*** This is not about speaking out against tactics of the 'war against terrorism'. It is about trying to help those fanatics in any way - to show any support for those deemed to be enemies of the United States of America. I should remind that this is precisely the condition attached to non Muslim subjects of Muslim lands: not to support - in any way - those with whom the state was at war with. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100621/us/usreport_us_usa_security_court
By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a law that bars Americans from providing support to foreign terrorist groups, rejecting arguments that it violated constitutional rights of free speech and association.
The decision came in the first test to reach the Supreme Court after the September 11, 2001, attacks of a case pitting the right of U.S. citizens to speak and associate freely against the government's efforts to fight terrorism.
In a victory for the Obama administration, the justices voted, 6-3, to reverse a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that declared parts of the law unconstitutionally vague.
The law barring material support was first adopted in 1996 and strengthened by the USA Patriot Act adopted by Congress right after the September 11 attacks. It was amended again in 2004.
The law bars knowingly providing any service, training, expert advice or assistance to any foreign organization designated by the U.S. State Department as terrorist.
The law, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, does not require any proof the defendant intended to further any act of terrorism or violence by the foreign group.
MORE DIFFICULT CASES COULD BE AHEAD
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said the law was constitutional and rejected the specific challenge before it. He said the court did not address the "more difficult cases" that may arise under the law in the future.
The legal challenge had been brought by groups and individuals who wanted to help the Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. The State Department designated both as foreign terrorist groups.
The Humanitarian Law Project in Los Angeles had previously provided human rights advocacy training to the Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the PKK, and the main Kurdish political party in Turkey.
The Humanitarian Law group and others sued in an effort to renew support for what they described as lawful, nonviolent activities overseas.
"The Supreme Court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists," said Georgetown University law professor David Cole, who argued the case.
"In the name of fighting terrorism, the court has said that the First Amendment permits Congress to make it a crime to work for peace and human rights. That is wrong," Cole said.
Obama administration lawyers defended the law and called it a vital weapon in the government's effort to fight terrorism.
Since 2001, the United States has charged about 150 defendants with the material support of terrorism and about half have been convicted, the Justice Department said.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented with Breyer saying the court majority ultimately "deprives the individuals before us of the protection that the First Amendment demands."
He said the court failed to examine the government's justifications for the law with sufficient care.
The Supreme Court cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law project, No. 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, No. 09-89.
Showing posts with label homegrown terrorism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homegrown terrorism. Show all posts
Monday, June 21, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
TERROR SUSPECTS - TROUBLED TEENS
*** Counter culture syndrome? MS ***
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/nyregion/12suspects.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
NORTH BERGEN, N.J. — One was a spoiled child so prone to fits of rage — fights, screamed insults, threats — that his parents began taking him to psychiatrists at age 6 and medicating him in a vain struggle to control his moods. By their count, his short fuse and incendiary tongue forced him to change schools no fewer than 10 times.
The other was arrested three times in less than four months for petty crimes, and seemed like an aimless youth — until he developed a passion for a strict version of Islam that shocked and alienated his Dominican family. Within a few years, he was posting extremist views on the Internet and assailing the United States while predicting its downfall.
Their stories began like many others: troubled teenagers who scare and mystify their neighbors; run-ins with the police while still in high school; parents who cannot compete with the sense of belonging or purpose their boys find elsewhere.
“Of course we tried everything we could,” said Nadia Alessa, mother of Mohamed M. Alessa, the one so given to angry outbursts. “We couldn’t just keep him at home.”
The next chapter in such tales often charts a descent into drugs or gangs, but Mr. Alessa, 20, and Carlos E. Almonte, 24, who both grew up in the New Jersey suburbs, apparently had other plans. They were arrested Saturday as they prepared to fly separately to Egypt — and, the authorities say, to join a militant group in Somalia and kill non-Muslims.
How they went from troublemakers to terrorism suspects may never be understood. But conversations with many people who have known them — including the first interviews given by Mr. Alessa’s parents since the arrest — make clear that both men were struggling for years, constantly at odds with authority and their immigrant parents. Law enforcement officials had been keeping tabs on them for nearly four years.
Many of their peers dismissed them as hapless blowhards, more pathetic than perilous; friends said they liked to play Ping-Pong, or go into Manhattan and hang out at a halal restaurant. Yet there they are, in transcripts of secretly recorded conversations, talking about shooting and beheading people, and sending American troops home “sliced up in 1,000 pieces.”
Mr. Alessa’s parents, Palestinian immigrants, are Muslim, but Ms. Alessa was at a loss to explain her only son’s recent transformation. She recalled asking why he was growing a beard: “He said real men grow their beards.”
‘Now Everyone Hates Us’
After years of building a life in the United States — an apartment in North Bergen, a deli in nearby Bergen County where Mr. Alessa’s father, Mahmood, is quick to extend credit to customers, who call him “Pops” — the parents now see it all endangered by a son they do not understand.
“Sixteen years we’ve lived on that street,” Ms. Alessa said. “Everyone loved us. Now everyone hates us.”
A neighbor who has known Mohamed most of his life, Wilmer Precilla, said the young man alternated between craving confrontation and acceptance, making derogatory remarks about Hispanics in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, then trying unsuccessfully to join a Dominican gang, Patria. “He was always trying to be more gangster than everyone else,” Mr. Precilla said.
Family friends watched Mohamed scream at his mother, smash up his father’s car and, in anger, knock the food off a shelf in the deli. When his shaken parents tried to take him to therapists, he screamed, “I’m not crazy.” At times he took medication for anger management, but about three years ago, his mother said, he stopped taking it and stopped seeing therapists.
Mr. Alessa’s friends, who knew his temper, told him he needed medical help — an idea he rejected. His parents gave him the latest clothes and cellphones, friends and neighbors recalled. One said he acted like a typical “American rich kid,” even though his parents were not wealthy.
“He was a spoiled kid,” Ms. Alessa conceded. “He acted like a teenager. He thought he was a king.”
She said Mohamed attended the local public elementary school, two Catholic grade schools, a boarding school in Connecticut, a school for troubled youth, three Muslim schools and two public high schools, repeatedly getting into trouble for fighting or mouthing off.
At the two public high schools, North Bergen and KAS Prep, Mr. Alessa made an escalating series of threats against students and staff members through 2005 and 2006, saying that he would blow up the school, mutilate gays and punish women who were not subordinate to men, according to officials granted anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Both schools alerted the Department of Homeland Security.
As a 10th grader at North Bergen High, he had to receive his lessons at a local public library under the eye of a security guard, said Paul Swibinski, a school spokesman, because “administrators felt that his presence in school posed a safety threat to other students and staff.”
In those years, neighbors say, the police were called to the Alessa home several times. The North Bergen police declined to give details, noting that juvenile records were not public, but Lt. Frank Cannella said: “He was known to us, I can tell you that much.”
The Suspects Meet
Around 2005, when he was 14 or 15, Mr. Alessa met Mr. Almonte, who lived in Elmwood Park, but was spending much of his time in North Bergen, 10 miles away. The two hung out with a group of young men who called themselves the PLO. Mr. Alessa was not particularly religious then, but Mr. Almonte, a recent convert to Islam, was becoming more so.
Growing up, Carlos Almonte had a less turbulent childhood. But by the time he was 18, he, too, was running afoul of the law.
In May 2004, with a month left in his senior year at Elmwood Park Memorial High School, Mr. Almonte, a naturalized citizen, was arrested for taking a knife to campus. That August, he was arrested for punching a youth in the parking lot of a supermarket. Two weeks later, he was caught drinking beer in a park.
It was around then, family friends say, that Mr. Almonte turned to Islam. He told Priscilla Caicedo, a young woman he met last year, that his interest began when he heard someone preaching at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. He visited mosques in Paterson and Union City, and called himself Omar.
Mr. Almonte’s conversion, his compulsion to proselytize, and his friendship with Mr. Alessa all alienated his family, though he continued to live with them. The friction culminated in their living room on May 23, 2009, when, according to a police report, Mr. Almonte began preaching about Islam to his younger brother, Elvin, who demurred, and “Carlos became angry and they both began fighting.”
Their mother tried to separate them and Elvin bit her arm, thinking it was his brother’s. Carlos then struck Elvin in the back of the head with a picture frame.
One young man who befriended both suspects said that Mr. Almonte was more easygoing and supportive than Mr. Alessa, and that he liked to read and use computers. Another friend, Martin Robert, said that sometimes while playing Ping-Pong and basketball, Mr. Almonte would try to turn the conversation to Islam but would not insist. “He seemed like a nice, peaceful guy,” Mr. Robert said.
Another student who knew them casually, Mostafa Higazi, said the pair were “very oriented to politics.” He called Mr. Alessa “really a talker, just bragging,” while Mr. Almonte was quiet. He said that he did not recall specific things Mr. Alessa said, but that none of it resembled the bloody talk in the criminal complaint.
Ms. Caicedo met Mr. Almonte more than a year ago when she took her computer for repairs to a store where he worked near his home. Even in the store, she recalled, he began proselytizing, and gave her a book on Islam, which she said she never read.
They talked and traded instant messages, and went out once, as friends, last December. He took her to a Spanish-language service at a mosque in Union City and then to dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s. Quiet and serious, he told her he wanted to find a wife who knew that her role was to stay home to cook and clean. “He was like one of those men that had to be the dominant one,” she said.
Recently, Ms. Caicedo said, he told her he was moving to North Carolina, and arranged for her to get his job at the computer store. Hours before he was arrested at Kennedy Airport, they were at the store, Mr. Almonte training her.
But others saw a darker side to the suspects and their friendship. In October 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a tip that Mr. Alessa and Mr. Almonte talked about holy war and killing non-Muslims, and law enforcement agencies began keeping a watch on them. From the start, the authorities were in touch with Mr. Almonte’s family.
“I had a good rapport with the father,” said Detective Anthony DiPasquale of Elmwood Park. “I acquired information and I passed it along to the F.B.I.”
In February 2007, while Mr. Alessa was a high school senior, he and Mr. Almonte traveled to Jordan; the F.B.I. says it was in the vain hope of being recruited by a militant jihadist group.
On a Facebook page started in October 2008, Mr. Almonte posted long quotations from medieval Islamic scholars and present-day radicals like Abu Qatada, considered by many countries to be a terrorist, and the jihadist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri.
Mr. Almonte was also outraged at the treatment of Muslim prisoners accused of terrorism. He posted a comment concerning Omar Khadr, a prisoner who said he was abused by American interrogators. Mr. Khadr is charged with throwing a grenade when he was 15 that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan. Mr. Almonte wrote: “We feel for our brothers unjustly locked up even afghanistan at the time didn’t pose a threat to america for them to attack them over 2 towers but the end of them will be like the end of persia, rome, n the soviet union.”
He posted a photo of himself at a Dec. 28, 2008, protest in Manhattan, holding a sign saying “DEATH TO ALL JUICE,” with the word “ZIONIST” written faintly above “JUICE.”
Mr. Almonte dismissed the religion of American Muslims, saying, “In truth, it isn’t Islam.” He showed a particular fixation on the ideas that Muslim men should be bearded, and should hold one another’s hands.
In the last two years, Mr. Alessa, too, started lecturing about God and grew a beard. A new friend, Bassem, became a frequent companion of the two men. Friends and Mr. Alessa’s parents now believe that Bassem, who offered to put the young men up at the house he said he had in Egypt, was an undercover New York police officer who is cited in the criminal complaint, and who recorded their conversations.
“He pushed them,” Mahmood Alessa said. Ms. Alessa said Bassem “wanted to be a hero, on the backs of these stupid kids.”
Recently, Mr. Alessa told his parents he planned to go to Egypt to study Arabic; he spoke the language, but did not read or write it well.
About two weeks ago, Ms. Alessa snapped a picture of her son that she keeps on her cellphone, a reminder of a serene moment in their home. It shows Mohamed lying on a floral quilt, snuggling Princess Tuna, his cat.
He wanted to take the cat with him to Egypt, but his mother said no, and they argued. When he headed to the airport, he went instead with a big bag of candy from his parents’ deli. The F.B.I. seized the candy, his mother said.
FROM: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/nyregion/12suspects.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
NORTH BERGEN, N.J. — One was a spoiled child so prone to fits of rage — fights, screamed insults, threats — that his parents began taking him to psychiatrists at age 6 and medicating him in a vain struggle to control his moods. By their count, his short fuse and incendiary tongue forced him to change schools no fewer than 10 times.
The other was arrested three times in less than four months for petty crimes, and seemed like an aimless youth — until he developed a passion for a strict version of Islam that shocked and alienated his Dominican family. Within a few years, he was posting extremist views on the Internet and assailing the United States while predicting its downfall.
Their stories began like many others: troubled teenagers who scare and mystify their neighbors; run-ins with the police while still in high school; parents who cannot compete with the sense of belonging or purpose their boys find elsewhere.
“Of course we tried everything we could,” said Nadia Alessa, mother of Mohamed M. Alessa, the one so given to angry outbursts. “We couldn’t just keep him at home.”
