← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The return of ISIS: A global threat we can't ignore?
00:35:18
After the deadly New Year's Day terrorist attack in New Orleans, just how worried should we be about ISIS? That is what Richard and Yalda examine on this week's episode of The World. From the frontline to online, they discuss why the terrorist group...
Loading summary
Transcript74 lines
- [00:13]
A
Welcome to the world with me, Yalda. I'm here in London. I've just returned from a holiday in Australia.
- [00:19]
B
And with me, Richard Engel. I am currently in Lisbon right now. It's good to see you, Yalda. You're looking great. Rested after your trip? Did you have a nice time? Nice time with family?
- [00:29]
A
Yeah. Thank you so much. I did. I think the last time caught up was in Syria and then I went off to Australia for Christmas after that.
- [00:36]
B
And now it's back to work. I'm heading back to the region very soon. I'm here at home packing up, getting some stuff ready and it's, this is an ISIS trip. All things isis. It's back on the menu, it's back on the, on the cards. We're going to be talking about it. We saw that attack in New Orleans, ISIS inspired and I think it was a wake up call. This group is still out there, still poses a significant threat, but not just to carry out terrorist attacks or to inspire terrorist attacks, but to change politics around the world. So a lot to get to who is isis? How strong are they? Where are they? What kind of risk do they pose and what are the implications? A lot to get through.
- [01:17]
A
A quick reminder, you can get in touch with us. Write, send us your thoughts. We love getting them. Send them to our dedicated email, theworldsky.uk and don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:30]
B
Should we get started?
- [01:31]
A
Absolutely, let's get started.
- [01:48]
B
So before we start breaking down, because it can be very confusing, who are all these people? Where do they live? What is the relationship between the Taliban and ISIS and these new Islamists who took over in Syria? And the divisions are really important and they're not so complicated that you need Some sort of PhD in medieval studies to religious medieval studies to understand them. It would help, but you don't need it. But before we get into that, let's remind people why we're talking about this. What happened in New Orleans, why is that considered an ISIS inspired attack? Do you have the details off the top of your head?
- [02:23]
A
Yeah, I do. Because in the early hours of New Year's Day, a former army veteran known as Shamsuddin Jabbar, he drove his vehicle into an incredibly crowded street, Bourbon street, which is a very popular street. It has bars, clubs and was packed with people. He ended up killing 14 people and injuring, I believe, about 30 others. But a terrifying ordeal for people on New Year's Day day. And he has been described as a lone wolf, but believed to be 100% inspired by ISIS. There was an ISIS flag on his vehicle and he was armed.
- [03:11]
B
He set up small bombs across the city, which it didn't go off. But had they been able to go off, it's unclear what happened, why they didn't explode. This could have been even worse. He was armed, he was dramming into people and improvised explosive devices at, you know, various locations. He wanted this to make a, make a carnage and make a statement.
- [03:33]
A
As you say, it could have been carnage. I mean, already 14 dead, but it could have been much worse.
- [03:38]
B
You know, Yelda, this is a subject that people often think keeps going away. Oh, you know, there's isis and then it was destroyed and then it goes into the background, then it comes right back and it's been like that. Not just isis, but let's call it extremism, Islamist extremism. My whole entire career. It's something that I've been following for 30 plus years. When I first moved out to the Middle east when I was 22 years old, I was living in Cairo. I was living very poor, just starting out as a freelancer. And the main subject I was writing about all the time was Islamic extremism, whether it was the Muslim Brotherhood or, or the groups that later became Al Qaeda. This is in the early mid-90s, I should say, and it was before the 911 attack in the United States and it was still a major story and it continues to be a major story.
