Shawn Ryan Show
#184 Growing Threat - Christian Persecution in Syria, Homeland Attacks and How to Prepare
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
Shawn Ryan Show welcomes back Sarah Adams, Scott Mann and Legend to the show. This episode explores the growing influence of terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Syria, with guests detailing how al-Qaeda and the Taliban have facilitated the training and mobilization of fighters. They highlight U.S. policy missteps, including funding through NGOs and intelligence-sharing with questionable actors, which have inadvertently strengthened extremist groups. The discussion warns that the U.S. withdrawal from Syria could lead to the resurgence of ISIS and the ethnic cleansing of religious minorities. The panel critiques U.S. foreign policy, particularly the decision to engage with the Taliban while sidelining the Afghan resistance. They warn of al-Qaeda’s ongoing plans for attacks on U.S. soil and the infiltration of Taliban operatives through flawed vetting processes. The conversation underscores the lack of a long-term counterterrorism strategy, raising concerns that current missteps may lead to another major terrorist attack. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://amac.us/srs https://bubsnaturals.com/shawn https://americanfinancing.net/srs | 866-781-8900 NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781 8900 for details about credit costs and terms. https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://helixsleep.com/srs https://preparewithshawn.com https://rocketmoney.com/srs https://shopify.com/srs https://hexclad.com/srs #hexcladpartner This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. Guest Links: Sarah Adams https://x.com/tpasarah https://bit.ly/m/benghazi Scott Mann https://x.com/rooftopleader The Gathering Storm https://tfpineapple.org/tgs-book https://rooftopleadership.com Legend https://x.com/reallegendafg https://www.vets4nrf.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the current threats to Christians in Syria?
Sure. I'm going to have to go back in time just a little bit. So if we go back to November 2021, that is the time basically the planning started for the Syrian blitzkrieg. How it all came together, actually, is one of our Benghazi plotters, the one I talk about all the time, Musa bin Ali, him and Abu Muhammad al-Jalani, the current president of Syria, were running a lot of...
terror line facilitation networks in the Syria. They've been doing this for well over a decade. They run a really big terrorist camp in Libya, south of Misrata. And so they got together and basically decided, let's, you know, pull in al Qaeda and the Taliban, you know, let's do in Syria what happened in Afghanistan, right?
Chapter 2: How are terrorist networks evolving in Afghanistan and Syria?
So it was November of 2021 when Abu Jilani came to Afghanistan and he sat down with Musa Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is the Minister of Interior of Afghanistan, and Mullah Yacoub, who is the Minister of Defense of Afghanistan, right? And they came up with this plot and planning to do the Syrian blitzkrieg. So as you can imagine, Julani didn't have enough fighters to take all of Syria by himself.
So the plan they came up with is the Taliban said, okay, we'll give you training camps in Nangarhar province, right? You can come here and safely train because at the time, Julani's camps were outside of Al-Tanf military base in Syria and they were being bombed. and they couldn't safely train there. So they moved a lot of their training to Afghanistan, but it wasn't enough.
So Al-Qaeda, and specifically Hamza bin Laden, said, hey, we'll train a certain number of fighters for you. What do you need? And Joulani said, I need 10,000 fighters. So for those couple years, Al-Qaeda then trained an additional 10,000 fighters inside of Afghanistan on top of what Joulani was sending, okay? So then they all go to Syria, and as we saw two years later...
Three years later, November 2024, the Syrian Blitzkrieg happened and Joulani took over. Now, when Joulani took over, oddly, the press and the American diplomats and we saw the EU and the UN all leaned in and they're like, oh, this is bringing democracy to Syria. Oh, he's going to have an inclusive government. Same language we heard in Afghanistan.
Well, the intention is to make Syria just like Afghanistan, to make it an Islamic caliphate. So... Jalani plans to ethnically cleanse the Christians, the Alawites, the Kurds, etc., because that is the plan to bring in the Islamic Caliphate, just like the Taliban has been ethnically cleansing, you know, obviously people from Panjshir, etc.
The Hazaras in Afghanistan, it's the exact same playbook, the exact same model, and a lot of the exact same people. So if we're not honest about the roots of how Jalani took Syria, then we're not going to be able to understand what's going on. But to understand what's going on makes perfect sense.
How many Christians have been executed?
I don't really know the number of Christians because they've also hit these Alawite neighborhoods. What is that?
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Chapter 3: What role does U.S. foreign policy play in strengthening extremist groups?
What's an Alawite neighborhood?
It was just another minority in the country. We mostly know the Kurds because we fought with the Kurds and they're going to move on, obviously, and do the Kurds. So the reporting come under Syria, as you can imagine, is very limited, right? Because the government like... Afghanistan is now run by terrorists, right? So we're maybe seeing 10% of the numbers.