The next chapter in such tales often charts a descent into drugs or gangs, but Mr. Alessa, 20, and Carlos E. Almonte, 24, who both grew up in the New Jersey suburbs, apparently had other plans. They were arrested Saturday as they prepared to fly separately to Egypt — and, the authorities say, to join a militant group in Somalia and kill non-Muslims.
How they went from troublemakers to terrorism suspects may never be understood. But conversations with many people who have known them — including the first interviews given by Mr. Alessa’s parents since the arrest — make clear that both men were struggling for years, constantly at odds with authority and their immigrant parents. Law enforcement officials had been keeping tabs on them for nearly four years.
Many of their peers dismissed them as hapless blowhards, more pathetic than perilous; friends said they liked to play Ping-Pong, or go into Manhattan and hang out at a halal restaurant. Yet there they are, in transcripts of secretly recorded conversations, talking about shooting and beheading people, and sending American troops home “sliced up in 1,000 pieces.”
Mr. Alessa’s parents, Palestinian immigrants, are Muslim, but Ms. Alessa was at a loss to explain her only son’s recent transformation. She recalled asking why he was growing a beard: “He said real men grow their beards.”
‘Now Everyone Hates Us’
After years of building a life in the United States — an apartment in North Bergen, a deli in nearby Bergen County where Mr. Alessa’s father, Mahmood, is quick to extend credit to customers, who call him “Pops” — the parents now see it all endangered by a son they do not understand.
“Sixteen years we’ve lived on that street,” Ms. Alessa said. “Everyone loved us. Now everyone hates us.”
A neighbor who has known Mohamed most of his life, Wilmer Precilla, said the young man alternated between craving confrontation and acceptance, making derogatory remarks about Hispanics in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, then trying unsuccessfully to join a Dominican gang, Patria. “He was always trying to be more gangster than everyone else,” Mr. Precilla said.
Family friends watched Mohamed scream at his mother, smash up his father’s car and, in anger, knock the food off a shelf in the deli. When his shaken parents tried to take him to therapists, he screamed, “I’m not crazy.” At times he took medication for anger management, but about three years ago, his mother said, he stopped taking it and stopped seeing therapists.
Mr. Alessa’s friends, who knew his temper, told him he needed medical help — an idea he rejected. His parents gave him the latest clothes and cellphones, friends and neighbors recalled. One said he acted like a typical “American rich kid,” even though his parents were not wealthy.
“He was a spoiled kid,” Ms. Alessa conceded. “He acted like a teenager. He thought he was a king.”
She said Mohamed attended the local public elementary school, two Catholic grade schools, a boarding school in Connecticut, a school for troubled youth, three Muslim schools and two public high schools, repeatedly getting into trouble for fighting or mouthing off.
At the two public high schools, North Bergen and KAS Prep, Mr. Alessa made an escalating series of threats against students and staff members through 2005 and 2006, saying that he would blow up the school, mutilate gays and punish women who were not subordinate to men, according to officials granted anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Both schools alerted the Department of Homeland Security.
As a 10th grader at North Bergen High, he had to receive his lessons at a local public library under the eye of a security guard, said Paul Swibinski, a school spokesman, because “administrators felt that his presence in school posed a safety threat to other students and staff.”
In those years, neighbors say, the police were called to the Alessa home several times. The North Bergen police declined to give details, noting that juvenile records were not public, but Lt. Frank Cannella said: “He was known to us, I can tell you that much.”
The Suspects Meet
Around 2005, when he was 14 or 15, Mr. Alessa met Mr. Almonte, who lived in Elmwood Park, but was spending much of his time in North Bergen, 10 miles away. The two hung out with a group of young men who called themselves the PLO. Mr. Alessa was not particularly religious then, but Mr. Almonte, a recent convert to Islam, was becoming more so.
Growing up, Carlos Almonte had a less turbulent childhood. But by the time he was 18, he, too, was running afoul of the law.
In May 2004, with a month left in his senior year at Elmwood Park Memorial High School, Mr. Almonte, a naturalized citizen, was arrested for taking a knife to campus. That August, he was arrested for punching a youth in the parking lot of a supermarket. Two weeks later, he was caught drinking beer in a park.
It was around then, family friends say, that Mr. Almonte turned to Islam. He told Priscilla Caicedo, a young woman he met last year, that his interest began when he heard someone preaching at the Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus. He visited mosques in Paterson and Union City, and called himself Omar.
Mr. Almonte’s conversion, his compulsion to proselytize, and his friendship with Mr. Alessa all alienated his family, though he continued to live with them. The friction culminated in their living room on May 23, 2009, when, according to a police report, Mr. Almonte began preaching about Islam to his younger brother, Elvin, who demurred, and “Carlos became angry and they both began fighting.”
Their mother tried to separate them and Elvin bit her arm, thinking it was his brother’s. Carlos then struck Elvin in the back of the head with a picture frame.
One young man who befriended both suspects said that Mr. Almonte was more easygoing and supportive than Mr. Alessa, and that he liked to read and use computers. Another friend, Martin Robert, said that sometimes while playing Ping-Pong and basketball, Mr. Almonte would try to turn the conversation to Islam but would not insist. “He seemed like a nice, peaceful guy,” Mr. Robert said.
Another student who knew them casually, Mostafa Higazi, said the pair were “very oriented to politics.” He called Mr. Alessa “really a talker, just bragging,” while Mr. Almonte was quiet. He said that he did not recall specific things Mr. Alessa said, but that none of it resembled the bloody talk in the criminal complaint.
Ms. Caicedo met Mr. Almonte more than a year ago when she took her computer for repairs to a store where he worked near his home. Even in the store, she recalled, he began proselytizing, and gave her a book on Islam, which she said she never read.
They talked and traded instant messages, and went out once, as friends, last December. He took her to a Spanish-language service at a mosque in Union City and then to dinner at T.G.I. Friday’s. Quiet and serious, he told her he wanted to find a wife who knew that her role was to stay home to cook and clean. “He was like one of those men that had to be the dominant one,” she said.
Recently, Ms. Caicedo said, he told her he was moving to North Carolina, and arranged for her to get his job at the computer store. Hours before he was arrested at Kennedy Airport, they were at the store, Mr. Almonte training her.
But others saw a darker side to the suspects and their friendship. In October 2006, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received a tip that Mr. Alessa and Mr. Almonte talked about holy war and killing non-Muslims, and law enforcement agencies began keeping a watch on them. From the start, the authorities were in touch with Mr. Almonte’s family.
“I had a good rapport with the father,” said Detective Anthony DiPasquale of Elmwood Park. “I acquired information and I passed it along to the F.B.I.”
In February 2007, while Mr. Alessa was a high school senior, he and Mr. Almonte traveled to Jordan; the F.B.I. says it was in the vain hope of being recruited by a militant jihadist group.
On a Facebook page started in October 2008, Mr. Almonte posted long quotations from medieval Islamic scholars and present-day radicals like Abu Qatada, considered by many countries to be a terrorist, and the jihadist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri.
Mr. Almonte was also outraged at the treatment of Muslim prisoners accused of terrorism. He posted a comment concerning Omar Khadr, a prisoner who said he was abused by American interrogators. Mr. Khadr is charged with throwing a grenade when he was 15 that killed an American soldier in Afghanistan. Mr. Almonte wrote: “We feel for our brothers unjustly locked up even afghanistan at the time didn’t pose a threat to america for them to attack them over 2 towers but the end of them will be like the end of persia, rome, n the soviet union.”
He posted a photo of himself at a Dec. 28, 2008, protest in Manhattan, holding a sign saying “DEATH TO ALL JUICE,” with the word “ZIONIST” written faintly above “JUICE.”
Mr. Almonte dismissed the religion of American Muslims, saying, “In truth, it isn’t Islam.” He showed a particular fixation on the ideas that Muslim men should be bearded, and should hold one another’s hands.
In the last two years, Mr. Alessa, too, started lecturing about God and grew a beard. A new friend, Bassem, became a frequent companion of the two men. Friends and Mr. Alessa’s parents now believe that Bassem, who offered to put the young men up at the house he said he had in Egypt, was an undercover New York police officer who is cited in the criminal complaint, and who recorded their conversations.
“He pushed them,” Mahmood Alessa said. Ms. Alessa said Bassem “wanted to be a hero, on the backs of these stupid kids.”
Recently, Mr. Alessa told his parents he planned to go to Egypt to study Arabic; he spoke the language, but did not read or write it well.
About two weeks ago, Ms. Alessa snapped a picture of her son that she keeps on her cellphone, a reminder of a serene moment in their home. It shows Mohamed lying on a floral quilt, snuggling Princess Tuna, his cat.
He wanted to take the cat with him to Egypt, but his mother said no, and they argued. When he headed to the airport, he went instead with a big bag of candy from his parents’ deli. The F.B.I. seized the candy, his mother said.
Monday, June 7, 2010
G20 SUMMIT FEAR FACTOR & THE TORONTO 18
*** Actually, the CN tower was never mentioned as a target but was assumed so by the media and has found its way into the popular discourse. A good point though about the reality of homegrown terrorism and domestic security costs. MS ***
FROM: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/06/04/14268601.html
From the outside looking in, the world view is Toronto is the perfect setting for this month’s G20 summit, while the higher-end G8 attempts to get a peek at Muskoka’s beauty from behind a ribbon of sky-high security fences.
Toronto, after all, likes to tout its image as the world’s most multicultural city, a racially-tolerant and vibrant cultural mosaic teeming with diversity and brimming with hope.
And rightly so.
But it also has an underbelly.
And therein lies the problem.
While it will take a post-mortem examination to determine whether the much-criticized $1 billion being spent on security is an outrageous amount of money, there are factors in a city like Toronto that make it a veritable safe house for potential terrorists.
Because of the racial diversity of the city, and the mass of its humanity, no one truly sticks out in the crowd.
No one gets noticed in its kaleidoscopic cityscape until something goes awry.
Anonymity is almost guaranteed.
Let’s not forget, for example, that up until the summer of 2006, no one had ever heard of the Toronto 18, a terror cell that plotted to attack Parliament and downtown Toronto landmarks, lop the head off the prime minister, explode truck bombs near the CN Tower — ground zero for the G20 — and take out the Toronto Stock Exchange and a nuclear plant east of the city.
Two weeks ago, following the lead of some of his followers, the kingpin of the Toronto 18, 25-year-old Fahim Ahmad, suddenly pleaded guilty to terrorism charges midway through his trial.
So the plot was real, not imagined.
And these were predominately home-grown terrorists — not like the hijackers who brought the horrors of 9/11, not like the potential terrorists who might see our porous border and the G8 and the G20 summits as a world-stage opportunity, and not like the masked anarchists who will flock from beyond on their predictable missions of havoc.
The reality is that these terrorists were hiding in the underbelly of a city not known for violent demonstrations or racial intolerance — all going unnoticed until something went awry.
So, will a billion dollars in summit security be too much?
We can only hope.
FROM: http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/06/04/14268601.html
From the outside looking in, the world view is Toronto is the perfect setting for this month’s G20 summit, while the higher-end G8 attempts to get a peek at Muskoka’s beauty from behind a ribbon of sky-high security fences.
Toronto, after all, likes to tout its image as the world’s most multicultural city, a racially-tolerant and vibrant cultural mosaic teeming with diversity and brimming with hope.
And rightly so.
But it also has an underbelly.
And therein lies the problem.
While it will take a post-mortem examination to determine whether the much-criticized $1 billion being spent on security is an outrageous amount of money, there are factors in a city like Toronto that make it a veritable safe house for potential terrorists.
Because of the racial diversity of the city, and the mass of its humanity, no one truly sticks out in the crowd.
No one gets noticed in its kaleidoscopic cityscape until something goes awry.
Anonymity is almost guaranteed.
Let’s not forget, for example, that up until the summer of 2006, no one had ever heard of the Toronto 18, a terror cell that plotted to attack Parliament and downtown Toronto landmarks, lop the head off the prime minister, explode truck bombs near the CN Tower — ground zero for the G20 — and take out the Toronto Stock Exchange and a nuclear plant east of the city.
Two weeks ago, following the lead of some of his followers, the kingpin of the Toronto 18, 25-year-old Fahim Ahmad, suddenly pleaded guilty to terrorism charges midway through his trial.
So the plot was real, not imagined.
And these were predominately home-grown terrorists — not like the hijackers who brought the horrors of 9/11, not like the potential terrorists who might see our porous border and the G8 and the G20 summits as a world-stage opportunity, and not like the masked anarchists who will flock from beyond on their predictable missions of havoc.
The reality is that these terrorists were hiding in the underbelly of a city not known for violent demonstrations or racial intolerance — all going unnoticed until something went awry.
So, will a billion dollars in summit security be too much?
We can only hope.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
TORONTO 18 SCARED OF WEAPONS
FROM: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=3070749
The Crown launched a multi-pronged assault yesterday on the credibility of Asad Ansari, one of the final two accused in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case.
Mr. Ansari, who has denied any role in the 2006 bomb plot and professed to be "scared of weapons," could not explain why police found a cache of files on a CD in his bedroom containing images of violent jihad.
