BREAKING TERROR PLOTS

*** 7 of the Toronto 18 had their charges STAYED not dropped, not acquited, not found innocent. Fact is, they did a bit of time in jail, learned their lesson (we hope) and were let go. And YES, Muslims have roundly condemned terrorism - again and again - not to mention it was 2 Muslim agents that busted the T18 group up. MS ***


The “Toronto 18” conspiracy may have been Canada’s first major homegrown terror threat after 9/11, but if police are to be believed it is far from being the last.

While some worry about being targeted by “foreign” terrorists linked to Al Qaeda or other extremist groups, we can hardly afford to be complacent about perils close at hand. Three more Canadians now stand accused of plotting bombings in Ottawa. And the fact that one of them appears, bizarrely, to have been involved in a goofy song-and-dance act on Canadian Idol hardly detracts from the gravity of the charges.

The RCMP reported yesterday that police had been watching the trio’s network for a year and swooped down on them Wednesday. That prevented them from sending money to conspirators abroad for weapons to use against Canadian troops and allies in Afghanistan. It also prevented them from leaving the country, and from building bombs and staging attacks on the nation’s capital. Rightly, police put public safety first by acting when they did.

Charged with conspiracy to facilitate terrorism and other offences are Hiva Mohammad Alizadeh, 30, Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, and Khurram Syed Sher, 28. All are Canadian citizens. Police say they conspired with other Canadians who are currently abroad in a plot that spanned Canada, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Dubai. Police found 50 electronic circuit boards designed to detonate Afghan-style improvised explosive device (IED) bombs, plus schematics, videos, books and other material on building bombs. Alizadeh, they said, is a member of a terror group with links to the Afghan conflict.

However these charges play out in court (and let’s bear in mind that of the Toronto 18, only 11 were convicted), the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other forces deserve credit for working together effectively. Lessons seem to have been learned from past botched investigations, including the Air India probe.

This case has left prominent community figures such as Salma Siddiqui of the Muslim Canadian Congress voicing concern that the perverse “doctrine of jihad” still appeals to some. But it’s a fact, too, that spiritual leaders of the country’s 650,000 Muslims have denounced jihadist violence as incompatible with Islamic values.

Muslim clerics in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and other centres rang in the New Year with a forceful fatwa, or religious ruling, denouncing attacks on Canada and the United States as an assault on the freedom of the millions of Muslims who have made their homes here. The fatwa reminded the faithful that they are morally obliged to condemn and expose those who plot violence against this tolerance.

Raised Muslim voices are a vital element in thwarting jihadist terror, along with good policing and vigilant courts.

TEXAS TERROR STING

*** I'm telling you: they will adapt - they will learn which people to engage (sensitive site access in this case) - they will use EVERY (dirty) trick in the book and we will still be debating the merits of obsolete morality. MS ***

FROM:

A Texas man has been indicted on two counts for allegedly attempting to support al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and communicating with one of its top leaders Anwar Al Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric who U.S. officials have placed at the center of several recent terrorist plots involving U.S. targets and Americans, including last year's deadly Ft. Hood shooting, which left 13 dead.

The man, Barry Walter Bujol, 29, allegedly was in contact with Awlaki going back to 2008, when he gained the attention of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Houston.

Agents determined that Bujol, who they said used aliases including "Abdul Bari," "Abyu Najya," "Pat Lex" and "Abdul-Bari Al Ameriki Al Aswad," was in e-mail communication with Awlaki.

The cleric allegedly provided Bujol with a document entitled, "42 Ways of Supporting Jihad." Bujol also allegedly asked Awlaki for guidance on how to provide materials and funds to foreign fighters overseas.

The two-count indictment charging him with providing material support to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and aggravated identity theft was unsealed late on Thursday.

The identity theft charge involves Bujol being in possession of a controlled identification card for transportation workers called a TWIC card (Transportation Workers Identification Card), which can be used to gain access to sensitive locations at ports and at other areas of critical infrastructure.

According to federal law enforcement officials, Bujol allegedly tried to leave the United States on several occasions. In February 2009, as he was attempting to fly to Yemen, according to law enforcement officials, Bujol was arrested on an outstanding traffic warrant.

Bujol, who attended Prairie View A&M University in Texas, later tried to leave the United States at the U.S.-Canadian border in March 2009 near Detroit but was denied entry by Canadian authorities.