- [04:30]
A
Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of people will remember the so called Islamic State from their days of having a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and inspiring a lot of young people to travel to the region from west Western capitals across Europe, the United States and the Middle East, North Africa. But what happened on New Year's Day in New Orleans in the United States is a stark reminder not to those who are watchers of ISIS and Al Qaeda and other Jihadi groups, but for the wider community, international community, that the caliphate may not exist in landform, but they certainly exist in the cyberspace. The cyber caliphate is alive and well. We started to see a lot of these sort of, I guess, lone wolf attacks is what the Shamsuddin Jabbar New Orleans attack was described at, but 100% inspired by ISIS. They have been incredibly successful in using digital platforms to inspire, to have these weekly newsletters or newspapers that come out where they update on things like which attack has happened, where how many people were killed and in the name of what, what is frightening about all of this, about the cyber caliphate is let's talk about algorithms, because the way that algorithms operate is to ensure that you stay on these platforms. So it doesn't matter if you are looking up handbags or you're trying to understand the history of a place. Algorithms are there to keep you there, to suck you in, to keep you there for as long as possible. So if you are suddenly looking up jihadist terrorist propaganda on digital platforms, you are going to go deeper and deeper and deeper into a dark space, because the idea of these algorithms is to keep you there, suck you in, and keep you there as long as possible.
- [06:40]
B
It's a great point. I hadn't really thought about that because I don't really spend much time searching. But it is frightening how much your computer seem to know and start suggesting things to you. And once you enter into that headspace, whatever that headspace is, it tends to reinforce it. But I think it's. Help me here. We're just going to walk through this together. I think we'll do a public service to. To people who are listening if we try and make a little bit of sense of who is ISIS and who they're not and where they come from. Do you want to do. Want to do that together? You want to roll up your sleeves and try and do this?
- [07:16]
A
Okay, so let's get into it.
- [07:17]
B
Let's get into it. Let's get into it. Okay? For all of everyone's out there, who is isis? What is isis? So isis, and there was always this. Is it isil? Is it isis? It's Islamic State and Iraq. And it's not Syria. It's Sham. That's the exact name of it. So it's Islamic State in Iraq and Sham. And Sham doesn't mean Syria. It means Levant, which is the broader Syria. So Syria, Lebanon, Samaria's around it. So they consider themselves the Islamic State in. In the Levant, Iraq, Mesopotamia and Iraq. And they at one stage declared a caliphate there. They said that there is an Islamic State. We are the leaders. We control territory. And they made their leader the caliph, meaning the successor of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Right. So they were extraordinarily ambitious at their peak. They declared a territory using historic names where they said they were in charge, they named their leader, and then there was a worldwide fight against them that was under Obama, was under Trump, and was largely successful in destroying that physical space of the caliphate. And now they've broken up into several smaller groups that are united by a media propaganda arm, and they're united by message, and they're united by a loose affiliation among the leaders. And you want to. Should we talk about where they are, where they're strongest? Because you talk about them being strong online, but they do have some actual physical places where they remain strong.
- [08:49]
A
And as you say, they're a Sunni jihadist extremist organization that sort of came to life off the back of Al Qaeda.
- [08:59]
B
But then, so what's the difference between them and Al Qaeda?
- [09:02]
A
Okay, so Al Qaeda is an organization that is older. Basically, the idea of Al Qaeda, they didn't necessarily want a caliphate, but one of their major ambitions of Al Qaeda was to target Western capitals. And they were responsible for. For 9, 11, for example. But they. They didn't have the same sort of aspirations for a caliphate the way that ISIS did. And the caliphate, this empire that they had created, was to draw on 8th century Islam. They basically want to go back to the early roots of Islam, back to sort of really hardcore Sharia laws. This is ISIS that they want to implement and that they want to basically have the foundations in the form of a caliphate. And they did have this very hardcore extreme laws that they basically put in place and saw themselves as the leaders of more than a billion Muslims.