"I can't answer the why," Mr. Ansari said during his cross-examination. "I can only say that I have these images."
The files include photographs of Osama bin Laden and masked militants hoisting AK-47s. In a number of shots, bearded men pose with rocket launchers; others feature a variety of guns and swords.
Mr. Ansari agreed the images glorified the concept of armed mujahideen, but said his aversion to firearms only applied "in real life."
Mr. Ansari, 25, is on trial for participating in a terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006. He admits to attending a winter camping trip organized by "Toronto 18" ringleader Fahim Ahmad, but denies he had any knowledge at the time that the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground.
Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges this month.
In general, Crown attorney Jason Wakely contended, "[Ahmad] was very open about his plans to attack."
"I guess, sure," Mr. Ansari replied. Yet he maintained Ahmad concealed those plans from him specifically, with discussions on topics such as jihad occurring only in the "theoretical" realm.
The jury has seen a video of the winter camp in Washago, Ont., filmed by Zakaria Amara, who was also charged in the terror plot. In the footage, masked men are seen running through the forest, hoisting a black flag and shooting guns, with Arabic chanting overlaid as a sound-track. Mr. Ansari says he was not present during the filming of any of the violent scenes. "Everything seemed benign and innocuous," he said of the camp.
Mr. Ansari has testified that Amara brought him the camp footage after the event had ended and asked for assistance in converting it to a digital format. This was incriminating evidence, Mr. Wakely pointed out, and "Amara trusted you with that."
"That's correct," the accused testified. Yet he says he never watched any of the footage while he was converting it, simply setting up the conversion process and then leaving the room to do other tasks. The Crown suggested this was false.
"The natural thing to do is to watch it," Mr. Wakely said, noting Mr. Ansari, who was out of school and not working, had little else to focus on at the time.
"I did not [watch]," Mr. Ansari asserted. While he agreed in retrospect it would have
made sense to view the camp video, "it was only happenstance" that he failed to do so.
The Crown also pointed to an intercepted telephone call in which Mr. Ansari speaks to Ahmad about malicious software found on Ahmad's computer.
"You were deliberately cryptic and guarded in this conversation," Mr. Wakely said, alleging Mr. Ansari was aware all the while that Ahmad was the subject of police surveillance, including a wiretap.
"No I did not," Mr. Ansari said. He says he was non-specific in discussing the malicious software because Ahmad "is an idiot when it comes to computers."
At one point in the conversation, Mr. Ansari alerts Ahmad to a program that is sending information out of his computer. "I can guess [where]," Ahmad says. Mr. Ansari, however, fails to follow up with the "obvious question" of where, Mr. Wakely noted.
Mr. Ansari, a self-described computer whiz, said he was not particularly interested in the "amateurish" program, adding it never occurred to him that it was installed by a law-enforcement agency.
The trial resumes today.
The Crown launched a multi-pronged assault yesterday on the credibility of Asad Ansari, one of the final two accused in the "Toronto 18" terrorism case.
Mr. Ansari, who has denied any role in the 2006 bomb plot and professed to be "scared of weapons," could not explain why police found a cache of files on a CD in his bedroom containing images of violent jihad.
"I can't answer the why," Mr. Ansari said during his cross-examination. "I can only say that I have these images."
The files include photographs of Osama bin Laden and masked militants hoisting AK-47s. In a number of shots, bearded men pose with rocket launchers; others feature a variety of guns and swords.
Mr. Ansari agreed the images glorified the concept of armed mujahideen, but said his aversion to firearms only applied "in real life."
Mr. Ansari, 25, is on trial for participating in a terrorist group that allegedly operated between 2005 and 2006. He admits to attending a winter camping trip organized by "Toronto 18" ringleader Fahim Ahmad, but denies he had any knowledge at the time that the camp was intended as a terrorist training ground.
Ahmad pleaded guilty to terrorism charges this month.
In general, Crown attorney Jason Wakely contended, "[Ahmad] was very open about his plans to attack."
"I guess, sure," Mr. Ansari replied. Yet he maintained Ahmad concealed those plans from him specifically, with discussions on topics such as jihad occurring only in the "theoretical" realm.
The jury has seen a video of the winter camp in Washago, Ont., filmed by Zakaria Amara, who was also charged in the terror plot. In the footage, masked men are seen running through the forest, hoisting a black flag and shooting guns, with Arabic chanting overlaid as a sound-track. Mr. Ansari says he was not present during the filming of any of the violent scenes. "Everything seemed benign and innocuous," he said of the camp.
Mr. Ansari has testified that Amara brought him the camp footage after the event had ended and asked for assistance in converting it to a digital format. This was incriminating evidence, Mr. Wakely pointed out, and "Amara trusted you with that."
"That's correct," the accused testified. Yet he says he never watched any of the footage while he was converting it, simply setting up the conversion process and then leaving the room to do other tasks. The Crown suggested this was false.
"The natural thing to do is to watch it," Mr. Wakely said, noting Mr. Ansari, who was out of school and not working, had little else to focus on at the time.
"I did not [watch]," Mr. Ansari asserted. While he agreed in retrospect it would have
made sense to view the camp video, "it was only happenstance" that he failed to do so.
The Crown also pointed to an intercepted telephone call in which Mr. Ansari speaks to Ahmad about malicious software found on Ahmad's computer.
"You were deliberately cryptic and guarded in this conversation," Mr. Wakely said, alleging Mr. Ansari was aware all the while that Ahmad was the subject of police surveillance, including a wiretap.
"No I did not," Mr. Ansari said. He says he was non-specific in discussing the malicious software because Ahmad "is an idiot when it comes to computers."
At one point in the conversation, Mr. Ansari alerts Ahmad to a program that is sending information out of his computer. "I can guess [where]," Ahmad says. Mr. Ansari, however, fails to follow up with the "obvious question" of where, Mr. Wakely noted.
Mr. Ansari, a self-described computer whiz, said he was not particularly interested in the "amateurish" program, adding it never occurred to him that it was installed by a law-enforcement agency.
The trial resumes today.
Monday, May 24, 2010
PAK STUDENT ADNAN BABAR MIRZA & THE BATTLESPACE
*** In this war - it seems all venues are battlespace. I note though this is a common defense in cases like this. Lawmakers need to work this out properly. MS ***
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100524/world/us_terror_charges
HOUSTON - A Pakistani student accused of conspiring to aid the Taliban and undergoing training to fight U.S. troops never intended to commit "battlefield Jihad" or help a terrorist group, his attorney told jurors Monday.
But a prosecutor said during opening statements in the trial of Adnan Babar Mirza that the student collected money for the Taliban and went through weapons training so he could fight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Mirza, 33, was one of four men arrested in 2006, accused by authorities of taking part in paramilitary training exercises at camp sites around the Houston area so they could engage in a holy war. He was indicted on nine counts, including conspiracy to help the Taliban and federal charges related to being an illegal immigrant in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors said Mirza was in the country illegally because he violated his student visa by working.
If convicted, Mirza faces up to 10 years in prison. His trial was to continue through the rest of this week.
Prosecutor Jim McAlister told jurors authorities learned about what Mirza and the other men were doing when one of their friends, James Coates, decided "things were getting out of hand" and became an FBI informant.
"They were training to go overseas and fight in Afghanistan and not for the Americans," McAlister said.
David Adler, Mirza's attorney, denied his client violated his student visa by working and portrayed Mirza as a caring person who collected food for Houston's homeless and promoted Islam and Muslim culture by working with Houston police and through a public access television program.
Adler told jurors Mirza went on camping trips but denied they involved paramilitary training exercises. He accused Coates of being the one who was militant and promoted violence.
An undercover officer taped conversations with Mirza and the other men in which they allegedly talked about ambushing U.S. soldiers and triggering a bomb with a cellphone, according to court documents.
FBI Special Agent John McKinley, the prosecution's first witness, told jurors Mirza can be heard on the taped conversations talking about sending money to support Taliban families. Prosecutors have said Mirza collected about $900 for Taliban fighters and their families.
But Adler said it's not against the law to send money to the families of Taliban fighters and Mirza collected money for hospitals and other groups but not specifically for the Taliban.
He also said Mirza can be heard in these taped conversations expressing anger about injustices Muslims around the world have experienced, but his client was just expressing emotion and didn't intend to act on it.
The three other men who were arrested have pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Kobie Diallo Williams, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced in August to 4 1/2 years in prison for conspiring to join the Taliban and fight against U.S. forces.
Syed Maaz Shah, a former Pakistani engineering student at the University of Texas at Dallas, was sentenced in 2007 to 6 1/2 years in prison on federal firearms charges. Shiraz Syed Qazi, also a Pakistani student and Mirza's cousin, received a 10-month prison sentence in 2007 on a firearms charge.
FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100524/world/us_terror_charges
HOUSTON - A Pakistani student accused of conspiring to aid the Taliban and undergoing training to fight U.S. troops never intended to commit "battlefield Jihad" or help a terrorist group, his attorney told jurors Monday.
But a prosecutor said during opening statements in the trial of Adnan Babar Mirza that the student collected money for the Taliban and went through weapons training so he could fight U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Mirza, 33, was one of four men arrested in 2006, accused by authorities of taking part in paramilitary training exercises at camp sites around the Houston area so they could engage in a holy war. He was indicted on nine counts, including conspiracy to help the Taliban and federal charges related to being an illegal immigrant in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors said Mirza was in the country illegally because he violated his student visa by working.
If convicted, Mirza faces up to 10 years in prison. His trial was to continue through the rest of this week.
Prosecutor Jim McAlister told jurors authorities learned about what Mirza and the other men were doing when one of their friends, James Coates, decided "things were getting out of hand" and became an FBI informant.
"They were training to go overseas and fight in Afghanistan and not for the Americans," McAlister said.
David Adler, Mirza's attorney, denied his client violated his student visa by working and portrayed Mirza as a caring person who collected food for Houston's homeless and promoted Islam and Muslim culture by working with Houston police and through a public access television program.
Adler told jurors Mirza went on camping trips but denied they involved paramilitary training exercises. He accused Coates of being the one who was militant and promoted violence.
An undercover officer taped conversations with Mirza and the other men in which they allegedly talked about ambushing U.S. soldiers and triggering a bomb with a cellphone, according to court documents.
FBI Special Agent John McKinley, the prosecution's first witness, told jurors Mirza can be heard on the taped conversations talking about sending money to support Taliban families. Prosecutors have said Mirza collected about $900 for Taliban fighters and their families.
But Adler said it's not against the law to send money to the families of Taliban fighters and Mirza collected money for hospitals and other groups but not specifically for the Taliban.
He also said Mirza can be heard in these taped conversations expressing anger about injustices Muslims around the world have experienced, but his client was just expressing emotion and didn't intend to act on it.
The three other men who were arrested have pleaded guilty or been convicted.
Kobie Diallo Williams, a U.S. citizen, was sentenced in August to 4 1/2 years in prison for conspiring to join the Taliban and fight against U.S. forces.
Syed Maaz Shah, a former Pakistani engineering student at the University of Texas at Dallas, was sentenced in 2007 to 6 1/2 years in prison on federal firearms charges. Shiraz Syed Qazi, also a Pakistani student and Mirza's cousin, received a 10-month prison sentence in 2007 on a firearms charge.
Friday, May 21, 2010
AMERICAN HOMEGROWN TERRORISM
*** Something is just not working: first it was brown bearded types - so they lost their beards. Then it was just the brown types - so they got white guys (some with beards some without). Then it was women - white women. Now do you still think grandma cannot be the next terrorist? Think again. They will adapt and devise new tactics, new strategies. COUNTER tactics, folks, COUNTER strategies. MS ***
FROM: http://www.newsweek.com/id/238296?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newsweek%2FTopNews+%28UPDATED+-+Newsweek+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
In the years following the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials were focused primarily on tracking down terrorists abroad. But in recent years their targets have been increasingly closer to home. At least 25 American citizens—both born and naturalized—have been charged with serious federal terrorism violations since the beginning of 2009, according to information compiled by federal authorities.
The list of 25 U.S. citizens who have been charged with such offenses in the last 18 months was compiled and provided to NEWSWEEK by a U.S. law-enforcement official, who requested not to be identified because it is not an official government publication and is not meant to be exhaustive. "These cases clearly suggest that an increasing number of U.S. citizens, both native-born Americans and naturalized citizens, appear to be getting involved in the terrorist cause. It's not an encouraging trend," said a Justice Department official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.
The official who provided the recent information said he did not have such statistics broken down by citizenship for terrorism prosecutions during the George W. Bush administration, and a search of government and academic sources did not turn up comparable figures. By one comparison, in the 18 months before Barack Obama took office, the Department of Justice prosecuted 35 terrorism cases against all suspects—both American citizens and foreign nationals—according to DOJ information released to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (PDF).
