ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ambassadors from the 15 member states of the United Nations Security Council visited the September 11 memorial in New York this week, marking 25 years since the attacks as counterterrorism experts warned that the global threat has grown increasingly complex and shifted into the digital sphere.
The diplomats, who often differ sharply on major international issues, visited Ground Zero at the invitation of the US ambassador to commemorate the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Just meters from the memorial, experts and former officials gathered at a conference organized by the Soufan Center to assess the current terrorist threat facing the United States and the wider world.
Nicolas Stockhammer, a co-author of this year’s Global Terrorism Index, told Rudaw’s Namo Abdulla that while the report showed a decline in terrorist attacks worldwide last year, the figures alone did not capture the evolving nature of the threat.
"Threat landscape has in general become more complex, multidimensional, and more severe in many aspects. The virtualization of terrorism has become the most relevant aspect because terrorism has become an online digital phenomenon," Stockhammer said.
Christopher Costa, a senior counterterrorism official during the Trump administration and now executive director of the International Spy Museum in Washington, said the United States faces a more complicated security environment than it did 25 years ago.
"I don't think we're safer today. I think the threat now is multidimensional… I truly believe that future administrations will rebalance some of what's happening in the administration. It doesn't matter whether it's Republican or Democrat. I believe future administrations will rebalance priorities based on not just current events, but what happens today, tomorrow, and in the near-term future," Costa said.
The anniversary comes as Washington prepares for another shift in the security architecture it helped build in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
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