9/11: Two former members of investigative commission warn of future terrorist attacks

They say 'violent extremists are regrouping and will strike again'

Two authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, issued 28 June 2005, warn of the risk of another terrorist attack on the US (Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)

Experts who had served on the September 11 Commission have warned “we must act now or suffer later” from another terror attack on US soil.

On the 17th anniversary of the day 2,996 people died and another 6,000 were injured, the former leaders of the commission penned an opinion piece entitled “We cannot wait for terrorists to strike again...Time is not our friend""

The commission was set up in the wake of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and the downed Flight 93, to investigate the deadliest attack on the US homeland. It had been dissolved in 2004 at the conclusion of its comprehensive report.

The USA Today piece was written by former Chairman and New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, and Vice Chairman and former US Congressman Lee Hamilton.

The pair cautioned government and intelligence officials about the growing risk of Islamist terrorism and the need to take preventative measures.

“To stop the next Sept 11. attack, the United States needs new strategy to mitigate the conditions that enable extremist groups to take root, spread and thrive,” they wrote.

When they had served on the Commission, they had suggested three main goals for the US to achieve to reduce the threat of another attack: “Attack terrorists and their organisations, protect against and prepare for attacks, and prevent the continued growth of Islamist terrorism."

Mr Kean and Mr Hamilton said the country has made progress on the first two but “little headway” on the third.

“Until we do, the scourge of terrorism will continue to plague us,” they wrote.

The pair lament the fact that the September 11 attacks and, according to data from the University of Maryland, the 10,000 attacks since then “have drawn us into an expanding fight against terrorism, at a cost $5.6 trillion since 9/11, with no end in sight”.

The US is still fighting the war in Afghanistan 17 years later and the pair said it was time for country to adopt a “preventative strategy” to help the countries the US provides security forces to fight terrorism themselves.

“We must help strengthen these countries so that we are not still fighting this threat in another 17 years,” they wrote.

In a thinly veiled critique of the US strategy in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they wrote “nation-building” was doing nothing in terms of terrorism prevention.

“We should catalyse investments in their efforts to alleviate injustice, promote political inclusion, weaken the appeal of extremist ideology, and contain the spread of extremist groups,” they wrote.

Though it may be “tempting” to think the US is winning against terror groups like Isis and attacks have been decreasing steadily over the past few years, the pair wrote it was no reason to rest.

They said to do so “would be a grave mistake. Violent extremists are regrouping and will strike again”.