Earlier this year the Justice Department published a comprehensive listing (PDF) of more than 400 federal-court convictions on terror charges since September 11, 2001, but it did not provide the citizenship of the defendants. Over the years the Justice Department has also issued periodic summaries of terror prosecutions, such as this one and this one, which do mention earlier, well-known cases involving U.S. citizens, including those of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six" (a group of men from the Buffalo, N.Y., area who were arrested in 2002 for training at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan before 9/11), and a Virginia imam convicted in 2005 for encouraging others to go to Pakistan for jihadist training. But at the time these cases surfaced, they appeared relatively isolated and not part of the kind of extended pattern that the latest statistics appear to show.
Counterterrorism experts from the Bush era say that the new cases represent an increased involvement by Americans in militant jihadism that began before Obama took office but has accelerated since then. The experts attribute the alarming trend both to increasing alienation among young American Muslims and to more effective enforcement and intelligence collection activities by the FBI and other U.S. government agencies.
To be sure, there are many different kinds of people, motivations, and actions represented on this list, and not every example can be attributed solely to radicalization of American Muslims. Also, the criminal cases are all at various stages, with some having pleaded not guilty. Marc Sageman, an independent terrorism expert who worked for the CIA during the 1980s, notes that some of the recent cases on the list—such as the Newburgh, N.Y., plot and the case of the man who wanted to bomb an Illinois courthouse—are less significant than others because they were the products of FBI "sting" operations and thus constitute what Sageman considers to be "entrapment," meaning a heavy government role in luring the suspects into what they thought was jihad. Also, said Sageman, a North Carolina case whose defendants are included on the list mainly involved plans to get involved in jihadist fighting overseas, not inside the U.S.
Still, the increase is troubling. The official who provided the list of 25 charged Americans emphasized that it was not necessarily comprehensive and features mainly high-profile cases involving serious charges. The list includes:
*Faisal Shahzad, the accused perpetrator of the recent failed Times Square car bombing.
*David Headley, a Chicago man who pleaded guilty to charges that included helping a Pakistan-based terror group gather intelligence for November 2008 terror attacks against commercial targets in Mumbai.
*Two American women, known as "Jihad Jane" and "Jihad Jamie," who are facing charges in Philadelphia for their roles in an alleged Internet-based conspiracy to attack a Swedish artist who drew a cartoon lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
Also on the list are Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, naturalized Americans born in Afghanistan and Bosnia, respectively, who allegedly conspired with Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born permanent resident of the U.S. in a plot to bomb the New York City subway system last September. Zazi, the alleged mastermind, is not listed as one of the 25 American citizens arrested for terrorism in the last 18 months. (Zazi and Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty in the subway bombing plot; charges against Medunjanin are still pending).
The 25 U.S. citizens on the list may be only a cross-section of a larger problem, however, officials say. The "Northern Virginia Five," a group of Americans who are currently being detained by authorities in Pakistan, are not on the list, nor is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychologist accused—in the U.S. military-justice system—of killing 13 fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, last November.
The official who provided the list noted that it does not include any of the estimated 20 Americans or U.S. residents who are alleged or reported to have traveled to Somalia to join Al Qaeda affiliates or other jihadist factions operating there. Also not on the list are a number of Americans who are believed to have gone to Yemen in recent years for suspected jihadist training. Most estimates by law-enforcement and intelligence officials put the number of Americans who may now be undergoing such training in Yemen at about a dozen, though this report (PDF) issued in January by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee suggested that "36 American ex-convicts arrived in Yemen in the past year, ostensibly to study Arabic"—a figure that other U.S. officials suggest is an overestimate.
Frances Fragos Townsend, White House counterterrorism adviser in the George W. Bush administration, says her recollection is that the involvement of American citizens or residents in terror plots actually began to grow while she still worked in government, with cases like that of the mainly Balkan expatriates (some of whom were illegal aliens) from Philadelphia's New Jersey suburbs who plotted to shoot up soldiers at the Fort Dix Army training base, and a 2007 domestically hatched plot (with alleged connections to Trinidad and possibly Iran) to blow up fuel lines leading to New York’s JFK airport. She says the raw statistics charting American citizens' involvement in serious terror plots is not just a "sudden spike" but rather a trend that has been tilting "precipitously up" for the last few years.
Sageman says there is still evidence of what he describes as a "very serious uptick" in American citizens' interest and involvement in jihadist activities in recent years. He attributes this alarming trend to three factors. First, he says, now that memories of 9/11 have faded, American Muslims are feeling more alarmed by growing manifestations of Islamophobia among non–Muslim Americans, and this is frightening and alienating Muslim-American youth. Second, Sageman agrees that a very important factor in drawing Americans into jihad is the increasing availability of radical Islamic messages in English on the Internet, particularly from Anwar al-Awlaki, a fiery imam associated with Hasan and Christmas Day "underpants bomber" Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Abdullah al-Faisal, a deeply anti-Western and anti-Semitic Jamaican-born imam who was imprisoned for a time in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Before 2005, Sageman says, the main jihadist messages were available on the Web only in Arabic, but since that time, English-language militant Web sites, carrying messages from religiously credentialed figures like Awlaki, have proliferated.
Finally, Sageman says, some disillusioned young people have found themselves turning to violence when other, less violent forms of countercultural protest have proved ineffective. But as their estrangement from organized protest movements becomes deeper, Sageman says, such angry young people tend to withdraw into themselves or into very small groups, and pursue simple plots, rather than complex schemes like the 9/11 attacks. Eventually, Sageman hopes, unless the U.S. creates new grievances in the Muslim world through unwise foreign-policy moves, this proliferating but fragmented domestic jihadist trend might well burn itself out.
FROM: http://www.newsweek.com/id/238296?from=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+newsweek%2FTopNews+%28UPDATED+-+Newsweek+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
In the years following the September 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials were focused primarily on tracking down terrorists abroad. But in recent years their targets have been increasingly closer to home. At least 25 American citizens—both born and naturalized—have been charged with serious federal terrorism violations since the beginning of 2009, according to information compiled by federal authorities.
The list of 25 U.S. citizens who have been charged with such offenses in the last 18 months was compiled and provided to NEWSWEEK by a U.S. law-enforcement official, who requested not to be identified because it is not an official government publication and is not meant to be exhaustive. "These cases clearly suggest that an increasing number of U.S. citizens, both native-born Americans and naturalized citizens, appear to be getting involved in the terrorist cause. It's not an encouraging trend," said a Justice Department official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.
The official who provided the recent information said he did not have such statistics broken down by citizenship for terrorism prosecutions during the George W. Bush administration, and a search of government and academic sources did not turn up comparable figures. By one comparison, in the 18 months before Barack Obama took office, the Department of Justice prosecuted 35 terrorism cases against all suspects—both American citizens and foreign nationals—according to DOJ information released to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University (PDF).
Earlier this year the Justice Department published a comprehensive listing (PDF) of more than 400 federal-court convictions on terror charges since September 11, 2001, but it did not provide the citizenship of the defendants. Over the years the Justice Department has also issued periodic summaries of terror prosecutions, such as this one and this one, which do mention earlier, well-known cases involving U.S. citizens, including those of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six" (a group of men from the Buffalo, N.Y., area who were arrested in 2002 for training at a Qaeda camp in Afghanistan before 9/11), and a Virginia imam convicted in 2005 for encouraging others to go to Pakistan for jihadist training. But at the time these cases surfaced, they appeared relatively isolated and not part of the kind of extended pattern that the latest statistics appear to show.
Counterterrorism experts from the Bush era say that the new cases represent an increased involvement by Americans in militant jihadism that began before Obama took office but has accelerated since then. The experts attribute the alarming trend both to increasing alienation among young American Muslims and to more effective enforcement and intelligence collection activities by the FBI and other U.S. government agencies.
To be sure, there are many different kinds of people, motivations, and actions represented on this list, and not every example can be attributed solely to radicalization of American Muslims. Also, the criminal cases are all at various stages, with some having pleaded not guilty. Marc Sageman, an independent terrorism expert who worked for the CIA during the 1980s, notes that some of the recent cases on the list—such as the Newburgh, N.Y., plot and the case of the man who wanted to bomb an Illinois courthouse—are less significant than others because they were the products of FBI "sting" operations and thus constitute what Sageman considers to be "entrapment," meaning a heavy government role in luring the suspects into what they thought was jihad. Also, said Sageman, a North Carolina case whose defendants are included on the list mainly involved plans to get involved in jihadist fighting overseas, not inside the U.S.
Still, the increase is troubling. The official who provided the list of 25 charged Americans emphasized that it was not necessarily comprehensive and features mainly high-profile cases involving serious charges. The list includes:
*Faisal Shahzad, the accused perpetrator of the recent failed Times Square car bombing.
*David Headley, a Chicago man who pleaded guilty to charges that included helping a Pakistan-based terror group gather intelligence for November 2008 terror attacks against commercial targets in Mumbai.
*Two American women, known as "Jihad Jane" and "Jihad Jamie," who are facing charges in Philadelphia for their roles in an alleged Internet-based conspiracy to attack a Swedish artist who drew a cartoon lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
Also on the list are Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, naturalized Americans born in Afghanistan and Bosnia, respectively, who allegedly conspired with Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born permanent resident of the U.S. in a plot to bomb the New York City subway system last September. Zazi, the alleged mastermind, is not listed as one of the 25 American citizens arrested for terrorism in the last 18 months. (Zazi and Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty in the subway bombing plot; charges against Medunjanin are still pending).
The 25 U.S. citizens on the list may be only a cross-section of a larger problem, however, officials say. The "Northern Virginia Five," a group of Americans who are currently being detained by authorities in Pakistan, are not on the list, nor is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychologist accused—in the U.S. military-justice system—of killing 13 fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, last November.
The official who provided the list noted that it does not include any of the estimated 20 Americans or U.S. residents who are alleged or reported to have traveled to Somalia to join Al Qaeda affiliates or other jihadist factions operating there. Also not on the list are a number of Americans who are believed to have gone to Yemen in recent years for suspected jihadist training. Most estimates by law-enforcement and intelligence officials put the number of Americans who may now be undergoing such training in Yemen at about a dozen, though this report (PDF) issued in January by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee suggested that "36 American ex-convicts arrived in Yemen in the past year, ostensibly to study Arabic"—a figure that other U.S. officials suggest is an overestimate.
Frances Fragos Townsend, White House counterterrorism adviser in the George W. Bush administration, says her recollection is that the involvement of American citizens or residents in terror plots actually began to grow while she still worked in government, with cases like that of the mainly Balkan expatriates (some of whom were illegal aliens) from Philadelphia's New Jersey suburbs who plotted to shoot up soldiers at the Fort Dix Army training base, and a 2007 domestically hatched plot (with alleged connections to Trinidad and possibly Iran) to blow up fuel lines leading to New York’s JFK airport. She says the raw statistics charting American citizens' involvement in serious terror plots is not just a "sudden spike" but rather a trend that has been tilting "precipitously up" for the last few years.
Sageman says there is still evidence of what he describes as a "very serious uptick" in American citizens' interest and involvement in jihadist activities in recent years. He attributes this alarming trend to three factors. First, he says, now that memories of 9/11 have faded, American Muslims are feeling more alarmed by growing manifestations of Islamophobia among non–Muslim Americans, and this is frightening and alienating Muslim-American youth. Second, Sageman agrees that a very important factor in drawing Americans into jihad is the increasing availability of radical Islamic messages in English on the Internet, particularly from Anwar al-Awlaki, a fiery imam associated with Hasan and Christmas Day "underpants bomber" Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Abdullah al-Faisal, a deeply anti-Western and anti-Semitic Jamaican-born imam who was imprisoned for a time in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Before 2005, Sageman says, the main jihadist messages were available on the Web only in Arabic, but since that time, English-language militant Web sites, carrying messages from religiously credentialed figures like Awlaki, have proliferated.
Finally, Sageman says, some disillusioned young people have found themselves turning to violence when other, less violent forms of countercultural protest have proved ineffective. But as their estrangement from organized protest movements becomes deeper, Sageman says, such angry young people tend to withdraw into themselves or into very small groups, and pursue simple plots, rather than complex schemes like the 9/11 attacks. Eventually, Sageman hopes, unless the U.S. creates new grievances in the Muslim world through unwise foreign-policy moves, this proliferating but fragmented domestic jihadist trend might well burn itself out.
CONFRONTING A RESILIENT AL QAEDA
*** Back to that Westphalian frame of reference, which resorts to conventional state vs. state responses. You are not against a state, or a political group - you are fighting an ideology and that cannot be defeated by bombs and guns but by a counter ideology. You cannot arrest them away - even more will pop up in their place. You cannot demonize the whole of Islam - it will only push people to it (counter culture syndrome). MS ***
FROM: http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/05/confronting_a_resilient_al-qae.php
By Matthew Levitt
In the latest lecture in The Washington Institute's counterterrorism lecture series, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, spoke on "Confronting a Resilient al-Qaeda: The U.S. Strategic Response."
Ambassador Benjamin described the evolving threat and increasing resilience of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, which have been brought into stark relief by a number of recent events, including the attempted car bombing in Times Square and the December 2009 airline bomb plot. His talk focused on ways the U.S. government is refining its existing strategy to counter this evolution in dynamic threats.