- [10:06]
B
So ISIS definitely a rival to Al Qaeda. What's interesting is Al Qaeda is a much more tightly knit group, more secretive, not open to anybody. You know, ISIS's whole message is, come on, grab a kitchen knife, make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. That was one of their propaganda articles, the actual title of it. And they say, come and join the party. We're not waiting. We're declaring a state now. They're much less patient than Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda sees a longer timeline. They want to do big attacks or traditionally wanted to do big attacks like 911 or attacks on embassy. They were much more highly educated, much more steeped in medieval philosophy. Isis, it's so simple. They. They say, you even in Al Qaeda have it wrong. It's too convoluted. You don't get it. We need to do this now. And it's really easy. And it's built for kind of the Internet generation. It's very savage. The videos that they put out are easy to understand and graphic in nature. You remember Osama bin Laden's videos. They were full of poetry and they were really hard to understand. He would be talking deeply philosophical as well. Philosophical stuff about, you know, really you need the PhD in medieval literature. ISIS stuff is easy.
- [11:25]
A
And by the way, Richard, when you speak to security officials, they had this sort of tagline of, you know, isis, just do it. Sort of copying the Nike Brand, just do it now and you'll remember some of the brutal attacks that they launched, including the beheading of American journalists. You know, I remember James Foley killed in. In Syria. I remember the Jordanian pilot who was locked in a cage and then burnt alive.
- [11:50]
B
Can never wash that image out of my head.
- [11:53]
A
And. And Al Qaeda, as you say, distanced themselves from ISIS because they believed their practices were too brutal. I mean, to think that Al Qaeda, who launched 911 and a series of other attacks across the globe, ended up saying this group is too brutal. And they do, as you say, still.
- [12:10]
B
Function, which leads perfectly to Syria. Okay, so the guys who just took over Syria, hts, Hayat Tahrir, Asham. That's what HTS stands for. Hayet. Excuse me. Hayet means the sort of organization of the agency Tahrir, which means liberation Hashem. That same word means the Levant, Iraq and Syria. So they are the group for the liberation of the Levant. Right. They just took over Syria. They are Islamists. They were Al Qaeda, and they just broke away from Al Qaeda. But they hate isis. They hate ISIS because they were. They were like Al Qaeda. They were a rival to. To isis. And then they even broke away from Al Qaeda and they're saying, no, no, we are just a moderate force in Islam. We have more radical roots. But they have been fighting against isis. They killed the last ISIS leader in the area. They've been fighting against them probably more than any other group inside Syria. One more group before we. Before people's heads explode. I don't want to call them your favorite, but the Taliban. The Taliban, a group that. Let's take it from there.
- [13:22]
A
Okay, so as you say, hts, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham in Syria now. And we've spoken at length about them in one of our previous episodes when we were both in Syria, arrival to isis. And same with the Taliban. It wasn't the Taliban who launched an attack on the airport as the U.S. forces were leaving, which ended up killing, I think, 13 or 14 servicemen and women. American servicemen and women. It was ISIS K. So ISIS K stands for ISIS in the Khorasan, which is the ancient name for that particular region in Central Asia, Afghanistan. And so they have this. They've. It's an offshoot of isis. And it is, frankly, the offshoot that the Americans, Western intelligence agencies are most concerned about. They have a foothold in Afghanistan. And from there, it's not just that they operate from Afghanistan. I mean, the Tajiks, the Uzbeks, the Chechens are all part of isis. K. And they are launching large scale attacks on theaters in Moscow, for example, where over 135 people were killed brutally. They have launched attacks in Iran at the anniversary of the revered Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.
- [14:50]
B
The attack on Qasem Soleimani's funeral, hugely embarrassing for the Taliban. The Taliban had just been telling the Iranians, we've got this settled. We're going to stop this terrorist problem. And then, boom, they attack. During the funeral of Qasem Soleimani, during the memorial for Qasem Soleimani on the anniversary of his death. An enormous embarrassment.
