want you to walk us through, if you can, how the Bureau is ensuring that these funds deliver the measurable security benefits to the American people that are needed.
00:32Let's just start with that.
00:34Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for your interest and for your support.
00:38These funds, we have gone through both through our annual review in the Counterterrorism Bureau to make sure that the resources that were allocated match up to strategic priorities.
00:51Through the broader assistance review that the administration had following the election, following January 20th.
00:59And then, of course, looking at the world as it is, a major focus that we have, three geographic areas.
01:07Central Asia, because of ISIS-Khorasan.
01:10The Middle East, because of Iran and its proxies.
01:12And then West Africa, because of the incidents of terrorist attacks in the Sahel.
01:19And those three areas, geographically, are the areas where we're allocating the bulk of our ATA assistance.
01:26But we also do have some other partners, such as the Philippines and elsewhere, that are facing their own threats and also happen to be in areas of strategic...
01:34Let's touch on the partners a minute.
01:35All right.
01:36So if you're looking at the NADER, the foreign partners, and how they're prioritized for the NADER programming,
01:43how do you determine which foreign partners are prioritized?
01:46Well, first of all, it comes down to whether there's a threat to the United States from terrorist groups or terrorist activity in a given area or a given country.
01:57And then we, of course, measure up with the partner.
02:00We have on a bilateral or a macro level, of course, we have to be able to work with a given government in a way that's accountable.
02:08And then we have vetting processes that, with respect to the implementer level, to make sure that what we're going to get is, again, something that will keep America safe and secure.
02:22Outcomes are obviously something that we want to be measurable and that, you know, guide the direction there.
02:27But maybe go a little bit more into, you know, the security needs, the diplomatic factors, capacity to absorb assistance.
02:35Let's go into that a little bit, if you can.
02:38Sure.
02:38I'll give an example.
02:40ISIS-Horasan is a serious threat to not just the United States, but our partners in Central Asia and across Europe.
02:51Our partnership with Pakistan has yielded results.
02:54They returned the Abbey Gate bomber.
02:57They are partnering with us to confront ISIS-Horasan.
03:01And we do have, of course, some assistance from the CT Bureau, Counterterrorism Bureau, that fits into that broader strategy.
03:10That's one example.
03:11The coastal states in the littoral states in Africa, Togo, Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, north of those countries and in the northern parts of those countries, they are facing attacks or they are facing ISIS activity that is killing civilians on a very frequent basis.
03:30We've started programs there over the past few years.
03:34These are, I would say, the total outlay of those in those three countries is probably under $20 million a year.
03:41So we get, I think we get a lot of mileage per dollar out of these programs.
03:44And we're able to ensure that ISIS and Jainim, which is an al-Qaeda affiliate, does not have the capacity to establish a safe haven in that part of the world.
03:56So let's go a little bit more into where the resources are going.
04:01So for the Bureau's process, how do you determine which continents or regions, balancing the balance between going to sub-Saharan Africa or Central Asia?
04:13How do you conduct that balance?
04:15Well, it's an interagency process.
04:17We work with the intelligence community.
04:19We work with our partners across the interagency, DOD, because they've got their own footprint in several of these countries.
04:26And we look at the cable reporting over the year from our embassies.
04:30And again, we do this in September as a general matter, but we can do it on an ad hoc basis if there's a particular event or a development.
04:37And through that process, we then, of course, all of this relates back to what the administration, the President Trump's priorities are, which is to keep America safe and secure.
04:49So we're really focused on do these groups or do these terrorist actors pose a direct threat to the homeland or a potential threat and that we have to stay on top of?
05:00And so the outcomes there, where we come out, big focus on Central Asia.
05:06We've done more with Tajikistan, a country that borders China, Russia, and Afghanistan.
05:12So we've built some border security partnerships there.
05:15That's an example in Central Asia, of course, with Iran and its proxies.
05:19And by the way, with Iran and its proxies, we had a delegation from my bureau in South America just a couple months ago because the impact or the influence of Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRGC in South America has been pretty pernicious.
05:37And I would say that one of our diplomatic results I was mentioning earlier, Paraguay designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
05:46All of this is underpinned by our diplomacy and also, I believe, our assistance on security, our counterterrorism assistance with these partners.
05:58So with CT assistance, let's talk about that.
06:00My time has expired, but I'm going to ask another question anyway.
06:05So tell me how CT leverages programmatic funding to encourage counterterrorism burden sharing and the broader foreign policy alignment.
06:16I'll give you a great example.
06:19Northeast Syria camps, displaced persons camps, of family members of ISIS fighters.
06:28Three years ago, the population was roughly 70,000.
06:32We have worked very hard.
06:35It's the counterterrorism bureau in the lead in the diplomacy of helping to repatriate, make sure that, as General Kerala said,
06:42these camps pose a serious long-term threat of violent extremism because the children in these camps, as they grow up, the risk of them being radicalized is very high.
06:56So we've taken steps to help them to be repatriated to Iraq, now within Syria, now that the Assad regime has fallen, and to Central Asia and other countries.
07:08The population of those camps is now about 30,000.
07:14We, the United States, in all of this, have outlaid about 85% of the costs of maintaining and operating those camps through an implementing partner.
07:27However, with the fall of Assad and with the new administration, we've been able to move forward with getting the United Nations to take its proper responsibility to move forward and take ownership or facilitate these camps.
07:44The costs will be much less.
07:46And I also have been engaging with our partners in France and Germany, the United Kingdom, on burden sharing.
07:51And I pointed out, we've paid 85% of the cost so far.
07:56This threat is actually proximate to you relative to us.
08:00And we've gotten some good feedback here because we make, under the President's leadership, we say, if we share risk, we have to share burden.
08:08And that's an example where I think we're making a lot of improvement.
08:11Very good.
08:12I appreciate the answer to all of my questions today.
08:15And in that, Mr. Lawler, I can't yield you back any time.
