Director of National Counterterrorism Center Nicholas Rasmussen

In this week’s episode of Intelligence Matters with Michael Morell, we hear from the Director of National Counterterrorism Center Nicholas Rasmussen who in a rare interview gives insight into the dramatic progress made against ISIS in the battlefield, why Al Qaeda is still priority to analysts, primary threats currently facing the homeland and how the terror threat has evolved. Rasmussen is the top analyst on terrorism in the United States with nearly two decades’ experience in the counterterror field. As senior NCTC and CIA officials, Rasmussen and Morell worked closely with one another, sharing counterterrorism-related intelligence information that ensured effective intra-agency coordination and ultimately led to the operation that resulted in the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The NCTC, initially known as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, was created at the recommendation of the 9/11 commission to ensure that information on potential terror threats from federal departments and agencies (such as the CIA and FBI) could be merged in a single location and appropriate responses could then be planned.