Weeks later, he was arrested in New Jersey for driving on a suspended license.

Bujol allegedly has told investigators after his arrest on May 30, 2010, that he was attempting to leave the country to fly to Egypt.

According to Justice Department officials, in November the FBI used a confidential human source who Bujol believed was affiliated with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was acting as an operative for the group.

During meetings, Bujol allegedly stated his interest in traveling oversees to engage in fighting with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

In the course of meetings, the human source being run by the FBI gave Bujol the TWIC card so that he could use it to board a ship he believed was heading to the Middle East from the port in Houston. The source also allegedly gave Bujol pre-paid calling cards, mobile phone SIM cards, GPS receivers and publications and information about unmanned aerial vehicle operations and U.S. military weapons systems.

Bujol allegedly believed he was to courier the items to AQAP operatives -- but in reality it was all an FBI sting operation. Bujol boarded the ship on May 30 in Houston and was arrested by FBI agents.

"This arrest is a sobering reminder of the threat we continue to face," said FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge Richard Powers.

Joseph Varela, an attorney for Bujol, declined to comment on the case.

Bujol is scheduled to have an arraignment on June 8, 2010 in Houston.

Bujol is the latest American terrorism suspect tied to Anwar al-Awlaki. Besides the Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hassan, in March a New Jersey nuclear plant worker, Sharif Mobley, was arrested by Yemeni security forces with 10 other suspected Al Qaeda members. Awlaki also allegedly was in contact with the so-called Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , who attempted to detonate a bomb on Northwest Airlines flight 253.

IMAM KILLED IN SHOOTOUT HAD DOG BITES ON FACE

*** The so-called Imam believed in stealing and defrauding the non Muslims - any and all of them. He violently engaged federal law enforcement - who had sent in a police dog - and died as a result. End of story. MS ***

FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100602/world/us_michigan_imam_killed

OUTHFIELD, Mich. - A Detroit mosque leader killed last fall in a shootout with the FBI had dog bites on his face and hands, according to an independent review of the autopsy released Wednesday by a Muslim advocacy group.

The head of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the bites raise the possibility that Luqman Ameen Abdullah fired a gun trying to defend himself against an FBI dog before he was shot 20 times by agents.

But executive director Dawud Walid also acknowledged that Abdullah may have simply engaged the FBI in gunfire.

"Both scenarios are plausible," Walid said at a news conference.

The FBI says it killed Abdullah after he fired a gun and resisted arrest in a stolen-goods sting operation at a Dearborn warehouse in October. An FBI dog died in the shootout.

Walid's group, known as CAIR, hired Pittsburgh forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht to look at more than 70 autopsy photos and the autopsy report by the Wayne County medical examiner's office.

Some leaders in the local Muslim community have raised questions about excessive force by the FBI. The Michigan attorney general's office recently received the investigation by Dearborn police and is trying to determine if laws were broken.

Wecht said dog bites broke Abdullah's jaw and caused lacerations on his face and hands.

"If they shot him 20 times because he shot their dog that's unacceptable," Wecht said by phone Wednesday.

But he emphasized that he doesn't "have an axe to grind here."

"I haven't expressed any opinions about the overall scenario — was it necessary, what was the provocation, et cetera," Wecht said of the shooting. "I don't know these guys."

An FBI spokeswoman, Detroit agent Sandra Berchtold, declined to comment.

In February, Wayne County's chief medical examiner, Dr. Carl Schmidt, said there was no distinct pattern to Abdullah's facial wounds. He said he didn't know if they were dog bites.

The FBI says Abdullah was a leader of a radical Sunni group that wants to create an Islamic state within the U.S. His family has denied allegations that he was anti-government.

Eleven allies were indicted in November, with most charged with conspiring to possess and sell stolen goods.

FAMILIES OF TIME SQUARE BOMBER DEFEND SUSPECTS

*** Of course they do. In fact, one of the most common reactions from people is, 'but he seemed so nice!'. Another note for Jihadi wannabe's: your family suffers because of YOUR actions - why put them through all this? Trust me - the Muslim bond is not as strong as you think: no one will help you for your legal bills, medical bills they will not even follow through with FOOD for your kid(s) that you left behind. Look before you leap. MS ***


FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100528/world/as_pakistan_times_square

When Pakistani intelligence agents probing the botched Times Square car bombing dragged Humbal Akhtar from his house, his wife grabbed his arm in desperation. "What has he done wrong?" Rahila Akhtar screamed before they took him away.

