Michael Morell (on left) says al Qaida is a greater threat than ISIS. (Tanni Deb/MEDILL NSJI)

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State group has attracted foreign recruits for its war in Iraq and Syria because the extremist network has what it sees as a compelling story to share with them, according to the CIA’s former deputy director.

“Their narrative is that the West, the United States, the modern world is a significant threat to their religion [and] that they have an answer to that threat to their religion, which is the establishment of this caliphate,” said Michael Morell, who held the post from 2010 to 2013. They say “they are being attacked by the United States … and because they are being attacked as they try to set up this caliphate to protect their religion, they need support.”

Morell is the author of “The Great War of Our Time: The CIA’s Fight Against Terrorism, From al Qa’ida to ISIS,” published this month. Indeed, ISIS presents a clear threat, he said Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. But it’s al Qaida, which perpetrated the 9/11 attacks and continues to have widespread influence abroad, that remains a greater danger, he added.

“The most significant threat to the homeland today,” Morell said, “still comes from al Qaida.”

ISIS seeks support in two ways, he said. It wants fighters to carry out its war in the Middle East, and it urges people to attack Americans and other coalition nations in their homelands.

The U.S., on the other hand, doesn’t really have a strong counter narrative, he said.

“Not because we’re not doing our job, but because it’s really hard to have a counter narrative in a conversation about a religion where we have absolutely no credibility,” he said.

Morell was an intelligence analyst who delivered daily briefings to then-President George W. Bush in 2001. He also assisted with planning the 2011 raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden. His new book includes his assessment of the CIA’s counterterrorism successes and failures of the past two decades, and highlights growing threats from terrorist groups that could impact the U.S.

Three al Qaida groups in particular pose the greatest threat to the U.S., he said.

Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, remains the most dangerous, Morell said. The international terrorist organization was responsible for the last three attempted attacks against the U.S.: the would-be Christmas Day underwear bomber in 2009, the printer cartridge plot in 2010 and the nonmetallic bomb plot on an airliner in 2012.

“They have the capability to bring down an airline in the United States of America tomorrow,” Morell said.

The second most dangerous, he said, is the Khorasan Group, which has operatives from Pakistan. It was formed to assist the jihadist organization Jabhat al-Nusra in its fight against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad with the goal of using Syria as a base of operations to attack the West.

Finally, the third group is al Qaida’s senior leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said.

But Morell did not downplay the ISIS threat — either on the battlefield or in its attempts to radicalize young men and young women around the world.

“The first and probably the most important right now is the stability of the entire Middle East. ISIS threatens the territorial integrity of Syria, the territorial integrity of Iraq and the potential for spillover to the rest of the region,” Morell said.

ISIS killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians and security forces and caused thousands to flee their homes as it captured the city of Ramadi in central Iraq on Sunday, according to multiple news reports.

Morell said that Islamic educators are needed to inform people who may consider joining terrorist groups.

“We really need the leaders of Muslim countries, we need leading Muslim clerics [and] we need Muslim teachers to have this dialogue in those countries themselves.”

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Even before the most recent overthrow, the House National Security Subcommittee was looking into contracts in the region, which is renowned for its corruption. Now, the subcommittee has undertaken a full-fledged investigation, focused on the contracts at Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan, while the Department of Defense moves to open up bidding on the suspect contracts.

“Let’s be honest: At many times throughout our history, the United States has closely dealt with unsavory regimes in order to achieve more pressing policy or strategic objectives,” Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass., said in his opening remarks at the investigation’s first hearing in April. “The United States will have to work hard to restore our credibility in (the Kyrgyz’­) eyes, beginning with transparency regarding U.S. fuel contracts at Manas.”

The F.B.I. collaborated with the Kyrgyz government on an investigation in 2005, when accusations that the son of then-president Askar Akayev was improperly benefiting from U.S. fuel contracts. That FBI report was never made public, but an independent investigator for the Kyrgyz told The New York Timesthat he suspected the new president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, simply took over the same business model, installing his son, Maksim Bakiyev, as the beneficiary.

Now, the anti-corruption interim government led by Roza Otunbayeva is opening its own investigation, focused on six subcontractors allegedly controlled by Maksim Bakiyev.

“Whatever the Pentagon’s policy of buying warlords in Afghanistan, the state of Kyrgyzstan demands more respect,” Edil Baisalov, chief of staff for the interim lead, told ­The Times in April. “The government of Kyrgyzstan will not be bought and sold. We are above that.”