So we're hearing like in the thousands, but we just honestly don't know the number. And even all the years there was a Syrian civil war, it was so hard to get the numbers of people being killed. Like during the Syrian civil war, when Assad was basically killing his own people, he's also a bad guy, right? You don't want Assad in the country. You don't want Jalani in the country. What the
500,000 Syrians died, right? Like, we ignored all this. Our press didn't put it out, and now they act like they're caring about something when these atrocities have been going on for a long time in Syria. Now it's just a terrorist doing them, right? A terrorist, though, that U.S. government now has an official relationship with, they share intelligence with him, and the U.S.
Department of Defense has, for the last month, been taking out Joulani's rivals. So we've been consolidating power power for this terrorist who's now ethnically cleansing in this country.
Wow. How were they, how, just go over the caliphate again. Sure. So a lot of the listeners don't understand what that is. So can you just give us a definition of that?
Yeah, sure. And I mean, I bet legend could do a much better job of explaining like the history. But over time, there's basically five Islamic caliphates. The last one, I believe, ended like the 1940s, right when the Ottoman Empire fell. So the terrorists want to recreate and reinvent the caliphate.
The person actually leading this is Hamza bin Laden because his father said, I don't care if it takes 100 years, right? We're going to reestablish the caliphate. Well, Hamza's like, I'm going to do it in my lifetime to honor my father. So he's been, as you can imagine, connecting with a lot of the groups, Sunni, Shia. It doesn't matter.
And saying, we got to do this as a team and we have to work together. So basically, the first country in the caliphate is Iran, even though that was came in a long time ago. So they view that as already in the caliphate. So now in this present generation, Afghanistan's one, Syria's two, and then their next move looks like, I thought it was going to be Mali, but now it looks like Somalia first.
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Chapter 4: How does the U.S. withdrawal impact the resurgence of ISIS?
But of course, it's going to end up being some sort of larger war because the Kurds are not going to obviously give their weapons over to terrorists.
What do you think about, I mean, from my understanding, we're leaving Syria, correct? So I got a really good friend, he's Green Beret, just served over there. Sounds like it's going to be one of the last deployments over there. And the Kurds are really, I mean, they're obviously very worried about what happens to them when we pull out. Should we be? What's your opinion?
Should we be pulling out of there? Should we stay there?
Well, I at least know when they planned the Syrian blitzkrieg, there's basically two key parts of it, right? So they planned it because the U.S. is about to pull out. It was even going to try to push them out faster, right? But also, a part of the planning... So there are these camps in Syria, right? It's mostly known where the ISIS women and children are, but there's some fighters in them, too.
I think, gosh, there's like over 40,000 ISIS members in these camps. Some are children, though. You know what I mean? And so that's one of the big pieces of this push. So when the U.S. leaves, we're going to hand those camps over to Giuliani and his exclusive government.
And he's already made a promise, this was part of the whole deal, that they're going to release the women and children in those camps so that the Real deal here is when we leave, basically, it helps to reestablish ISIS, the next generation of ISIS.
I mean, even Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have offered to take 10,000 of those women and children, bring them to Afghanistan, give them sustenance, make sure the women can get remarried into jihadi families, and build that next generation of terrorists, too. So this is going to be a huge win for ISIS when we leave Syria. But I do think we're going to leave Syria.
I mean, it's not my choice if we leave or stay, but I'm just saying basically the tumbling effect of that's going to be a major resurgence of ISIS.
We spent 20 years at war. This is for everybody. We spent 20 years at war. The terrorism just seems to be the snowball effect that gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Then U.S. goes to war. It shrinks, it shrinks, it shrinks. As soon as we leave, I mean, it seems like it's growing. It seems like every time we leave, it gets bigger faster. Do you have something?
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Chapter 5: Who are the key players in the anti-Taliban resistance?
policies i mean you go over there now you go to paris you know the the kind of the the tourism district seems fine you leave and it's these islamist extremist neighborhoods and same things going on in london same things going on in belgium uh when me and you were at the inauguration we spoke with the the oncoming Ambassador to Belgium, he was talking to us about this. I'm hoping to interview him.
Germany, it's happening there. And I saw my friend Joe Lonsdale put out a tweet not too long ago, and he was kind of... How do I say this? He was kind of he was just broaching the idea. Hey, what happens when Europe gets completely flipped from Christian nations who are run by Christians to Islamist extremists? And what what does that look like? Not just for Europe, but for the entire world?
I mean, there there goes everything. There goes our allies, you know? And so, I mean, what do you think about that legend?
Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me. You're welcome. It's an honor to be here on your show again with Lieutenant Colonel Mann and Miss Adams. I brought you a gift.
it's a paco from afghanistan oh thank you thank you you're welcome well i have since we're on gifts i have gifts for you guys too it's probably the only reason you keep coming back well now that i saw that palmer ate him during the episode i'm like good i'm just gonna start eating him now i'm not even bringing him home we can eat him during the episode yeah absolutely this could be like a pre-brief
These come in ranch flavor. They will work on that. I know you love ranch. We should do that. We'll work on that. I'm still addicted to ranch. And one other gift, legend. You familiar with the unplugged phone? I am, yes. Perfect. I gave Sarah one. I've given Scott one. And so that was developed by Eric Prince. I met with their team, lots of veterans, tech people, entrepreneurs.
