Conversations with a terrorist
Clint Watts |
TED Salon: Doha Debates
• January 2019
In 2013, blogger and counterterrorism expert Clint Watts used Twitter to interact with someone who would otherwise be difficult to talk to -- Omar Hammami, a member of the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. Drawing on his military training, Watts persuaded Hammami to share stories, jokes and details about his ideology. In the end, Watts concludes "that often, there's very little that separates the terrorists and the counter terrorists that hunt them."