The full text of his talk, and an audio link as well, can be found at:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=528
FROM: http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/05/confronting_a_resilient_al-qae.php
By Matthew Levitt
In the latest lecture in The Washington Institute's counterterrorism lecture series, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, spoke on "Confronting a Resilient al-Qaeda: The U.S. Strategic Response."
Ambassador Benjamin described the evolving threat and increasing resilience of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, which have been brought into stark relief by a number of recent events, including the attempted car bombing in Times Square and the December 2009 airline bomb plot. His talk focused on ways the U.S. government is refining its existing strategy to counter this evolution in dynamic threats.
The full text of his talk, and an audio link as well, can be found at:
http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC07.php?CID=528
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
TIME SQUARE BOMB - MUSLIM ALERTS POLICE
*** That's right folks. Of the 3 vendors directly responsible for seeing the suspicious vehicle, is a MUSLIM. MS ***
FROM: http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/05/man-who-alerted-police-to-times-square-bombing-is-muslim/
Aliou Niasse, a street vendor selling framed photographs of New York, said that he was the first to spot the car containing the bomb, which pulled up right in front of his cart on the corner of 45th street and Broadway next to the Marriott hotel.
“I didn’t see the car pull up or notice the driver because I was busy with customers. But when I looked up I saw that smoke appeared to be coming from the car. This would have been around 6.30pm.”
“I thought I should call 911, but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him. He said we shouldn’t call 911. Immediately he alerted a police officer near by,” said Mr Niasse, who is originally from Senegal and who has been a vendor in Times Square for about eight years.
FROM: http://www.loonwatch.com/2010/05/man-who-alerted-police-to-times-square-bombing-is-muslim/
Aliou Niasse, a street vendor selling framed photographs of New York, said that he was the first to spot the car containing the bomb, which pulled up right in front of his cart on the corner of 45th street and Broadway next to the Marriott hotel.
“I didn’t see the car pull up or notice the driver because I was busy with customers. But when I looked up I saw that smoke appeared to be coming from the car. This would have been around 6.30pm.”
“I thought I should call 911, but my English is not very good and I had no credit left on my phone, so I walked over to Lance, who has the T-shirt stall next to mine, and told him. He said we shouldn’t call 911. Immediately he alerted a police officer near by,” said Mr Niasse, who is originally from Senegal and who has been a vendor in Times Square for about eight years.
Monday, May 17, 2010
ACTIVATING COUNTER TERRORISM FATWA
*** Fact is, we need our own local scholars to issue similar fatwa's and many already have but it is just not enough. A counter narrative is desperately needed. MS ***
FROM: http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=20980
"Targeting public resources, corruption, hijacking planes, and blowing up buildings." This is the most important line in the historical fatwa that was issued last month by the Saudi Arabian Senior Ulema Council which is in practice the most important religious authority in the Islamic world. This is a line that explicitly prohibits the actions of terrorist groups that claim to be Islamic and who fight in the name of Islam. As this is a fatwa that deals with international security, not just security in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world, we expected that this would be circulated and broadcast everywhere, however I only succeeded in finding news of this fatwa with difficulty, and the majority of what was reported was just general information.
Since this is the most important fatwa to appear until now with regards to the controversial war on terrorism we expected news of this to appear everywhere, however this fatwa still remains away from the spotlight and unknown to the general public. Without publicity this fatwa remains as nothing more than a mere piece of paper, and terrorists will continue to benefit with regards to financing, recruitment, and winning public sympathy. Therefore it is in the interests of terrorists and the extremists who support them for this fatwa to remain unknown and not receive any publicity, and they are trying to bury or silence this fatwa.
It was expected that this fatwa would be promoted and publicized by those religious figures who are employed by the state, such as imams, preachers, and scholars, and for them to explain and defend this fatwa in their mosques and from their minbars. It was expected that all government publications that might oppose this fatwa be withdrawn, and for all governmental or quasi-governmental funds to stop financing publishing houses, books, seminars, and even leaflets that oppose this fatwa. This is the way to activate this fatwa and defeat the extremist ideology that has invaded Islamic societies, and return the situation to what it was prior to 1991 when jihad was only declared by the Mufti of a country or the country's institutions. However the opposition stole the fatwa and exploit it to serve their own political goals. Jihad today has become a term utilized by groups and organizations that have nothing to do with Islam.
As a result of this, a large number – perhaps even thousands – of Saudi Arabians died over the past 20 years due to so-called jihad, and we do not know what the true number is today. A long and ambiguous war that was supposed to be temporary began as part of Afghan jihad to fight the Soviet forces; however this was a terrible political mistake and the dam broke in the face of a wave of [Islamic] extremism.
By explicitly defining terrorism in a detailed manner, the Saudi Senior Ulema Council has blocked the path for those who attempt to justify their criminal activities. Religious scholars have braved these extremists and their criticism and played their role, however it is now the government's turn to do this and implement a program to confront terrorism which is something that harms Muslims and the reputation of Islam. It is no longer correct to say that Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance when there are those who kill children and blow up planes full of innocent passengers and destroy houses, and all in the name of jihad. Like everybody else, the Muslims are confused about Islam's true principles with regards to defense and war, and does Islam no longer recall that it is the religion that prohibits the cutting down of trees and the killing of animals during war, as well as protecting the women, children, and the elderly, from violence?
Defining and criminalizing terrorism scares the extremists because it cuts off their access to financing, prevents them from recruiting amongst the youth, and eliminates their relationship with the Muslim community who they continually seek to win over with fatwas and propaganda.
FROM: http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=20980
"Targeting public resources, corruption, hijacking planes, and blowing up buildings." This is the most important line in the historical fatwa that was issued last month by the Saudi Arabian Senior Ulema Council which is in practice the most important religious authority in the Islamic world. This is a line that explicitly prohibits the actions of terrorist groups that claim to be Islamic and who fight in the name of Islam. As this is a fatwa that deals with international security, not just security in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world, we expected that this would be circulated and broadcast everywhere, however I only succeeded in finding news of this fatwa with difficulty, and the majority of what was reported was just general information.
Since this is the most important fatwa to appear until now with regards to the controversial war on terrorism we expected news of this to appear everywhere, however this fatwa still remains away from the spotlight and unknown to the general public. Without publicity this fatwa remains as nothing more than a mere piece of paper, and terrorists will continue to benefit with regards to financing, recruitment, and winning public sympathy. Therefore it is in the interests of terrorists and the extremists who support them for this fatwa to remain unknown and not receive any publicity, and they are trying to bury or silence this fatwa.
It was expected that this fatwa would be promoted and publicized by those religious figures who are employed by the state, such as imams, preachers, and scholars, and for them to explain and defend this fatwa in their mosques and from their minbars. It was expected that all government publications that might oppose this fatwa be withdrawn, and for all governmental or quasi-governmental funds to stop financing publishing houses, books, seminars, and even leaflets that oppose this fatwa. This is the way to activate this fatwa and defeat the extremist ideology that has invaded Islamic societies, and return the situation to what it was prior to 1991 when jihad was only declared by the Mufti of a country or the country's institutions. However the opposition stole the fatwa and exploit it to serve their own political goals. Jihad today has become a term utilized by groups and organizations that have nothing to do with Islam.
As a result of this, a large number – perhaps even thousands – of Saudi Arabians died over the past 20 years due to so-called jihad, and we do not know what the true number is today. A long and ambiguous war that was supposed to be temporary began as part of Afghan jihad to fight the Soviet forces; however this was a terrible political mistake and the dam broke in the face of a wave of [Islamic] extremism.
By explicitly defining terrorism in a detailed manner, the Saudi Senior Ulema Council has blocked the path for those who attempt to justify their criminal activities. Religious scholars have braved these extremists and their criticism and played their role, however it is now the government's turn to do this and implement a program to confront terrorism which is something that harms Muslims and the reputation of Islam. It is no longer correct to say that Islam is the religion of peace and tolerance when there are those who kill children and blow up planes full of innocent passengers and destroy houses, and all in the name of jihad. Like everybody else, the Muslims are confused about Islam's true principles with regards to defense and war, and does Islam no longer recall that it is the religion that prohibits the cutting down of trees and the killing of animals during war, as well as protecting the women, children, and the elderly, from violence?
Defining and criminalizing terrorism scares the extremists because it cuts off their access to financing, prevents them from recruiting amongst the youth, and eliminates their relationship with the Muslim community who they continually seek to win over with fatwas and propaganda.
Friday, May 14, 2010
TIMES SQUARE BOMBER FAMILY IN SHOCK
*** Wannabe Jihadi's should ask themselves how they will answer Allah when He asks why you put your family through this - your mother, under whose feet heaven lies - your father, your siblings, the greater community. This is a shameful way that brings no honour, only heartache. MS ***
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/809182--times-square-bomb-suspect-s-family-in-shock-disbelief
On a bright spring day in 1976, a Pakistani flight instructor watched approvingly as his Royal Air Force trainees, flying in formation over the English countryside, wrote out “Five-O” in perfect trailer smoke. It was Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th birthday, and one of the proudest moments of Bahar ul-Haq’s life.
Today Haq, 70, a retired vice air marshal in Pakistan’s air force, is hiding in humiliation and shock, secluded somewhere in the northwestern city of Peshawar. His younger son, Faisal Shahzad, whom friends say he sent to the United States to study and to escape Pakistan’s problems, stands accused of attempting to explode a bomb in New York’s Times Square with help from Islamist militants.
Pakistani investigators are poring through family files and quizzing neighbours. Television crews have mobbed the lanes of this northwestern village where Haq grew up and have camped outside his home in Peshawar. International news programs have shown his son’s bearded face over and over, next to shots of the sport-utility vehicle in Manhattan that held the homemade bomb.
Haq “is very, very depressed. He is an honourable, patriotic man who worked hard to rise in the air force and raise his children cleanly. Now his family’s reputation has been destroyed,” said Hajji Sherzada, a retired importer who is a lifelong friend of Haq and said he has spoken to him by phone several times since the son’s arrest last week. “Every time his wife gets on the phone, she just cries.”
Haq has not made any statements and has not been seen in the past week. Provincial authorities said Sunday he was in “protective custody,” but relatives said he and his wife are in seclusion to avoid publicity.
Friends, relations and air force colleagues of Haq, interviewed in several northwestern communities and Islamabad this week, said they could make no sense of his son’s alleged actions or possible conversion to radical Islam.
Shahzad, 30, grew up in a stable community where most people were educated and many were part of Pakistan’s close-knit military world. His father, an accomplished pilot, rose from humble village roots to the top ranks of the air force, serving stints in Britain and Saudi Arabia. Several other family members were air force officers, including Shahzad’s maternal grandfather.
Over the years, Haq gained a reputation as an exceptional flight instructor and enjoyed training young pilots, especially in loops and other aerobatic stunts. He was invited to teach at an air academy in England for several years. Described by friends as a strict and protective father, he raised his children to become civilian professionals: Faisal’s older brother is an engineer in Canada, and one sister is a physician.
“Faisal’s father was liberal, not religious. We are all Muslims here, but there are no extremists in our community,” said Badal Khan, a cousin and finance officer for a telephone company, who spent Tuesday showing a team of federal police investigators around Mohib Banda.
Khan said Haq had “land and military connections, and he could have gotten his sons good jobs here, but he was worried about the environment in Pakistan and sent them both abroad to keep them away from trouble. We can’t understand what happened to Faisal over there.”
Shirzada Bacha, a maternal uncle of Shahzad, said that if Haq had suspected his son was involved in extremist activities, he would have “killed him in the house.”
Other family friends said they had seen little of Shahzad since he moved to the United States at age 18. Over the next decade, he earned a degree in business administration, married, got a job as a financial analyst, bought a house in Connecticut and became a U.S. citizen. About a year ago, when he returned home for a visit, friends and relatives noticed he was wearing a beard for the first time. But it occurred to no one that this might signify anything sinister.
“When I saw him with the beard, I saw nothing wrong with it. I was happy that even though he was living in America, he was staying close to Almighty God and to our traditions,” said Iftikhar Ahmed, a retired air force officer and nephew of Haq who lives in Islamabad.
Ahmed, 54, said he followed Shahzad’s upbringing closely, and he described the father as an “enlightened, upright” man who raised his son to be “balanced” in his views. “We sent a clean and innocent boy to America,” Ahmed said with bitterness. “If he went bad in America, why don’t you blame America instead of his family and his country?”
Sherzada and others close to the family scoffed at allegations by U.S. prosecutors that Shahzad had developed ties with Pakistani Taliban militants and had found his way to the rugged tribal area of North Waziristan for terrorist training. One relative said the young man did not know his way around after so many years abroad and always travelled with his father to family weddings and funerals.
“If Faisal ever got to Waziristan, and they got to know he was the son of an air marshal, they would kidnap him and ask for millions in ransom for his release,” Sherzada said, half-joking.
Ahmed and others from the military who know Haq took pains to point out that the Pakistani armed forces — and the small air force in particular — are a close-knit and highly professional meritocracy. They expressed solidarity with Haq and described his son’s arrest as a personal tragedy rather than as an incident that would damage the country’s military institutions as a whole.
