Dr. Sebastian Gorka on Combating ISIS at Heritage Foundation

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Breitbart News’ National Security editor, spoke Friday on a distinguished panel at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on “Combating ISIS and Terrorist Groups.” The expert panel was broadcasted live on C-SPAN.

Gorka told the audience that his speech would focus on the doctrine promulgated by the Islamic State, along with what the U.S. military had relayed back to him from the front lines in the battle against Islamic terrorists.

“The current threat environment is a very, very ugly one,” Gorka said. “Whether you are a Christian girl in Chibok in Nigeria, kidnapped against your will because of what you believe; whether you are a Yazidi… or someone, somewhere in Syria and Iraq, who ended up on the wrong side of ISIS and had to be crucified; or whether you were one of these poor wretches who was decapitated by ISIS through the use of detonating cord recently… this is your reality,” he explained.

Dr. Gorka said that ISIS is now “much more dangerous than Al Qaeda,” but warned not to disregard the latter group. “ISIS is a graduate-level threat. It is far more dangerous than al Qaeda for four reason,” he added.

First, ISIS is “its own self-generated, fully-fledged transnational insurgency,” he said, explaining Al Qaeda in comparison as a “parasitic terrorist organization that attached itself to indigenous insurgencies.”

“The difference between a terrorist group and an insurgency is that an insurgency holds ground in daylight,” said the Breitbart News editor, adding that ISIS “now holds territory in at least three countries.”

Secondly, Gorka explained that ISIS is now the “richest threat group of its type in human history.”

Additionally, “the recruiting capacity of ISIS is mind-boggling,” he said, adding that the group has recruited over 19,000 foreign fighters in just nine months.

Lastly, ISIS, which “has global ambitions,” has declared an Islamic Caliphate after 90 years in a world absentk unified Islamic leadership, Gorka said.

The Heritage Foundation panel discussion can be seen in its entirety by clicking this link to C-SPAN.