Homegrown terrorists, worry for US security

Homeland security secretary Janet Napolitano said on Sunday that in the past year, more of the violent extremism that has been seen overseas is showing up in the United States. Long feared by intelligence, Muslim radicalisation has spiked in the US and militant Islamist groups are recruiting terrorists inside the US, much as they have in Britain.

Napolitano said that when she started as secretary a year ago, the focus was largely on international terrorists who wanted to harm US interests. But in the past year, the US is confronting a new sobering reality — homegrown terrorists. “What really is it that draws a young person being raised in the US to want to go and be at a camp in Yemen and then come back to the US with the idea of committing harm within the US?” Napolitano asked, without citing cases. “Where in that person’s formulation is there an opportunity to break that cycle?” she asked governors who were in Washington for an annual conference.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, says that a recruit with a US, British or Canadian passport is “a gold mine” for al Qaeda and its allies like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which make recruiting assets in Pakistani communities in the US and Britain a top priority.

In the past year alone, there have been a dozen cases in the US involving jihadist plots, some involving homegrown radicals but others with direct links to extremist groups in Pakistan. David Coleman Headley leaps immediately to mind. The son of a former Pakistani diplomat and an American mother, Headley has been charged with acting as a scout for the LeT in the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai.

Similarly, the list goes on with Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant raised in the US since he was 14, and was arrested six months ago on charges of plotting bombings in New York amid allegations that he received explosives training in Pakistan.

Some analysts say that the US has little understanding of the scope and frightening nature of the problem. Napolitano admitted as much, saying the government was starting to confront the reality and did not have a good handle on how to prevent someone from becoming a “violent extremist”.

The White House hosted a meeting to discuss these issues on Friday. John Brennan, president Barack Obama’s homeland security adviser, told the governors that countering violent extremism was something that needs to be addressed as a nation. “There needs to be community engagement,” he said.

Brennan pointed to a case from last year when five Pakistani men living in northern Virginia travelled to Pakistan, seeking training from al Qaeda. After the men disappeared in late November, their families contacted the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which steered the worried parents of the five to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“It’s that engagement with those local communities that’s going to be the critically important mechanism to detect that radicalisation even before they depart,” Brennan said.

Haunted by the spectre of Muslim radicalisation, homeland security and FBI officials have been careful to reach out to Muslim communities and leaders in the US.

They also keep a hawk eye on mushrooming radical websites and online chat rooms in the US for early warnings.