She didn't get an answer, and still hasn't nearly two weeks later. She has heard nothing of his fate, or whether he's even accused of a crime.

"He is a simple, honest and loving person," she said between tears Friday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "I don't know where to go to find him and I have no idea where is he being held. But now I am driving alone on roads and looking for my husband."

Under American pressure, Pakistan has rounded up at least 11 people since the attempted attack May 1 in New York City. An intelligence official has alleged two of them played a role in plot, but gave few details. No one has been charged.

The detentions are angering the men's families, as well as human rights activists in Pakistan who have long campaigned against such actions by the country's powerful and largely unaccountable intelligence agencies.

The families of five of the detained men have told The Associated Press they knew the main suspect detained in the United States, Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, or others held in connection with him, but insist they are innocent.

Most come from the same stock as Shahzad — wealthy, urban, educated and with careers such as computers, telecommunications and graphic design. Several are observant Muslims and had expressed anti-American sentiments, but that combination is common in Pakistan.

One of three men arrested in the U.S. and accused of supplying money to Shahzad was ordered to be deported to his native Pakistan by a U.S. immigration judge Thursday. Aftab Khan has said he never heard of Shahzad before his May 13 arrest, but federal authorities allege he had Shahzad's name in his cellphone and written on an envelope.

Detentions by Pakistani intelligence agencies are typically never confirmed by government officials or security forces. People can be held for months or years without charge, in clear violation of Pakistani law.

Human rights groups allege that torture while in detention is common. Several people arrested by the intelligence agencies in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were given to the United States and their families were not informed.

"Whoever captured my son is a terrorist," said Rana Ashraf Khan, whose son, Salman Ashraf, was detained while driving to work. "I am extremely worried about his safety."

The catering company Khan runs with with his son was accused of possible terrorist links by the U.S. Embassy when news of his detention broke.

U.S. officials have accused Shahzad of working with the Pakistani Taliban to organize the car bomb, a rudimentary device that failed to explode. Shahzad was arrested two days after the bombing attempt as he tried to fly out of the United States on a jetliner bound for the Middle East.

Seven people are known to have been detained in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Officials have said four others were picked up in the southern city of Karachi, several of whom had links to a mosque there run by Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group with connections to al-Qaida. It is not clear whether any have since been released.

An intelligence official has identified one of those detained — Shoaib Mughal — as a go-between for Shahzad and the Pakistani Taliban in their hide-outs close the Afghan border. He was running a large computer dealership in Islamabad before his detention.

The other suspect alleged to have had some kind of involvement in the plot, identified only by his first name, Shahid, is alleged to have helped arrange money for Shahzad, but it is unclear what for.

Rahila Akhtar said around 20 intelligence agents and police officers came for her husband in the heat of mid-afternoon on May 17, jumping over the gate and banging on the door of their house. They asked for Humbal and started dragging him away.

"On seeing that, I was shocked and I started weeping, and I tightly held my husband's arm and said, 'I am not going to allow you to take him away,'" she said. She said officers told her not to make a scene.

They asked about her and Humbal, 35, and where his mobile phone was.

She went inside to get the phone, but when she returned Humbal was gone. She said hours later she received a telephone call from someone who did not give his name, assuring her that her husband would be safe.

Rahila Akhtar said her husband graduated from a private university in Islamabad and worked briefly for the government before starting a graphic design business. She said he worked from home to help her raise their three children, all under 5.

Pakistan's Human Rights Commission said it was investigating the detentions.

"No one should be arrested without prima facie evidence. They should be produced in court and their family should be informed," said I.A. Rehman, a leader of the commission. "Whatever agencies may be involved, the law must be followed."

GOVT. FUNDING FOR JIHADI'S? ROBERT FULFORD

*** Mr. Fulford, I think you've missed the point.

The funding is for at-risk groups who run a serious risk of turning to extremism precisely because they feel the govt. does not care for their situation. It makes it extremely difficult for Muslim groups (who do not receive funding like their counterparts - an obvious bias that stares us in the face) to be able to run programs to counter radicalization, which will soon become the government's problem, like it or not. Believe me, there are not enough CSIS agents to keep up with the acceleration of radicalization, no effective strategies to provide a counter narrative and poor relationship building with the community you need the information from.