The closely linked companies at the center of the allegations are Red Star and Mina Corp., which provide enormous amounts of Russian jet fuel to power U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Together, the companies have received more than $1 billion for fuel sales over the past six years.

The fact that companies’ director of operations, Charles “Chuck” Squires, is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former defense attaché to the U.S. embassy in Bishkek raises some eyebrows. Except in the case where a presidential directive makes an exemption for national security concerns, military contracts are subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law that outlaws bribery in U.S. business transactions overseas.

“If this were a commercial setting, an investigator would probably start by studying whether there really is an arm’s-length relationship between Red Star and Pentagon contractors,” Scott Horton, an expert on accountability in military contracts, said in his written testimony to the House committee. “If not, an investigator might quickly conclude that it is a shell interposed to provide a buffer between the procurement officers and companies controlled by the president’s family.”

The hearing witnesses consistently hit the refrain that the U.S. embassy delegation was unnecessarily close with the Bakiyev regime. The essential question is whether this was a State Department blunder, or if it was part of a larger policy of currying favor with the regime to ensure the future of the Manas air base.

In February 2009, in what was widely seen as a quid pro quo, Bakiyev announced plans to close the Manas base on the same day that Russian President Putin announced $2.15 billion in aid to the country. Later, Bakiyev flipped when the U.S. agreed to pay $17 million more in annual rent for the base.

Earlier this month, the Department of Defense moved to open up bidding on the contracts to the Manas base. Meanwhile, the United States and Kyrgyzstan have been in intense negotiations over taxes on fuel being imported to the base.

In impoverished Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. air base and its connected contracts make an easy whipping boy for disgruntled citizens whose country was ranked 128 out of 149 for corruption by World Audit in 2009.

But in business environments like that of Kyrgyzstan, it may well be that only countries connected to political elite will be in a position to meet U.S. needs.

“Allegations like these are an inevitable by-product of working in this part of the world, where corruption is just the way business is done,” said Martha Brill Olcott, an expert on the region for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The question is, were these contracts illegal, or were they simply unethical? There are only a few places you can get oil from – you’ve got to have a refinery – and it’s predictable that the bigger companies, the ones with elite connections, are going to be the ones that can get the best deal for the U.S. government.”

Simply looking at a map would tell you how disjointed U.S. policy in the region is, says Paul Goble, an expert on Eurasian issues who has served in various capacities in the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department. Although U.S. efforts have remained fixated on Russian influence in the former-Soviet region, the country does not in fact share a border with Russia – but it does with China.

“There is a very large geopolitical switch going on that Americans are not ready for,” Goble said. “China is simply going to be the biggest player in the region. Russia doesn’t have the leverage it once did.”

With its booming population and industry hungry for raw materials, China is roaming the world in search of energy supplies and minerals. In its backyard of Central Asia, it is investing billions in infrastructure including pipelines, railroads and highways.  Earlier this year the first segment of an oil pipeline stretching from Turkmenistan to China opened up. The project signifies what many experts say is a shift in the region’s petroleum resources away from Russia and toward China.

“Economic interests are the Chinese entryway into Central Asia and Eurasia,” said China expert Russell Hsiao of the Jamestown Foundation. “Kyrgyzstan is a pretty crucial piece in the whole of the puzzle.”

In the near-term, most analysts agree that Russia poses the greatest threat to America’s primary interest in the region – the Manas Air Base, which provides a critical link in the supply chain to U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Last year, the now-deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev agreed to end the U.S. contract for the air base after receiving a promise for more than $2 billion in aid from Russia. Bakiyev later reversed, after receiving the initial installment of Russian aid, when the U.S. agreed to pay more than three times the original rent for the base. Now, there is wide speculation that Russia supported the revolution that deposed Bakiyev in early April.

But, while a heavy-handed media blitz tends to accompany Russia’s tactics, Chinese policies are subtler. The flood of top provincial party leaders that travelled to the bordering Chinese province of Xinjiang in the days after the revolution, and the reported financial support China has lent the provisional government, underscore the Chinese leadership’s vested interest in the country.

In addition to being a hinge in China’s plan for expansion into Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Beijing fears that Kyrgyzstan raises the specter of unrest on its borders. Their particular concern is that the unrest could spread to the Muslim Uighur population, which makes up more than half of Xinjiang province, and which has members in Kyrgyzstan.

Chinese economic interests and the country’s desire for stability in the region do not directly conflict with U.S. goals in Kyrgyzstan. Satiating the Chinese appetite for oil with resources in Central Asia, in fact, could prevent the country from undertaking measures that conflict more directly with U.S. interests. Analysts warn, though, that Chinese economic policy lacks the ideological prerequisites that the West has come to expect.