- [15:12]
A
So, Richard, I want to tell you about this incident I had in southern Afghanistan. The Taliban had taken over. I was traveling back to the country. I'd made a number of trips, trips. And I went to Helmont, and of course, Helmond is somewhere that allied forces, British forces, Americans, hundreds of them had died there. And there I was, embedded with the Taliban. Now the rulers of the country, the terrorists had now formed a de facto government. And I was on this highway known to the Taliban as the highway of hell. I was with a Taliban bomb maker. And he said to me that this is the highway where we put these improvised explosive devices, these homemade bombs on the sides of streets and let them explode and detonate and kill all of these soldiers who were operating in the.
- [16:05]
B
Area, but the NATO American soldiers, American.
- [16:09]
A
Soldiers, British soldiers, NATO British American soldiers, NATO soldiers. And the reason he was taking me out to where we were going is because they had found an ISIS sleeper cell and they had conducted a raid and an operation. And they had basically I said, how, how have you, how have you sort of foiled this operation? Where have you gathered the intelligence and how have you targeted these ISIS fighters? And he said, oh, easy. I mean, we have human intelligence on the ground who had informed us that they were operating out of this kind of mud hut in the middle of this village, and it was deep inside a residential area. And what they had done is the Taliban actually have a suicide bombers squad. And so they had used their suicide bombers to go in and target the ISIS suicide bombers. And that just sort of gives you a sense of the former terrorists knowing how the current terrorists are operating and virtually beating them at their own game.
- [17:14]
B
That must have been a strange experience. So they're gonna. They're there at the dorm just picturing you, and it's like, okay, now we're gonna. We're not gonna use our drones or our attack dogs or whatever. We're gonna send in our own suicide bombers to fight against isis. And, and you were like, what? Of course you would. Because that's the way you guys fight, right?
- [17:29]
A
Exactly. And sort of the mind boggles, right, that they have a whole battalion of.
- [17:34]
B
And did it work? Did they send in their suicide bombers and kill this, this show?
- [17:39]
A
They took them out.
- [17:41]
B
I guess it's one way of doing it.
- [17:42]
A
So we've been talking a lot about ISIS and the regions that operates these far flung places where they have bases and they launch these attacks. But what is going to be the impact on capitals right across the Western world? We'll be discussing that after the break.
- [18:19]
B
Welcome back. How worried should people in the west be about isis? Do they have the capacity or are these just a few lone wolves who are trying to make a lot of noise and do they have the capacity to.
- [18:32]
A
Now there's three sort of things that Western officials are now concerned about. International terrorism, domestic terrorism and state sponsor of terrorism. And when we talk about state sponsors of terrorism, we're talking about countries like Iran for example. So these are the sorts of things that Western officials are extremely worried about right now. I mean, the former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morel wrote a piece about six months ago or so and has talked very publicly about the fact that the environment that we are currently in is as concerning an environment in terms of terrorism and international terrorism, domestic terrorism as it was back in the late 90s, just before 911 when the CIA Director George Tennant kept ringing the alarm bells that there is going to be a major attack on the homeland, on the United States. And of course one of the things that the, the American intelligence agencies have remained so worried about is the fact that they didn't see 911 coming, even.
- [19:38]
B
Though they should have. And they put out a 911 Commission report this thick which basically explained how they possibly missed it. Even though these, these, these, these terrorists were taking flying lessons, telling their pilot, telling their flight instructors, oh, we don't need to know how to land, we just want to know how to fly the plane. Like there were a lot of red flags that were missed. If you, if everyone ever has the patience, they're all outlined in there. But the fact that they're, they're saying again, those lights are flashing red again right now. It's something to pay attention to and that's why I wanted to spend so much time and I'm really happy we're doing this and I hope people are, are learning something, appreciating. Going to go read more about it because these, the differences matter when there's some sort of attack. It's easy to be upset and disgusted. And then it's also easy for people, Trump far right leaders, regular people, citizens, whomever, journalists or analysts, to just sort of label it all as Islamists. And these are all just bad guys over there someplace in the Middle East. The distinctions matter. The interwoven nature is important. So if there's, is there another terrorist attack under Trump, and it's a major event, you don't want necessarily the reaction of people getting misunderstood or weapons of mass destruction all mixed up into it, you want to know as much as possible about the specifics because the devil is in the details.