In Utmanzai, the home of Shahzad’s mother, relatives recited prayers this week for his safe release. The village is known as a centre of Sufi mysticism, a moderate and freewheeling form of Islam that is ideologically poles apart from the severe, Saudi-inspired Wahhabi school of Islam that produced the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Bacha, the maternal uncle, said Shahzad was “never inclined to any fanaticism. I remember him dancing with his cousins, both girls and boys, at his own wedding” five years ago. At various wedding parties, the uncle said, “he danced to not only traditional Pashto music but fast music, and he wasn’t shy. Now when I think of him in custody for alleged radicalization, I am not ready to believe it.”
FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/809182--times-square-bomb-suspect-s-family-in-shock-disbelief
On a bright spring day in 1976, a Pakistani flight instructor watched approvingly as his Royal Air Force trainees, flying in formation over the English countryside, wrote out “Five-O” in perfect trailer smoke. It was Queen Elizabeth II’s 50th birthday, and one of the proudest moments of Bahar ul-Haq’s life.
Today Haq, 70, a retired vice air marshal in Pakistan’s air force, is hiding in humiliation and shock, secluded somewhere in the northwestern city of Peshawar. His younger son, Faisal Shahzad, whom friends say he sent to the United States to study and to escape Pakistan’s problems, stands accused of attempting to explode a bomb in New York’s Times Square with help from Islamist militants.
Pakistani investigators are poring through family files and quizzing neighbours. Television crews have mobbed the lanes of this northwestern village where Haq grew up and have camped outside his home in Peshawar. International news programs have shown his son’s bearded face over and over, next to shots of the sport-utility vehicle in Manhattan that held the homemade bomb.
Haq “is very, very depressed. He is an honourable, patriotic man who worked hard to rise in the air force and raise his children cleanly. Now his family’s reputation has been destroyed,” said Hajji Sherzada, a retired importer who is a lifelong friend of Haq and said he has spoken to him by phone several times since the son’s arrest last week. “Every time his wife gets on the phone, she just cries.”
Haq has not made any statements and has not been seen in the past week. Provincial authorities said Sunday he was in “protective custody,” but relatives said he and his wife are in seclusion to avoid publicity.
Friends, relations and air force colleagues of Haq, interviewed in several northwestern communities and Islamabad this week, said they could make no sense of his son’s alleged actions or possible conversion to radical Islam.
Shahzad, 30, grew up in a stable community where most people were educated and many were part of Pakistan’s close-knit military world. His father, an accomplished pilot, rose from humble village roots to the top ranks of the air force, serving stints in Britain and Saudi Arabia. Several other family members were air force officers, including Shahzad’s maternal grandfather.
Over the years, Haq gained a reputation as an exceptional flight instructor and enjoyed training young pilots, especially in loops and other aerobatic stunts. He was invited to teach at an air academy in England for several years. Described by friends as a strict and protective father, he raised his children to become civilian professionals: Faisal’s older brother is an engineer in Canada, and one sister is a physician.
“Faisal’s father was liberal, not religious. We are all Muslims here, but there are no extremists in our community,” said Badal Khan, a cousin and finance officer for a telephone company, who spent Tuesday showing a team of federal police investigators around Mohib Banda.
Khan said Haq had “land and military connections, and he could have gotten his sons good jobs here, but he was worried about the environment in Pakistan and sent them both abroad to keep them away from trouble. We can’t understand what happened to Faisal over there.”
Shirzada Bacha, a maternal uncle of Shahzad, said that if Haq had suspected his son was involved in extremist activities, he would have “killed him in the house.”
Other family friends said they had seen little of Shahzad since he moved to the United States at age 18. Over the next decade, he earned a degree in business administration, married, got a job as a financial analyst, bought a house in Connecticut and became a U.S. citizen. About a year ago, when he returned home for a visit, friends and relatives noticed he was wearing a beard for the first time. But it occurred to no one that this might signify anything sinister.
“When I saw him with the beard, I saw nothing wrong with it. I was happy that even though he was living in America, he was staying close to Almighty God and to our traditions,” said Iftikhar Ahmed, a retired air force officer and nephew of Haq who lives in Islamabad.
Ahmed, 54, said he followed Shahzad’s upbringing closely, and he described the father as an “enlightened, upright” man who raised his son to be “balanced” in his views. “We sent a clean and innocent boy to America,” Ahmed said with bitterness. “If he went bad in America, why don’t you blame America instead of his family and his country?”
Sherzada and others close to the family scoffed at allegations by U.S. prosecutors that Shahzad had developed ties with Pakistani Taliban militants and had found his way to the rugged tribal area of North Waziristan for terrorist training. One relative said the young man did not know his way around after so many years abroad and always travelled with his father to family weddings and funerals.
“If Faisal ever got to Waziristan, and they got to know he was the son of an air marshal, they would kidnap him and ask for millions in ransom for his release,” Sherzada said, half-joking.
Ahmed and others from the military who know Haq took pains to point out that the Pakistani armed forces — and the small air force in particular — are a close-knit and highly professional meritocracy. They expressed solidarity with Haq and described his son’s arrest as a personal tragedy rather than as an incident that would damage the country’s military institutions as a whole.
In Utmanzai, the home of Shahzad’s mother, relatives recited prayers this week for his safe release. The village is known as a centre of Sufi mysticism, a moderate and freewheeling form of Islam that is ideologically poles apart from the severe, Saudi-inspired Wahhabi school of Islam that produced the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Bacha, the maternal uncle, said Shahzad was “never inclined to any fanaticism. I remember him dancing with his cousins, both girls and boys, at his own wedding” five years ago. At various wedding parties, the uncle said, “he danced to not only traditional Pashto music but fast music, and he wasn’t shy. Now when I think of him in custody for alleged radicalization, I am not ready to believe it.”
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
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. 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 ***
Monday, January 18, 2010
HOMEGROWN TERRORISM : ISSUES AND IMPLICATIONS
FROM: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php?option=com_rokzine&view=article&id=12
Sam Mullins
Recently, much attention has been devoted to the ‘home-grown’ nature of Islamist terrorism in Western countries. This term permeates headlines, various reports and national psyches. It has been described as the “new face of terrorism,” [2] and the “main [terrorist] threat” [3] faced by the West. However, it is a term that carries with it certain assumptions and implications that should be clarified so the public may gain a greater understanding of contemporary threats to national security. This article examines key connotations of home-grown Islamist terrorism in an effort to assess the validity of the term and draw attention to the need for more careful specification of meaning in its application.
First, it is necessary to clarify the scope of reference. ‘The West’ is a very broad expression generally understood to include Australia, Canada, Western Europe, and the United States. Of course, these countries share social and political dimensions that make them comparable; however, each also has their own unique history and profile that must be taken into account when assessing individual ‘home-grown’ issues. Each country’s immigration history and related cultural identity affects the extent to which Muslims in the West have become integrated into their ‘host’ societies. [4] Hypothetically, the less integrated and more socially isolated, the greater potential for feelings of disillusionment and resentment, which may significantly increase the likelihood of one turning to terrorism. Thus, it is argued that Western European countries (their own differences notwithstanding [5]) are far more at risk to home-grown Islamist terrorism (HGIT) than the US due in large part to a history of lax immigration and asylum laws. These policies are contributory factors behind the large number of –often unskilled and therefore deprived- Muslim immigrants to enter countries like Britain and Spain and in combination with nationalistic cultural nuances these conditions are thought to have fostered marginalisation and segregation. [6], [7] By contrast the US’s ‘cultural melting pot’ and ‘land of opportunity’ ethos are thought to have fostered far more integrated Muslim populations that are more likely to positively identify with their host nation and to reject collective explanations for personal adversity, relative or otherwise. [8] Australia and Canada have been posited as lying somewhere between these two extremes. Like America, immigration has been integral to the growth of their populations, but like Europe they have maintained liberal asylum policies and social benefit systems, [9] which may attract the ‘wrong’ kind of immigrants. While such claims may at times seem blunt and sweeping, it is apparent there are differences between Western countries that may at times be more relevant than their similarities. The present paper represents a brief overview of relevant matters, but for the purposes of more country-specific in-depth analyses, such differences would necessarily take on greater significance.
Working definitions of terrorism require a degree of common sense and an appreciation of the relativity of labelling. [10] The use of politically/religiously justified violence against non-combatants by sub-state groups or organisations is a key part of the globally accepted definitions. Specifically, Islamist terrorism is inspired by Salafi/Wahhabi ideology and championed by al-Qaeda and similar organisations across the globe. ‘Home-grown’ Islamist terrorism as a term seems to be largely taken for granted as being self-evident without being specifically defined. Usage of the term tends to focus on where perpetrators are from [11] and whether they receive international organisational support. [12] Each of these elements carries implications for the practice of terrorism, which allow the definition of HGIT to be broken down into several facets. Stricter definitions of HGIT would require that attempted/successful terrorists:
· Were born and/or spent most of their lives in the West
· Were radicalised [13] within their Western home countries
· Have trained and achieved attack-capability in their Western home countries
· Have planned/carried out attacks in their Western home countries
· And are lacking direct foreign (non-Western) international support or control
While it may be rare for any one group of terrorists to fulfil all of these criteria, [14] certain key overlapping themes commonly appear in definitions of HGIT. Notable aspects include the nationality of the terrorists and the country of radicalisation in relation to the targeted country. Also highlighted are the country of “jihadisation” and preparation involved in attack (including training, planning and procurement of materials and weapons) and the level of international influence or cooperation at each stage (including ideological communication, training, operational advice and logistical support).
What seems like a simple straight-forward piece of terminology, is in fact, a moniker laden with assumptions and implications. It is therefore important to assess the veracity of prescribed attributes of HGIT, which revolve around a central theme of change and development. If HGIT represents a ‘new’ manifestation of the ongoing terrorist threat, what exactly is new about it? In order to answer this question it is necessary to further explore the who, when, what, where, how, and why of terrorism.
Who and when relate to terrorist profiles- who commits acts of radical Islamist terrorism and at what point in their lives do they choose to do so? The heterogeneity of terrorists “makes it difficult, if not impossible, to effectively profile [them]”; [15] however, it is still possible to make general observations that aid in assessing the nature of HGIT. Prior to September 11th, it was suggested that “U.S. Customs personnel should give extra scrutiny to the passports of young foreigners claiming to be "students" and meeting the following general description: physically fit males in their early twenties of Egyptian, Jordanian, Yemeni, Iraqi, Algerian, Syrian, or Sudanese nationality, or Arabs bearing valid British passports, in that order. These characteristics generally describe the core membership of Osama bin Laden's Arab "Afghans"…who are being trained to attack the United States with WMD.” [16] The inclusion of possible British passports reflects recognition that mujahedin had been establishing themselves throughout Europe since the early 1990’s. [17] However, more recent profiles clearly emphasise Western nationality as being a likelihood, rather than a possibility, of one attacking a target in the West. Summarizing the characteristics of the terrorists behind five plots from 2004 to 2006 Silber & Bhatt [18] describe those responsible as being male Muslims below the age of 35 and local residents/citizens of Western liberal democracies, a profile repeated in their analysis of groups throughout the United States. [19] It also noted that these men are often second or third generation inhabitants as opposed to recent immigrants. They generally also had ‘ordinary’ backgrounds and included recent ‘converts’ to Islam among their numbers. Along similar lines, Leiken & Brooke [20] report that of a sample of 373 terrorists charged, convicted, or killed in Europe and North America between 1990 and 2004, 41% were Western nationals. [21] Such observations are almost certainly the least contestable aspect of HGIT, indeed they are the very basis for the term as a recognition of the evolution of the threat posed by terrorism in the West from ‘exogenous’ to ‘endogenous.’ [22] Who carries out attacks is of course very much related to the Where of Islamist terrorism. [23]
While Islamist terrorists were responsible for the first World Trade Centre bombing of 1993, and a group of French-born militants acting for the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) were responsible for the 1995 spate of bombings in France, [24] the consensus is that Europe and the West have now emerged as primary targets, as well as bases of operation. This is reflected in the apparent graduation of terrorist networks in the West as they have moved beyond logistical support and dawa to carry out attacks, as evidenced by the steady stream of uncovered plots since 9/11. For purposes of assessing the home-grown element of terrorism, it is notable that in addition to radicalisation, it appears that the internet and camping trips are utilised for training purposes within the West. [25] This means that, at least theoretically, a terrorist group could emerge and reach attack capability without ever leaving their home country, although foreign travel seems to occur more often than not.
