Why do new terrorist groups appear one after another? We asked Bob Newman, who has significant experience executing PR campaigns on behalf of US businesses operating in the Middle East.

We asked Mr. Bob Newman his thoughts on what can be done to combat terrorist groups that seem to appear endlessly.

What is Khorasan?

The group is an off-shoot or splinter group of al-Qaeda. ISIS, on the other hand, is really just trying to become, as you know, a state within Iraq and the Levant section of Syria. This group is really focused almost 100% on external enemies; it’s focused 100% on wreaking havoc and creating terror within Europe and the United States.

What can be done to prevent groups like this from appearing again and again?

First, you can cut the head off militarily and financially, which is cutting off the finances to these groups and trying to get nations to stop supporting them with arms and with money. Number two, not allowing their countries to act as recruiting havens. We need to get that diplomacy done. And then number three, impacts on what we talked about a couple days ago, which is there are young men throughout the world, having no alternatives. You really need to provide some alternatives in terms of education, and in terms of a better life and jobs, and economic prosperity.

These groups whether it be ISIS, or whether it be the al-Qaeda affiliates here, prey on the needy.

The United States military, you know, each of the services, the army, the navy, the marines, the special forces, and such not only serve to fight in conflicts, but they do a lot of work in these countries that go unseen. They help them build up schools, and help people who are in need, and sometimes just providing protection in those countries. And I think that’s where the United States with its money and with its power and with its influence can have an impact out there. I think the United States can most discern its leadership not only militarily and not only financially but in a moral way. And I think that’s how these groups will be stifled.

The United States has really created this problem, first in Iraq and also in Syria, by leaving an enormous, enormous vacuum in both countries of power. In Iraq they left it by leaving the country and obviously putting al-Maliki in charge, and in Syria by not backing Assad or by not backing the Free Syrian Army. They left a vacuum that allowed for the neighborhood to have bullies in it.

Role of Religion in Government

We can also do a great job at promoting, as much as we can, religious tolerance on all sides.

No matter what the faults are of our democratic government here, in the end we’re very supportive of tolerance. And I do believe that even all of our religious factions in the United States have generally shown a good example of how to get along, and this is clearly not the case of the Middle East over thousands of years.

ISIS is not just a pure terrorist group. ISIS wants to create an oppressive, belligerent, violent religious government there. So I think the real careful part of the question is we need to bring religion into government to create a moral high ground but we cannot have religious government when it’s going to create oppression.