Our director of De-Radicaliztion & Extremism Prevention, Mujtaba Akhwand, attended an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation titled “the Next Steps for Combating Terrorist Travel,” Throughout this event Ambassador Nathan Sales, Coordinator for Counterterrorism for the U.S Department of State, shared valuable insight about ways to recognize a threat, how to reduce chances of allowing a terrorist to travel and cross borders, and how to be most effective in long-term elimination of the threat.

Mr. Akhwand emphasized on the fact that there are two types of terrorists in our era: a Salafi/Wahabi extremist who poses threat to anyone and everyone and also the self-radicalized extremist individuals who may not affiliate with ISIS, but are lone wolves. It is important to recognize patterns of how an individual becoming radicalized or extremist is, and one: keeping the individual under watch, and two: plan long term goals to reduce and finally eliminate terrorism.

De-Radicalization & Extremism Prevention go hand-in-hand, and dealing with one means there should be steps in combating the second aspect as well.