Second, how do you suggest we counter the millions of dollars coming from overseas to Mosques here in Toronto and elsewhere? To monitor and counter this IS the govt.'s job not ours yet WE are supposed to compete with them on OUR own dime and time? Be realistic, man!

Third, THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of tax dollars go to house and feed terrorists for years upon years in prisons. They can even get the funding for degrees and other training/study. If you funded ONE youth worker who gets paid HALF of what it costs to house ONE young offender for ONE year - you will save MANY from ending up in jail. It's a little thing called 'prevention is better than cure' and is a wisdom that rings true for all people and faiths. The math and the method make sense.

That the govt. cannot justify giving fractions of the millions that come from outside Canada, or fractions of what you are ALREADY paying just to help the pro-Canadian Muslim groups is truly, counter productive.

The choice is with the government to decide if it wishes to continue taking a hands-off approach with the Muslim community or if they are really serious about fighting extremism and terrorism by helping those who are able to do so.

Do you want to know what kind of people associate themselves with such an anti-assistance attitude: take a look at the postings after your article, Mr. Fulford, they are full of racism, hate of immigrants and white power: the main ingredients of the Nazi's. What does that tell you? They are no different than the jihadi's who post hateful message about non Muslims in the name of free speech and then end up committing crimes.

Govt. (in)action is largely responsible for the radicalization of Muslim youth - don't for a second think you can do this without us because we realize that we cannot do it without you too. We MUST work together otherwise we will BOTH pay a hefty price - ultimately to be paid by the taxpayers anyway. But who cares eh? MS ***


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After Fahim Ahmad pleaded guilty to taking part in the Toronto 18 terrorism plot on Monday, certain Muslims began to admit privately that it’s possible the police were right to charge Ahmad and others with planning to storm Parliament, behead politicians and otherwise assert themselves as jihadi warriors in Canada.

We have all heard many times that official Canada is riddled with Islamophobia, but perhaps in this case the murderous plans of radicalized Muslim youth, and their threat to their fellow Muslims and all other Canadians, must be at least discussed. It’s no longer possible to think that the arrests in 2006 were not justified.

What can be done? How can young Muslim Canadians be persuaded not to turn into radicals? Is it not the responsibility of community elders to steer the young away from the calamity of Islamist passions? One way or another, peaceful Muslims must address this problem that has arisen in their community.

On Wednesday morning, Nazim Baksh, a CBC producer who has been following the story for four years, outlined for Toronto local-radio listeners what he’s heard from Muslims trying to deal with this issue.

As Baksh described it, “The discussion was raised about -- do we get government funding to do de-radicalization programs in Toronto? Which model do we follow?”

That was the first point Baksh made about the conversations, and almost the last one. Muslims wanted to create “an internal program” in the community but, as Baksh explained, the Canadian government has been reluctant to support this kind of initiative. For that reason or some other, no program has taken shape.


Baksh’s Muslim acquaintances are obviously adapting themselves to the Canadian way. Their automatic response is to turn for help to the government. Their plan seems to me a spectacular case of state-dependency, worse even than the issue of funding for Toronto’s Gay Pride parade, discussed in a Post editorial earlier this week.

Surely, those who spoke to Baksh couldn’t have given that idea much thought. It’s obvious that anyone who might conceivably become a violent Islamist would stay as far away as possible from anything supported by the Canadian government. Running that kind of a program on a government grant perfectly defines the term “counter-productive.” Sounds like madness to me. But neither Baksh nor his interviewer on the program, Matt Galloway, raised this point.

It seems a particularly odd position for Muslims to take. Mosques, which do not receive government funding, are said to generate opinions among young Muslims. Why should mosques not provide the “deradicalization” education on their own initiative (and dime)? Much of the world, including many Muslims, believes that certain mosques can persuade impressionable young men to become radical Islamists. Why can’t other mosques persuade them otherwise?

Canadians have come to believe that almost any program for human betterment requires, first of all, public funding. Government has always played a large role in education, for instance, but its role has grown steadily greater in recent times. Middle-class Canadians (unlike middle-class Americans) don’t routinely establish college funds for their children; they assume that if their children deserve university education, government will be there to provide it, through grants or guaranteed loans.