- [21:02]
A
Absolutely. And I think one of the things that sort of I noticed and thought was really quite interesting was that American security officials, intelligence officials, have spoken about the US Southern border being an area of concern because they're, they believe that ISIS sleeper cells are operating in the area and they've been able to foil a number of terrorist activity and people who have tried to enter the United States via that border. So this issue hasn't gone away. The one thing that ISIS did that was so strategic and so different to Al Qaeda and why they remain such a threatening, powerful force today is they took their battle online. You don't have to come here. You launch your attacks where you are. This has been incredibly, it's been brilliant, actually. Material for leaders who have been able to draw on populations, their electorate, to say, I am the law and order president, for example. I'm going to make sure that we keep our borders safe, we keep America safe, we keep our country safe from terrorist organizations, from violent immigrants, for example, who might come to this country and launch all sorts of attacks or sort of abuse our country. So we're going to keep our borders safe from any of this kind of activity. Meanwhile, things like October 7th attack that Hamas launched on Israel, 45,000 dead Palestinians. This is all material for groups like ISIS. And they have been able to use it, exploit it, use the material to be able to recruit people who they don't necessarily need to have contact with. This is why this whole notion of lone wolf attacks is so interesting. They don't need to have direct contact. People just go out and are able to launch these sorts of attacks like the one that we saw in New Orleans on News Day.
- [23:03]
B
And you can easily get in the border issue because there was just eight, according to U.S. justice Department, ISIS operatives who were planning to carry out attacks from Central Asia who came in through the southern border. So the border, immigration is part of it. Right after the New Orleans attack, the first thing that Trump said was, this is an immigration problem. We're getting these problems from the outside. Even though it turned out he was a local guy from Texas who was just very annoyed and had been radicalized quite quickly. But it was painted as an immigration issue. Same thing is happening all across Europe, the UK and, and France and Italy. So this is, this is happening. The ground is already set for where a lot of people are angry against, angry with immigration, don't think immigration is working and don't feel that they can talk about it. So on the Muslim side, they feel that they're being persecuted because they're Muslims. And every time there's an attack, they're labeled terrorists. And on the, on the other side, among the populations who are electing leaders like Trump, there's a feeling that they've been oppressed, that they can't say what is actually happening for fear that they'll be labeled as far right or extremists or racist. And they're angry about that. And I think you're experiencing some of that in the uk There were riots recently in the uk. Remember when that guy went into a school and stabbed to death a bunch of girls who were having some sort of, of dance lessons. Little, little girls who were doing absolutely nothing wrong. And when people came out and said, this is a terrorist attack, don't blame this on sort of mental health problems, and don't say that it wasn't what it was. People came out into the streets and burned things down, and they got annoyed when the government started to say, no, you people are hillbillies and rednecks and terrorists and extremists from the far right. And you are the ones who need to be locked up for what you're saying and feeling. So that tension is there. And ISIS knows it, loves it and is happy to drop some sparks right on top of this sort of gasoline that's spread on, spread on the ground. So is this really how we're welcoming in the new year? So we talk a lot about great power conflicts, right on this. We talk about Russia and China and sort of Middle Eastern shifts in the great sort of billiard game of geopolitics. And you hit one ball, it hits the other, hits the other. But don't forget about these guys. They don't care. They don't. They have no, you know, compunction about, about pushing the envelope. They will do it. If they have weapons, they will use them. If they have operatives or can get operatives moving, they will do it. They don't care about the costs. So because we were just talking at the beginning, it's never, it just keeps coming back right now, if it comes back again, it'll have a big impact. We're all going to be in real trouble. So people need to know, study this space. Stay with us here. Stay with us. It's, it's, it's not gone away.