And basically what that is, it's a way to get around big tech companies. spying on us, basically, stealing our data. And they've put a lot of... It's just a great phone. There's a lot of developments that they put into that phone. There's a kill switch so nobody can listen to you. It actually separates the battery from the actual device so nobody can listen in.
Instagram, X, Google, none of those can suck your advertising data out of that phone. And so it's just a... Everybody's worried about big tech censorship, and so I thought you should have one too.
This is a great gift. Thank you. And I thank Eric Prince as well. I recently met him somewhere in the East Coast. He's a very smart man.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of U.S. intelligence relying on the Taliban?
Levels of horror that were just unimaginable. Like all the videos we saw, burning them alive, putting them in cages, drowning them, putting kids in cages, dropping them in the river, that kind of stuff.
And they take the women as slaves, as sex slaves. So this is something that President Trump can, this is unfortunately the Jolani's reward. His status as terrorist was removed by Mr. Joe Biden, the last administration during, that's one of the final things they did. And so now we have a new administration. I wish President Trump reimposes those, relists him as a terrorist, which he is.
And so once a jihadi, you're always a jihadi. You don't change overnight. That man is killing Christians. He is killing other religious minorities. And my fear is that this is going to worsen. It's going to increase, especially now that he has Taliban members with them and he's getting support from the leadership of the Taliban.
What about Europe? What about Europe? The immigration? The immigration.
Look, Sean.
What happens if it switches?
Brother, let me tell you this. I was telling this earlier. If we look at this as, hey, all Muslims are terrorists, you have 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. If they were terrorists, you would see it. You would see the problem. That's not the case. These individuals, they, and I'm not saying at the same time that there is not a terrorism problem in Islam. There is.
And it's unfortunately true and it's happening in Muslim countries are not taking the lead, taking action against it. Why is it that America should be the one to go and fix all of this stuff? Why isn't Saudi Arabia taking action? Or Qatar? Or UAE? I'll go back to the European stuff. The immigration. Europe has an open border policy. They allow everyone and anyone in. They don't vet.
And then all of a sudden you see stabbings. I recently saw that some, unfortunately, an Afghan immigrant stabbed, I think, a four-year-old child and his parent. And then when the cops arrested him, he was just laughing.
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Chapter 7: How is funding being funneled to the Taliban through NGOs?
And the U.S. government allows it. They allow these people to enter the country. And in the case of 9-11, like I said, they even gave them visas. Now look, I am an American Muslim. I've been warning the US government, the resistance that is fighting the terrorists on the ground for the past four years, they have been warning that these terrorists will attack you again. They're in your communities.
The US government ignores me. The US government ignores Colonel Mann, Sarah Adams, the resistance, everyone. And then sadly, God forbid, the next terrorist attack will occur. as it did on 9-11. Then what happens? It's the same politicians in D.C. that ignore us now that will turn around and say, all Muslims are terrorists. This is something we need to take care of right away.
I just, I don't understand. I mean, there's a lot I don't understand, but why? Is this just... That's why I'm asking, do they want us to get attacked so that we can go...
And do another war. I just don't see that level of coherence at our federal government level. And this is this is not administration specific. I just just based on, for example, Sean, what happened with the withdrawal in Afghanistan, you know, that was. I think the National Security Council put out its evacuation memo on 14 August. Right.
And, you know, I have it on good authority that that thing was one hell of an afterthought. Like they were scrambling to get that. And this was just this was like who was to prioritize for evacuation. Kabul fell on the 15th. This thing came out on the 14th. So there's nothing at least that I've seen that tells me that there's like a coherent approach to this of keeping it going.
I think from my perspective, it's more of a, just an inability to really, it's hubris. I mean, it's arrogance at an institutional level to think that we really comprehend and appreciate just the persistence, will and capacity of this threat. You know, I mean, even if you just look at like, Where we are today is so reminiscent of pre-9-11.
You know, I went in, I think I was telling you guys yesterday when we did the briefing, you know, I went into a, I'll just say it, I mean, a Carolina Duke game at Chapel Hill this past weekend. you know, to see a storied basketball rivalry, right? 21,000 seat capacity in the Dean Smith Center, not one metal detector in main primary entry points. The only search that happened was if you had a bag.
Like if you declared a bag. So there were no metal detectors of a twenty one thousand seat venue. And I mean, anyone I would hope watching or hearing this like sits up at that because that's new, you know, and I and I got to believe that's not isolated to Chapel Hill. And and that is what I worry about more than anything else, is that humans are just ridiculously shrewd.
short memory, you know, and we tend to forget and dismiss. And then we tell ourselves narratives that this isn't going to happen. You tell ourselves that the ocean is going to protect us and we just need to focus on things that are at home. But the reality is this one has followed us home.
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