Returning briefly to the profile of HGIT, further developments seem to suggest that terrorists are getting younger and females are playing an increasingly important role. Taarnby Jensen [26] states “it is now possible to radicalise and recruit very young Muslims in much more diverse settings than previously” and the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Agency (AIVD), [27] describes the radical pool of potential and emerging terrorist recruits as “youngsters” between the ages of 16 and 25. They also note “the growing participation of young women in local jihadist networks.” Such findings reflect a growing awareness and accessibility of radical Islamist messages in the West, propagated via successful attacks and the dissemination of related (often online) propaganda. However, in terms of assessing the nature of HGIT, it is also important to note that seemingly wider dissemination goes hand in hand with a degree of bastardization as new audiences input their own knowledge and experience into the basic ideological ‘us versus them’ formula popularised and re-expressed countless times in the wake of 9/11. Thus, the Hofstad group’s ideological and operational innovation demonstrates active reconstruction and interpretation of the Islamist terrorist cause (although interestingly this ‘innovation’ –focussing on local issues and opting for targeted assassination- is reminiscent of terrorist approaches in the pre-Global jihad era). The ‘cultural dilution’ of militant Salafism is exemplified by the observation that “Many youngsters from the Muslim-majority ghettoes of various European cities adopt several behaviors typical of Western street culture, such as dressing like rappers, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, yet watching jihadi videos and having pictures of Osama bin Laden on the display of their cell phones.” [28] Whether or not increasingly popular, distorted and diverse interpretations of Islamist terrorist ideology will eventually detract from the potency of the overall cause, their existence confirms and re-emphasises a truly home-grown phenomena.
Consistent with recognition of Western input into the overriding anti-Western campaign are assertions as to the autonomy of HGIT groups. This brings us to the what, how, and why of terrorism and relates to both the genesis of terrorist activity (radicalisation and jihadisation) and the physical acts involved (preparation and execution of attacks). The radicalisation of a minority of young Muslim men of differing backgrounds in Western countries seems to have traditionally been viewed as a direct result of the presence of foreign ‘recruiters,’ usually in the form of experienced jihadis and sheiks operating out of established “centres of gravity” [29] such as London’s Finsbury Park mosque, part of an extensive international network established in the post-Afghan jihad era. However, accounts of contemporary processes of radicalisation and jihadisation tend to emphasise spontaneous group interaction, bottom-up “grass roots” [30] adoption of militancy and “only marginal ties to structured terrorist groups” [31] indicating a lack of organisational support or control. These developments have lead HGIT groups such as the 7/7 bombers to be regarded as ‘self-starters’ and have been widely attributed to the ““decentralization of Al Qaeda” [caused by post-9/11 counter-terrorism measures] or the growth of Salafism as a social movement.” [32] Spontaneous group interaction and bottom-up recruitment have nevertheless been important throughout the life of the ‘global Salafi jihad’[33] and although societal conditions have changed,(including growth of the Internet, greater public awareness of Islamist terrorists’ cause, and a more restrictive security environment),basic patterns of radicalisation still share certain key features. Thus, while Taarnby Jensen [26] draws attention to differences in the profiles of recent Danish terrorists as being younger, raised and radicalised within Denmark, and of questionable organisational affiliation, his description of the ‘Glostrup’ cell follows a very familiar sounding trajectory. This small group of friends spontaneously formed in and around mosques and grew extremely close to each other before eventually rejecting the mosques as too moderate. Group meetings continued in more private settings and they established associations with known radicals [34]as they sought to pursue terrorist activities, in this case abroad in Bosnia. This closely resembles descriptions of the basic patterns of radicalisation, [18],[22] which capture underlying social-psychological processes at the heart of extremism and seem to be widely applicable to various Islamist terrorist groups over the years.
Whether or not the role of autonomy in the past has been under-emphasised, it seems generally accepted that HGIT groups today are significantly more independent, and as a result, more amateurish when they progress to the operational stage because they must rely on their own resources and initiative to gain the knowledge and skills required. Nevertheless, the existence and nature of (international) ties to external groups, networks, or organisations remains a poorly understood area of concern, sometimes tainted with rumour or speculation, and perhaps at times too easily dismissed as a thing of the past. Commenting on the Operation Crevice trial of UK-based would-be bombers arrested in March 2004 [35] the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police remarked upon evident links between the UK group and al-Qaeda in Pakistan as well as links to the US and Canada, “What this case and others in the future will show is that we are dealing with a threat posed by interlinked networks of terrorists.” [36] Likewise, Australian Parliament [37] reported in 2006 that recent experience of Islamist terrorism showed that it “has an international dimension, in the sense that perpetrators are likely to receive training or get financial support from sources in other countries”. Jonathan Evans, the Director General of MI5, reported this year that a “development in the last 12 months has been the extent to which the conspiracies here are being driven from an increasing range of overseas countries.” [38] Given the highly social nature of Islamist terrorist activity and the apparent importance of status systems as well as the sustained popularity of jihadi combat zones within radical Islamist subcultures it seems likely that ‘official’ affiliation will often be sought and achieved to varying degrees. It is therefore prudent not to think of HGIT as a homogenous phenomenon, but instead a continuum encompassing “a whole spectrum of realities, positioned according to the level of autonomy of the group.” [39] Along such lines, Hoffman15 identifies four levels of al-Qaeda, including the remaining core central staff (still representing the biggest potential threat) various organisational affiliates, ‘al-Qaeda locals’ who have established links to al-Qaeda, and finally the ‘al-Qaeda network’ with no organisational links.[40]
The why of terrorism is possibly the most difficult question to answer. While isolated individuals may crop up who are experiencing some form of psychopathology, [41] there is nothing to indicate that perpetrators of HGIT on the whole are more likely than terrorists of the ‘past’ or than the world’s general population to be suffering from mental illness. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore the full range of explanations for why people take to terrorism, suffice to say there are multiple, interacting factors that make it more or less likely one will do so. Thus, for example, at the individual level experience of personal adversity or change might contribute to decisions that lead to terrorist involvement whilst at the societal and global level political grievances and worldly events can have a profound impact on groups and individuals. A common thread which seems to tie these levels of explanation together is a process of social identification. Thus what both personal and global circumstances share is the power to lead individuals to identify with a certain social category, in this case the perceived Muslim umma. What then drives individuals beyond identification and empathy towards violent action is rooted in spontaneous group dynamics and continued exposure to violent ideology, which together act to narrow down the gamut of acceptable identities and to define related scripts for action.[42] It is extremely difficult to say whether antecedents of HGIT are any different from ‘imported’ terrorism. Terrorists born in Middle Eastern or other countries may have been more likely to have been involved in violent political conflicts or to have experienced oppression first hand growing up. Therefore, terrorist militancy, while still extreme, would be an extension of an existing almost innate and more ‘real’ identity. Conversely the adoption of terrorist identities by ‘purely’ home-grown participants born and raised in the West appears to have a strong reactionary or deliberately rebellious nature as they consciously reject Western identities that they are geographically born, if not raised into. Along these lines, Roy has asserted that “To convert to Islam today is a way for a European rebel to find a cause; it has little to do with theology” [43] and Durodié [44] has suggested that acts of home-grown terrorism are “akin to the Columbine high school massacre,” finding their basis in cultural nihilism. An interesting related implication is that there may have been a change in expectations about what it means to get involved in radical and militant Islam. Hence Silber & Bhatt remark that “there is no longer any illusion as to what the adoption of jihadi-Salafi ideology means” [45] and Taarnby Jensen [46] observes that individuals drawn to radical mosques “often know exactly which interpretation of Islam they want to hear.” If such claims are accurate, it is possible to make a distinction between earlier generations of Islamist terrorists and their home-grown ‘descendants’ based upon their social identities. Relatively speaking, in earlier generations an identity congruent with the cause preceded or went hand in hand with some form of frustration and desire to act, whilst in later generations ‘frustration’ precedes adoption of an identity which enables action. From this perspective, the radical Islamist ideology behind HGIT is more of a vehicle for expression rather than a cause of violence per se, which therefore implies that in the absence of such an ideology groups and individuals would presumably find some alternative avenue of expression. A potential danger with this line of reasoning; however, is the possibility of underestimating HGIT as it paints a picture of home-grown terrorists as something less than the genuine article, (and tendencies toward underestimation would be exacerbated if the disruption caused by counter-terrorism efforts has been inflated). There may well be many ‘wannabes’ and ‘amateurs’ among the ranks of Islamist terrorists, but they are still committed to killing. As evidenced by racial tensions and violence in the Netherlands following the murder of Theo Van Gogh, it does not take a huge number of casualties to have a significant impact on society. [47]
Furthermore the ‘decentralised’ or dispersed network structure attributed to contemporary Islamist terrorism, (seemingly therefore integral to HGIT), in conjunction with the apparent growth in the number of terrorists holding Western passports, is thought to be evidence of increased difficulty in detecting their activities. Such a perspective is given credence by the AIVD [48] who have acknowledged that “The emergence of these local cells, some of which interact with members of international veterans networks, has complicated the anticipated threat for the near future, especially since such locally operating cells can easily blend in with the society in which they live, which makes it more difficult to identify them.” Conversely, heightened counter-terrorism measures (for instance, France alone has arrested some 1422 people on terrorist charges since 2002 [49]) have increased chances of detection. This fact, along with the significant number of successfully foiled plots, seems to suggest that –pending an exceptional group of terrorists- overall, the odds remain stacked in the favour of the security services. Of course, the maxim remains that terrorists only have to succeed once. Given that there has been a marked increase in radical Islam, what may be the true difficulty for security services is the problem of false positives, or being confronted with a haystack of potentially dangerous radicals that demand attention, sometimes at the expense of being able to distinguish the truly ‘jihadized’ terrorists.
There is more than meets the eye to ‘home-grown’ Islamist terrorism, and yet, it is widely referred to without clarification. It is undeniable that “Islamist terrorism can no longer be regarded as an external threat, but rather as a threat rooted in and aimed against the Western society itself.” [50] This is reflected in the increasing popularity of radical Islam within various Western countries and the obvious willingness of a minority of Western citizens and residents to perpetrate acts of terrorism in their home countries in the name of ‘Islam.’ References to HGIT have helped draw attention to ‘endogenous’ elements of a pervasive global Islamist struggle, whereby processes of radicalisation, jihadisation, and preparation for attack all take place within the West. This recognition has helped to focus the efforts of various security agencies, policy makers, and analysts alike as Western societies are now scrutinised as much if not more than their Middle Eastern or North African counterparts in the search for ‘answers’ to terrorism. However a closer, yet still brief, examination of underlying assumptions has highlighted the fact that contemporary Islamist terrorism in the West does not appear to be an entirely distinct manifestation from previous decades and is both varied and complex. Invoking unqualified reference to HGIT with the advent of each new plot uncovered runs the risk of overemphasising homogeneity. Groups of terrorists do seem to share common patterns of development as individuals come together, radicalise and decide to take action but there appears to be considerable variation both within and between these groups. In particular levels of international support and cooperation may have been underemphasised as foreign links are often uncovered [51] and the nature and role of ‘autonomy’ (ideological, financial, and operational) is poorly understood. By taking a much more systematic approach to the analysis and cross-comparison of groups of terrorists in and out-with the West rather than relying on anecdotal evidence it will be possible to describe with more confidence the existing range of HGIT, which in turn will increase pattern-recognition and chances of prediction of future trends. In addition, qualified and consistent usage of terms such as ‘home-grown’ has the potential to aid research into terrorism because researchers and authors of open source materials both mutually influence each other’s work. Finally, Islamist terrorism is a diverse and dynamic phenomenon. Researchers must remain sensitive to change and development but also continuity in order to be able to accurately capture and understand the progression of its various manifestations.
Sam Mullins gained an MSc in Investigative Psychology from the University of Liverpool,(UK), writing a thesis on the small group psychology of terrorism. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (CTCP) at the University of Wollongong, Australia.
REFERENCES
[1] The author would like to thank Dr. Adam Dolnik for his comments on the preparation of this article.
[2] Mueller, R, (2006), Remarks Prepared for delivery by Director Robert S. Mueller 3rd Federal Bureau of Investigation, The City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23rd 2006; accessed online 31/10/07 http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller062306.htm
[3] Maley, P, (2007), “Home-grown Terrorism Now Main Threat” The Australian, October 4th 2007; accessed online 31/10/07 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22527581-5001561,00.html
[4] Leiken, R, (2005), “Europe’s Mujahideen: Where Mass Immigration Meets Global Terrorism” Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, April 2005; accessed online 25/10/07 http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back405.html
[5] Each country is clearly geographically unique and hosts its own particular established immigrant populations. As Leiken7 has noted “Algerians [typify the Muslim population in] in France, Moroccans in Spain, Turks in Germany, and Pakistanis in the United Kingdom.”
[6] See chapter 1 in Vidino, L, (2006), “Al Qaeda In Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad” New York: Prometheus Books
[7] Leiken, R, (2005), “Europe’s Angry Muslims” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005; accessed online 7/11/07 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050701faessay84409/robert-s-leiken/europe-s-angry-muslims.html?mode=print
[8] Sageman, M, (2007), “Radicalization of Global Islamist Terrorists” Address to Unite States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, June 27, 2007; accessed online 25/10/07 http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/062707Sageman.pdf
[9] Silber & Bhatt18 cited in Neighbour, S, (2007), “Self-made Terrorists” The Australian, August 17th, 2007, accessed online 8/10/07 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22257201-28737,00.html
[10] The difficulty in achieving objectivity when it comes to applying definitions of terrorism has yet again been demonstrated as the Council of Europe recently condemned lists of terrorist organisations kept by the EU and UN as “totally arbitrary,” (“Totally Arbitrary: Marty Slams EU, UN Terror Blacklists” Der Spiegel, 13th November 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,517043,00.html
[11] For example in the UK it was reported that “In 2004 the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] noted that *** % of current Security Service targets for investigation were British and judged that over the next five years the UK would continue to face a threat from ‘home-grown’ as well as foreign terrorists,” (Murphy, P, (2006), “Intelligence and Security Committee: Report into the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005” Crown Copyright: The Stationery Office).
