"If you look at the eve of 9/11, the full membership of al-Qaeda was 400 people. But today the people who adhere to bin Laden-ism, to the ideas of Osama bin Laden, are thousands upon thousands. Some estimates put them at forty to fifty thousand."

The New Yorker has described former FBI agent Ali H Soufan as the person who came closer than anyone else to preventing 9/11. Today, his time at the agency is portrayed in the Hulu series "The Looming Towers," and he's a leading expert on ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the future of terrorism in an increasingly fragmented world.

Spoiler Alert: He does not bring good news.

+ ta-ta Tillerson + Russian "election" + UK spy scandal

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French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and businessman Jared Kushner, along with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and otherEuropean leaders, pose for a group photo at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, December 15, 2025.
Kay Nietfeld/Pool via REUTERS

The European Union just pulled off something that, a year ago, seemed politically impossible: it froze $247 billion in Russian central bank assets indefinitely, stripping the Kremlin of one of its most reliable pressure points.