- [26:10]
A
And you know, General David Petraeus, we both know former, you know, top commander in of Afghanistan, also in Iraq, and the former director of the CIA often says what happens in the Middle east doesn't stay in the Middle east, it becomes a wider global problem. And he was referring to terrorism when he said it. So I want to get your prediction, though, and I want to ask you whether you think that we could see given sort of the situation in Syria at the moment and you're heading back to the region. We were both there when the Assad.
- [26:50]
B
Regime fell and thank you for being so cryptic about it. I'm heading back to the region. There's a reason of it. I know where I'm going. It's not that I'm just going back to the region.
- [26:58]
A
Well, you know, as journalists, we'd rather.
- [27:00]
B
Not necessarily say moment until I'm actually there.
- [27:03]
A
Richard, do you think that we're going to I don't think there's a question of whether ISIS has re emerged or, you know, that. But I wonder, do you think we're going to see a reemergence of the caliphate as we knew it back in, you know, 2014 through to 2017 before it was destroyed?
- [27:24]
B
I'm not sure about that because the caliphate was a liability. So once they announced the caliphate, I'm sure they'd love to do it again. But once they announced the caliphate, everyone's guns were trained on them immediately and that could be dangerous. So if they're rising up and they're having some success now, I'm not sure they would necessarily want to change gears so radically and come out of the shadows and say, hey, here we are and paint a bunch of targets on their back like happened last time. The, the ISIS K leader we talked about earlier. Isis, Khorostan, the, the sort of one in Afghanistan. Shahab Al Muhajer is his is his name or his nom de guerre. He's smart, he's young, he's urban, he's from Kabul. He's not he's part of that, let's call it Taliban more mentality. You know, he's or it's called he's part of the urban elite. He's switched on, believes the ISIS stuff. He's brutal, he's savage. He does all the ISIS things as well. But he's not some guy, you know, with a piece of straw on his teeth sitting on a rock in a field in the, in southern Afghanistan. He's from a Internet age. He has big global plans and he's. Leaders matter and he's, he's somebody who's, who's ambitious. So I don't know if he would necessarily want to come out and say I am the new caliph, because he could have done that already and bring a lot of heat onto his head. I think right now, more attacks find their space, find weaknesses in the people who are attacking them. The Taliban is struggling to fight them because it's a little too close the home. So they're getting a lot of defection, so they're looking at a home. So all of this is to say, I would be surprised if they came out right now and planted a flag and started walking on the streets the way ISIS did in the caliphate days and having courts and tribunal and open sessions. I think they would, they would get droned out of the sky.
- [29:19]
A
So then, okay, that's, that's good to know that, that, that is your view. And we'll have to see how all of this sort of unfolds in the region. But what is your prediction for this week?
- [29:29]
B
Well, I still think we are right now. You know, it's, it's early January. We're, we're just a couple of weeks out from the Trump inauguration. So I think everything is focused on that. I think the Canadians just dumped Trudeau because he was a liability. Trump, he had already been kind of failing in the polls and, and flagging, and now the Canadians are going to keep him, someone who Trump hates and his was thought as kind of a Trump antagonist. They're going to keep him potentially bringing enormous tariffs upon, to, upon the Canadians for no reason when he's unpopular anyway. So they jettisoned him. They just got rid of them all, threw him off board, jettisoned him off the, the ship of state. And I think we're going to see more and more adjustments like that going forward. I wouldn't, I would watch Mexican politics. You know, obviously the countries that are most concerned right now are Mexico and Canada because they're right there. But everyone is going to be impacted by the, the arrival of Trump and his, his circle.
- [30:30]
A
Yeah. And, and as you say, we're a couple of weeks away from inauguration. I'll be in the United States and we'll do a, a special podcast episode, episode around that when it happens. And as you say, I mean the things that I.
