President Donald Trump continues to draw criticism for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" during his 9/11 commemoration speech.
“Whether you call it radical Islamic terrorism or jihadism, you've got to get at it if you're going to defeat it,” Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Policy told Breitbart this week.
Meanwhile, the House Committee on Homeland Security this week also heard testimony on local law enforcement efforts to report suspicious activity. But national security experts warn the U.S. needs to get back to old fashioned intelligence gathering to root out terrorists.
“Folks who look at counter terrorism as largely preventing the sort of monumental attacks that occurred on 9/11 sort of miss the reality that the enemy has changed strategy to focus on mulitple smaller attacks,” says Kyle Schideler, director of the threat information office at the CSP.
Schideler points to attacks in Tennessee, campus of Ohio State University and Orlando nightclub shooting. He says the president's travel moratorium was at least a good start.
“Look at 9/11, most of those individuals who took part in that were visa overstays or were otherwise in arrears as far as immigration status, so immigration enforcement does matter,” he says.
However, Schideler says even threats made by second or third generation American Muslims cannot be ignored, regardless if they were born in the U.S. or immigrated here as small children.
“These individuals in my view have a belief system for which they're willing to kill and die and they need to be taken seriously,” says Schideler.