“They’re willing to bribe, they’re not concerned about human rights violations, their businesses can deal with corrupt practices that our businesses can’t,” Goble said.

And while Chinese leadership is not directly threatened by the revolution, some authoritarian leaders in the region such as Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and Nursultan Nazarayev of Kazakhstan – with whom China has vested economic relationships – are.

“If they’re able to hold free and fair elections, which has never happened in this region before, then it’s going to be a huge threat to some countries in this region,” said Erica Marat, a Eurasia expert. “None of them want Kyrgyzstan to become a good example.”

As the U.S. navigates relations with the provisional Kyrgyz government – a task made more difficult by allegations that the American military knowingly purchased corrupt fuel contracts that benefited the deposed leader’s family – regional experts warn that policy makers should keep an eye on the East as well as the West.

A United Nations report last week that criticized the CIA’s targeted killings warned that officials involved in coordinating these attacks might be subject to legal prosecution. That includes the people involved in approving the missions, those flying the drones and even those manning the camera and weapons systems.

The report was issued shortly after al-Qaeda’s third-in-command, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, was confirmed dead by the terrorist organization after a Predator drone strike reportedly killed him in Pakistan on May 21.

The news of al-Yazid’s death coupled with the UN’s criticism reveals the conundrum facing the international community:

Clearly the UN does not trust the United States (or other nations that use drone strikes like Russia and Israel) to be judge, jury and executioner of those they consider to be a threat to domestic or global security. But by using these unmanned aerial vehicles, the U.S. has been able to take out terrorist leaders without putting much of its own personnel at risk (though some still carry out missions inside hostile territory).

From a moral and strategic standpoint, which intertwine in some circumstances, the use of drones brings up myriad questions. For instance, are these strikes worth the death of civilians who are accidentally targeted by drones, which can spur the recruitment of the affected population into terrorist organizations?

Reports vary widely on how many civilians have been killed by unmanned aerial vehicles. According to the UN, the number in Pakistan ranges from 20 to several hundred. Peter Singer, the author of “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said some Pakistani newspapers have claimed the number to be closer to 2,000.

Regardless of the exact figure, of which Singer is unsure, he said that public perception is key to the whole process, which can work to either help or hurt terrorist organizations in recruiting new personnel, depending upon the circumstances.

“There is a truth somewhere in (those numbers), but that actually is different from what the perception of the public in the two places is,” he said. “Essentially we may be operating with great care and precision, and I actually think that is a fact, but the reality 7,000 miles away is perceived as something different.”

“We’ve killed a lot of bad guys. The concern is are we getting into a cycle of ‘Whack-a-Mole,’ the carnival game where you’re knocking one guy down and another one pops up,” Singer said.

There are potential legal ramifications to the CIA drone strikes as well. According to a Washington Post opinion piece written by Gary Solis, a law professor at Georgetown University Law Center:

“It makes no difference that CIA civilians are employed by, or in the service of, the U.S. government or its armed forces. They are civilians; they wear no distinguishing uniform or sign, and if they input target data or pilot armed drones in the combat zone, they directly participate in hostilities — which means they may be lawfully targeted.”

The UN report echoed Solis’ sentiment that the strikes may be unlawful. It said that targeted killings are only legal if they aim for civilians who “directly participate in hostilities,” which does not include individuals who only provide “financial support, advocacy or non-combat aid.”

Robert Young Pelton, a filmmaker and author who travels to conflict zones all over the world, said the use of drones for targeted killings is troubling in a different sense.

“These are probably the coldest executions created by mankind,” he said. “Lawyers, spies, all sorts of people make this the most lethal, most specific, most sanitized version of political assassination that I’ve seen.”

Despite the cold nature of the targetings, Pelton said the “drone strikes are the single most effective tool against al-Qaeda.”

With all the perspectives through which to view this controversy, there is one question that stands out above the rest: Will the drone strikes help bring an end to terrorism?

Civilian casualties, legal issues and moral dilemmas are all important issues to weigh, but the ability to fight terrorists without risking the lives of American troops, and without waging another messy land war is critical.

In this sense, Peter Singer has identified the biggest challenge of all: “The danger of the technology is that it’s very seductive,” he said. “The policy challenge is figuring out when it’s worth that blowback effect. It may be worth it for the No. 3 (terrorist in al-Qaeda), it may not be worth it for the (average terrorist) you can’t identify.