Terrorists Inside U.S. and Planning to Strike, Says DHS Secretary
Teaser:
Home-based terrorists are currently inside the United States and are looking to strike American targets here and abroad, the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said in a speech last night.
Home-based terrorists are currently inside the United States and are looking to strike targets here and abroad, the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said in a speech last night.
“Home-based terrorism is here. And like violent extremism abroad, it is now part of the threat picture that we must confront,” Napolitano told the America-Israel Friendship League in New York City, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release .
Spencer S. Hsu of The Washington Post called Napolitano's statements last night her "bluntest assessments yet of terror threats within the country" a night after President Obama announced he will send an additional 30,000 U.S. service members to Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants and al Qaeda terrorists in an effort to stabilize the war-torn country.
According to Hsu, Napolitano listed two recent cases to support her statement that jihadist radicalization has gained traction inside the United States.
Napolitano cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, a Denver airport shuttle driver arrested in September after allegedly training with al-Qaeda in Pakistan.
Zazi allegedly tested homemade bombs, styled after those used in the 2004 Madrid transit bombings, before driving cross-country to New York from Denver. He faces charges of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.
Separately, U.S. prosecutors in October accused David C. Headley, a Chicago businessman, of conspiring with members of Lashkar-i-Taiba, an extremist Islamic group in Pakistan allied with al-Qaeda, to plot attacks in Denmark and India.
It's a thesis also put forward recently by terrorism expert Peter Bergen, a fellow at The New America Foundation, after the alleged shooting rampage of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed 12 soldiers and one civilian. Surveying the many foiled terrorism plots over the past few years, Bergen concludes :
The constellation of terrorism cases that surfaced during the second Bush term and during Obama's first year in office suggests that a small minority of American Muslims are not immune to the al Qaeda ideological virus. And quite a number of those terrorism cases were more operational than aspirational, unlike many of the domestic terror cases that had preceded them after 9/11. The jihadists in these cases were not just talking about violent acts to a government informant but had actually traveled to an al Qaeda training camp; fought in an overseas jihad; purchased guns or explosives; cased targets; and, in a couple of the cases, actually killed Americans.
According to the DHS press release, Napolitano also spoke about DHS' commitment to sharing information with its federal, state, local, and tribal partners through fusion centers and Joint Terrorism Task Forces.
The secretary's speech last night was the second in two days that explored the threat of domestic terrorism. Two days ago, Napolitano outlined the threat of terrorists using improvised explosive devices on U.S. soil at Interagency Council for Applied Homeland Security Technology's Counter-IED Symposium.
♦ Photo of DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano by The Department of Homeland Security/WikiMediaCommons
Related Resources:
"Napolitano Outlines Homeland Security Measures to Combat IEDs ," by Matthew Harwood, Daily Headlines, Dec. 02, 2009
"Terrorism Expert Urges Caution on Ft. Hood Massacre ," by Matthew Harwood, Daily Headlines, Nov. 20, 2009
"Terrorism Suspect Charged; Man Bought Bomb-Making Ingredients ," by Matthew Harwood, Daily Headlines, Sept. 25, 2009
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Comments
It is indeed terrifying
It is indeed terrifying event if that matter is true.We should get our heads ready and be aware of some instances. This terorrist can really do anything and other possibilities that could come to worst case scenario. Recently,we are experiencing a lot of recessions and
economic paucity, but on other cases airlines don't suffer enough, with slow seasons and recessions, now you can add new airline restrictions to their troubles. After the holidays, airlines tend to slow down enough on their own, and now, this jerk Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is making it worse for everyone. That isn't to say that it was entirely him – the US Embassy in Nigeria was notified a month before the incident that he was a danger. If anything, the overseas security authorities should be coming up with a cash advance to the airlines to compensate them for all the money they're likely to lose as a result of their incompetence.
Domestic terrorism and/or Viet Nam War II
Not for nothing did England after a couple centuries in that part of the world call Afghanistan "The graveyard of Empire", as the USSR --despite its modern war technology--also learned to its dismay late in the last century.
President Obama and his advisors are students of history, and wise enough to learn from its lessons so that we will never get ourselves into another Viet Nam debacle--right? POTUS is sending an additional 30,000 U.S. service members to Afghanistan to fight Taliban militants and al Qaeda terrorists so that we don't have to fight them in the USA--right ? :- (