We now have come to believe that if the quality of our education lacks something, government must be blamed. We have decided not to blame the teachers or parents. And of course no one would dream of blaming the students.

In health care, the situation is more dire because it is necessarily hidden. We are slowly (and inevitably) developing forms of private medicine that will run parallel to public medicine. But we are so devoted to a deluded belief in public medicine that we must pretend we are maintaining it in its purest sense, as mandated by the Canada Health Act of 1984. Change is inevitable but it must be clandestine. So we handle it in the most awkward way possible.

The belief that nothing can be established without government help now runs into the ugly fact that governments are desperately short of money.

How did we get into this fix? Can we ever get out of it? When even immigrant Muslims become infected by our twisted social system, we need to reconsider how we organize society.

U.S. CONCERNED BY THREAT OF DOMESTIC EXTREMISTS

FROM: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/usa/US-Concerned-by-Threat-of-Domestic-Extremists-84925877.html

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says authorities are becoming more concerned about American citizens or legal residents becoming involved in terrorist plots against the United States.

Speaking Sunday in Washington to a gathering of U.S. state governors, Napolitano said law enforcement officials do not have good methods for preventing people from becoming violent extremists.

In one recent case, five young Pakistani men who lived in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., traveled to Pakistan where they allegedly attempted to join militant Islamist groups.

In a separate incident, an Afghan-born resident of the western state of Colorado was arrested last year and charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.

Officials at the meeting of U.S. governors endorsed outreach efforts by law enforcement agencies to Muslim communities.

*** Great! Canada and the United States are at least on the same page by making the same mistakes (law enforcement lacking ability to prevent as well as poor outreach efforts). This is not to say the cooperation between the two is excellent, however, serious lapses exist and must be dealt with quickly and efficiently. Policing alone is not a solution - it will require a whole-of-apparatus approach. MS ***

U.S. SEES GROWING HOMEGROWN THREAT

FROM: http://www.hiiraan.com/news2/2009/Dec/u_s_sees_homegrown_muslim_extremism_as_rising_threat.aspx

Reporting from Washington - The Obama administration, grappling with a spate of recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country confronts a rising threat from homegrown extremism.

Anti-terrorism officials and experts see signs of accelerated radicalization among American Muslims, driven by a wave of English-language online propaganda and reflected in aspiring fighters' trips to hot spots such as Pakistan and Somalia.

Europe had been the front line, the target of successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm. But the number, variety and scale of recent U.S. cases suggest 2009 has been the most dangerous year domestically since 2001, anti-terrorism experts said:

* There were major arrests of Americans accused of plotting with Al Qaeda and its allies, including an Afghan American charged in a New York bomb plot described as the most serious threat in this country since the Sept. 11 attacks.

* Authorities tracked other extremism suspects joining foreign networks, including Somali Americans going to the battlegrounds of their ancestral homeland and an Albanian American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.

* The FBI rounded up homegrown terrorism suspects in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C., saying that it had broken up plots targeting a synagogue, government buildings and military facilities.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued her strongest public comments yet on the homegrown threat.

"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as Al Qaeda," Napolitano said in a speech in New York. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."

Officials acknowledged that her tone had changed, though they said terrorism has been her focus since becoming Homeland Security chief.

In some of the 2009 cases, extremist leanings are suspected but motives are not known.

Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- accused of killing 13 people in a Ft. Hood, Texas, shooting rampage last month -- has apparently suffered emotional problems. But in interviews, officials and experts have also raised his Muslim beliefs as an alleged motive.

A previous attack on the U.S. military, a shooting in June by an American convert who killed a soldier and wounded another at an Arkansas recruiting center, was apparently a case of a lone wolf radicalized in Yemen, according to Homeland Security officials.

"You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

"Radicalization is clearly happening in the U.S.," said Mitchell Silber, director of analysis for the Intelligence Division of the New York Police Department. "In years past, you couldn't say that about the U.S. You could say it about Europe."

Europe has suffered a militant onslaught: transport bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, an assassination in the Netherlands in 2004, and close calls such as the fiery failed attack on the Glasgow airport in 2007.