- [30:42]
B
So what are your predictions?
- [30:42]
A
Well, I'm going to be watching really closely when Trump does come into power, what are some of the first things he will do? And I guess for me, given if I'm to stay on topic on what we've been talking about, Donald Trump has tried to shut shop in Syria twice. He was accused of betraying the Kurds who fought side by side with the Americans in the fight against the, the so called Islamic state back in 2017. And then Donald Trump sort of said, well, we're going to shut our bases and leave the Kurds to be. And so and of course the Kurds are currently actively protecting these prisons where thousands of ISIS fighters and their families are held. So I'm going to wait and see whether Donald Trump tries it again, tries to get out of Syria, close the bases. There's about 2,000 U.S. personnel there at the moment doing crucial work and monitoring this battle against groups like isis, for example. So the bases are crucial for those reasons as well as multitude of other reasons. And the other thing, Richard, that I'm going to be watching really closely is whether the England and Wales Cricket Board boycott a cricket match against Afghanistan which is going to take place next month. And the reason why politicians in this country, Afghans across the world are encouraging the cricket board to do this, to boycott the match is because they're concerned about the Taliban's treatment in particular of women and the fact that they won't allow female cricketers to play. They banned women from playing or taking part in any sports. And the cricket team.
- [32:34]
B
You talked about this on your show.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah, Exile.
- [32:36]
B
When I was in Syria, that was the segment you were talking about, about this cricket and can it be done. And I remember we were discussing this.
- [32:45]
A
The female cricket team is in my former home country, Australia. And so I'm really curious to see whether they are boycotted and they take a stand or whether do you think they should be.
- [32:57]
B
I mean, I'm asking you this as someone who's so deeply involved in this.
- [33:01]
A
Sort of many would say the Afghan cricket team is a sense of gives hope because they, they are performing so well. And so why punish the 40 million Afghans in the country and why punish the cricket team? They've got nothing to do with the actual Taliban. But I do think it's important that the Taliban, they do take pride in the cricket team. And so there is Sort of a stance by the international community to say you take pride in this team. You see it as your national team now, a team that was encouraged by the international community when they were backing the former government.
- [33:36]
B
But you got to let the women have some rights.
- [33:38]
A
You've got to have. Let women have some rights.
- [33:41]
B
Okay, well, fascinating to. To catch up. It's going to be a busy year. It's going to be a busy year. I hope you enjoyed your holiday. I enjoyed mine. I hope people out there had a good. A good rest if they got that rest. And I hope you did, because it's.
- [33:57]
A
Going to be a hell of a ride.
- [33:58]
B
It's going to be hell of a ride. And we haven't even gotten to the 20th yet, so welcome back.
- [34:05]
A
Thank you. And same to you. And I look forward to chatting soon.
- [34:09]
B
And by the way, can I make a personal plug here? You were talking about the Kurds and how Trump wanted to pull back support for them even though they'd been fighting against isis and some considered it a betrayal. Maybe I'll put it. Send a link someplace. I did a documentary exactly on this subject, and it was called American Betrayal. And if people want to know more about that particular time, I could send out a link for that.
- [34:35]
A
Oh, well. Well, if you're going to do that.
- [34:37]
B
I'm doing the plug.
- [34:38]
A
You know what? I'm going to do a plug as well. I actually did a film on the same issue just a few weeks after Trump withdrew from Syria. And I focused. I profiled a woman called Hevrin Khalaf. She was an mp. She was killed after Trump withdrew.
- [34:54]
B
So we both have documentaries on the subject. Why don't we put them out so people can watch the boat?
- [34:58]
A
Absolutely.
- [34:58]
B
That would be fun.
- [34:59]
A
Let's do that.
- [34:59]
B
Okay, great. Until we meet again, Richard.
- [35:02]
A
Really good to see you.
- [35:04]
B
All right, bye.