Hard borders have helped the U.S. ward off the threat. But experts also said that Islamic radicalization is more widespread in Europe. Crime, alienation and extremism roil Muslim immigrant communities in places like tiny Denmark and the vast slums of France.

In contrast, American Muslims are wealthier, better educated and better integrated because the United States does a good job of absorbing immigrants and fostering tolerance, experts said. During the last decade, Americans have been a rare presence in the Al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan that have trained hundreds of Westerners and thousands of recruits from Muslim-majority nations.

Nonetheless, recent investigations have run across Americans suspected of being operatives of Al Qaeda and its allies who were trained overseas and, in several cases, allegedly conspired with top terrorism bosses. They include a convert from Long Island, N.Y, who was captured in Pakistan late last year; a Chicago businessman accused of scouting foreign targets for a Pakistani network; and at least 15 Somali American youths from Minneapolis who returned to fight in their ancestral homeland.

"A larger trend has emerged that is not surprising, but is disturbing," Chertoff said. "You are beginning to see the fruits of the pipeline that Al Qaeda built to train Westerners and send them back to their homelands. . . . This underscores the central significance of disrupting the pipeline at its source."

A campaign of U.S. airstrikes launched last year has pounded Al Qaeda hide-outs in Pakistan. But the flow of trainees gathered momentum in 2007 when Pakistani security forces ceded turf to militant groups, officials said. The suspect in the New York plot, Najibullah Zazi, and the Long Island convert, Bryant Neal Vinas, allegedly met in Pakistan in 2008 and discussed attacks on U.S. targets with Al Qaeda chiefs.

Vinas and Zazi are the first Americans to be accused of joining Al Qaeda in several years.

Meanwhile, Silber said in recent congressional testimony: "There have been a half-dozen cases of individuals who, instead of traveling abroad to carry out violence, have elected to attempt to do it here. This is substantially greater than what we have seen in the past, and may reflect an emerging pattern."

Some feel radicalization in the United States has been worse than authorities thought for some time.

"People focused on the idea that we're different, we're better at integrating Muslims than Europe is," said Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington. "But there's radicalization -- especially among converts [and] newcomers, such as the Somali case shows. I think young U.S. Muslims today are as prone to radicalization as Muslims in Europe."

In proportion to population, extremism still appears less intense in the United States. But the Internet functions as the global engine of extremism. Websites expose Americans to a wave of slick, English-language propaganda from ideologues such as Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni American described as a spiritual guide for the accused Ft. Hood shooter and other Westerners.

And socioeconomic success will not necessarily prevent Americans' radicalization. Studies suggest that a quest for identity and the bonding process among small groups often drive militants more than personal hardship does.

"The profile in Europe is in general quite different [from U.S. extremists]: more working-class or even underclass," said a European intelligence official who requested anonymity for security reasons. "But it's a bit simplistic to make assumptions. We have seen everything in Europe -- educated people, doctors involved in terrorism. The underclass argument is not enough."

The Obama administration began the year with gestures to the Muslim world. President Obama promised to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and made a historic speech in Cairo.

The Homeland Security Department leads the administration's counter-radicalization effort. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which works with Muslim leaders, held summit meetings with Somali communities this year in Minnesota and Ohio, said David Heyman, assistant Homeland Security secretary for policy.

But that office still lacks a director, critics point out, and the department has yet to fill other key posts as well.

"We don't do enough about fostering a counter-narrative," said Matthew Levitt, a former anti-terrorism official for the Treasury Department now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Competing for space with the radicalizers and challenging their radical ideologies is the key."

In contrast to the heightened extremist activity in the United States, Europe has remained relatively calm this year. But the West needs to keep up its guard on both sides of the Atlantic, said Farhad Khosrokhavar, an Iranian French scholar who interviewed jailed extremists for his book "Inside Jihadism."

"You can be middle-class and have bright prospects but become a jihadist," he said. "We have to broaden the analysis. This idea of American exceptionalism, the comparison with Europe, should not blind us to the fact that we are going toward a broader participation in jihad."

*** The lack of a counter-narrative initiative is the single most identifiable barrier towards reducing the threat in our country and in other countries. When will the decision makers realize this? How many more citizens shall we wait to see on an Al Qaida video somewhere, just before we read about him/her as the latest suicide bomber? Let's get on the ball, shall we? MS ***