[12] As the Director of the FBI has emphasised, “They may not have any connection to al Qaeda or to other terrorist groups.”2
[13] Radicalisation within this context can be defined as coming to accept an extreme interpretation of Islam that a) Portrays Islam as under attack from Western and Western-influenced powers b) Divides the world into Muslims and infidels (‘us’ and ‘them’) and c) Defines ‘jihad’ as necessary violence against Islam’s oppressors, thus legitimising and encouraging acts of terrorism. Jihadisation18 22 has been defined as a distinct and by no means inevitable extension of radicalisation and involves accepting violent jihad as one’s personal responsibility and making effort to provide operational support to terrorists, participate in armed conflict or carry out acts of terrorism.
[14] The fact that there are multiple criteria, none of which are entirely straight-forward in themselves, highlights the difficulty of definition. For example, Taarnby23 notes that a key feature of the Hamburg 9/11 group is the fact that it emanated from within Europe in the absence of applied top-down recruitment, which clearly emphasises its ‘home-grown’ nature. However the fact that cell members were all recent immigrants and there was strong involvement with an international terrorist organisation means that for some, including Hoffman,15 this group is quite distinct from truly ‘home-grown’ terrorism. Such definitional issues raise the need for a system of classification of groups of terrorists in order to reduce levels of ambiguity and aid assessment of continuity and change.
[15] p49 in Hoffman, B, (2007), “The Global Terrorist Threat: Is Al-Qaeda on the Run or on the March?” Middle East Policy, Vol.14, no.2; pp44-58
[16] p50 in Hudson, R, (1999), “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” (Majeska, M, (ed.)) report by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress for The National Intelligence Council (USA); accessed online 1/5/06 http://www.mipt.org/pdf/socio_psychofterrorism.pdf
[17] pp24-25 in AIVD, (2002), “Recruitment for Jihad in the Netherlands: From Incident to Trend” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[18] Silber, M, & Bhatt, A, (2007), “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” New York City Police Department
[19] Outside of the US, plots covered included Madrid 2004; Amsterdam 2004; London 2005; Sydney/Melbourne 2005; and Toronto 2006. US plots included Portland 2002, Lackawanna 2002, Northern Virginia, 2003 and New York, 2004 & 2006.
[20] Leiken, R, & Brooke, S, (2006), “The Quantitative Analysis of Terrorism and Immigration: An Initial Exploration” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.18; pp503-521
[21] A cursory analysis of this dataset, (accessed online 9/11/07: http://www.nixoncenter.org/index.cfm?action=publications ), also reveals that from 1990 and up to and including 2001, 18% of the sample were born in Western countries, (limited to the US, UK, Spain and mostly France), whereas from 2002 to 2004, inclusive of those listed ‘at large,’ 24% were born in the West, (including the above countries as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Canada). Furthermore 143 terrorists were ‘hosted’ by Western countries between 1990 and including 2001 compared to 219 from 2002 to 2004, inclusive of those still ‘at large.’ These numbers suggest an increase in the numbers of Western-born terrorists and in Western-based terrorist activity, however for assessing home-grown terrorism it is also necessary to know where terrorists grew up and trained. Quantitative data must also be complemented by qualitative analysis and as a caveat, aspects of the particular dataset used by Leiken and Brooke are disputable, (eg Anthony Garcia of the UK fertiliser bomb plot is listed as British born, however he is reported elsewhere as being Algerian by birth, moving to the UK at the age of 5; Vasagar, J, (2007), “The Five Who Planned to Bomb UK Targets” Guardian Unlimited, Monday April 30th 2007, accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068835,00.html : BBC News “Profile: Anthony Garcia” BBC News website, Monday 30th April 2007, accessed online 13/11/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6149798.stm ).
[22] AIVD, (2006), “Violent Jihad in the Netherlands: Current Trends in the Islamist Terrorist Threat” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[23] Both of these are topics covered together by Taarnby, M, (2005), “Recruitment of Islamist Terrorists in Europe: Trends and Perspectives” Danish Ministry of Justice
[24] US Department of State, (1995), “Patterns of Global Terrorism” cited p137 in6.
[25] Home Office, (2006), “Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London in 7th July 2005” London: The Stationery Office
[26] Taarnby Jensen, M, (2006), “Jihad in Denmark: An Overview and Analysis of Jihadi Activity in Denmark 1990-2006” Danish Institute for International Studies: Copenhagen; Vesterkopi
[27] pp38-39 in22.
[28] p9 in Vidino, L, (2007), “Current Trends in Jihadi Networks in Europe” Terrorism Monitor, vol.5, Issue 20; October 25th 2007; pp8-11
[29] p73 in Neumann, P, (2006), “Europe’s Jihadist Dilemma” Survival, Vol.48, No.2; pp71-84
[30] Chapter 3 in22.
[31] p579 in Vidino, L, (2007), “The Hofstad Group: The New Face of Terrorist Networks in Europe” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.30; pp579-592
[32] p415 in Kirby, A, (2007), “The London Bombers as “Self-Starters”: A Case Study in Indigenous Radicalization and the Emergence of Autonomous Cliques” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.30; pp415-428
[33] Sageman, M, (2004), “Understanding Terror Networks” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
[34] These included Said Mansour in Denmark and Omar Abu Bakri of al-Muhajiroun in London.
[35] Summers, C, & Casciani, D, (2007), “Fertiliser Bomb Plot: The Story” BBC News Home Affairs, 30 April 2007; accessed online 12/11/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6153884.stm
[36] Clark, P, (2007), “Operation Crevice: MPS Statement” Metropolitan Police Service; accessed online 12/11/07 http://cms.met.police.uk/news/convictions/terrorism/operation_crevice_mps_statement
[37] p8 in Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, (2006), “Review of Security and Counter Terrorism Legislation” Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia
[38] Evans, J, (2007), “Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and Trust” Address to the Society of Editors by the Director General of the Security Service; “A Matter of Trust” conference; Manchester, 5th November 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page562.html
[39] p9 in28.
[40] For Hoffman home-grown terrorists are strictly part of the unaffiliated network, this being their defining feature, however usage of the term generally has so far been liberal and not limited to one (problematic) definitional dimension.
[41] As a possible example see The Associated Press, (2007), “Man Shot Dead Attacking Amsterdam Police Had Mental Problems, Possible Terrorism Link” International Herald Tribune, October 15th 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/15/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Police-Stabbing.php
[42] This social psychological interpretation of processes of radicalisation and jihadisation is based upon accounts given by Silber & Bhatt18, the AIVD22 and Sageman.33
[43] Roy, O, (2003), “EuroIslam: The Jihad Within” National Interest, March 22nd 2003
[44] Durodié, B, (2007), “Home-grown Nihilism – The Clash Within Civilisations” in Cornish, P, (ed) “Britain and Security” London: The Smith Institute
[45] p10 in.18 Interestingly a change in expectations implies that ‘terrorism’ is already justified in the minds of newcomers to radical Islamist groups, to an extent undermining the importance ascribed by the NYPD authors to so-called ‘spiritual sanctioners’ for providing justification. Nevertheless identification of such roles does draw attention to the existence and importance of status systems and social support and encouragement within jihadi subcultures.
[46] p70 in26.
[47] See Castle, S, (2004), “Bombing of Muslim School linked to Murder of Film-Maker” The Independent, 9th November 2004; accessed online 13/11/07 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article19376.ece
[48] p14 in AIVD, (2005), “Annual Report 2004” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[49] US Department of State (2006), “Country Reports on Terrorism 2006” chapter 2, accessed online 30/10/07 http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82732.htm/
[5049] p13 in48.
[51] The importance of international links has recently been emphasised once more in a so called ‘home-grown’ case. As Der Spiegel reports, “Investigators [working under Operation Alberich, which uncovered a plot in Germany in September this year] believe that the trips abroad are one of the keys to understanding this case,” (Stark, H, “The Fourth Man: Suspect in German Bomb Plot Tells His Story” Der Spiegel, November 15th 2007; accessed online 16/11/07 http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,517609,00.html ). The account so far of the German plot also shows overall remarkable conformity to the ‘usual’ patterns of radicalisation and jihadisation.
Note: Perspectives on Terrorism invites a diversity of opinions to be presented in articles. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Perspectives on Terrorism or the Terrorism Research Initiative.
Sam Mullins
Recently, much attention has been devoted to the ‘home-grown’ nature of Islamist terrorism in Western countries. This term permeates headlines, various reports and national psyches. It has been described as the “new face of terrorism,” [2] and the “main [terrorist] threat” [3] faced by the West. However, it is a term that carries with it certain assumptions and implications that should be clarified so the public may gain a greater understanding of contemporary threats to national security. This article examines key connotations of home-grown Islamist terrorism in an effort to assess the validity of the term and draw attention to the need for more careful specification of meaning in its application.
First, it is necessary to clarify the scope of reference. ‘The West’ is a very broad expression generally understood to include Australia, Canada, Western Europe, and the United States. Of course, these countries share social and political dimensions that make them comparable; however, each also has their own unique history and profile that must be taken into account when assessing individual ‘home-grown’ issues. Each country’s immigration history and related cultural identity affects the extent to which Muslims in the West have become integrated into their ‘host’ societies. [4] Hypothetically, the less integrated and more socially isolated, the greater potential for feelings of disillusionment and resentment, which may significantly increase the likelihood of one turning to terrorism. Thus, it is argued that Western European countries (their own differences notwithstanding [5]) are far more at risk to home-grown Islamist terrorism (HGIT) than the US due in large part to a history of lax immigration and asylum laws. These policies are contributory factors behind the large number of –often unskilled and therefore deprived- Muslim immigrants to enter countries like Britain and Spain and in combination with nationalistic cultural nuances these conditions are thought to have fostered marginalisation and segregation. [6], [7] By contrast the US’s ‘cultural melting pot’ and ‘land of opportunity’ ethos are thought to have fostered far more integrated Muslim populations that are more likely to positively identify with their host nation and to reject collective explanations for personal adversity, relative or otherwise. [8] Australia and Canada have been posited as lying somewhere between these two extremes. Like America, immigration has been integral to the growth of their populations, but like Europe they have maintained liberal asylum policies and social benefit systems, [9] which may attract the ‘wrong’ kind of immigrants. While such claims may at times seem blunt and sweeping, it is apparent there are differences between Western countries that may at times be more relevant than their similarities. The present paper represents a brief overview of relevant matters, but for the purposes of more country-specific in-depth analyses, such differences would necessarily take on greater significance.
Working definitions of terrorism require a degree of common sense and an appreciation of the relativity of labelling. [10] The use of politically/religiously justified violence against non-combatants by sub-state groups or organisations is a key part of the globally accepted definitions. Specifically, Islamist terrorism is inspired by Salafi/Wahhabi ideology and championed by al-Qaeda and similar organisations across the globe. ‘Home-grown’ Islamist terrorism as a term seems to be largely taken for granted as being self-evident without being specifically defined. Usage of the term tends to focus on where perpetrators are from [11] and whether they receive international organisational support. [12] Each of these elements carries implications for the practice of terrorism, which allow the definition of HGIT to be broken down into several facets. Stricter definitions of HGIT would require that attempted/successful terrorists:
· Were born and/or spent most of their lives in the West
· Were radicalised [13] within their Western home countries
· Have trained and achieved attack-capability in their Western home countries
· Have planned/carried out attacks in their Western home countries
· And are lacking direct foreign (non-Western) international support or control
While it may be rare for any one group of terrorists to fulfil all of these criteria, [14] certain key overlapping themes commonly appear in definitions of HGIT. Notable aspects include the nationality of the terrorists and the country of radicalisation in relation to the targeted country. Also highlighted are the country of “jihadisation” and preparation involved in attack (including training, planning and procurement of materials and weapons) and the level of international influence or cooperation at each stage (including ideological communication, training, operational advice and logistical support).
What seems like a simple straight-forward piece of terminology, is in fact, a moniker laden with assumptions and implications. It is therefore important to assess the veracity of prescribed attributes of HGIT, which revolve around a central theme of change and development. If HGIT represents a ‘new’ manifestation of the ongoing terrorist threat, what exactly is new about it? In order to answer this question it is necessary to further explore the who, when, what, where, how, and why of terrorism.
Who and when relate to terrorist profiles- who commits acts of radical Islamist terrorism and at what point in their lives do they choose to do so? The heterogeneity of terrorists “makes it difficult, if not impossible, to effectively profile [them]”; [15] however, it is still possible to make general observations that aid in assessing the nature of HGIT. Prior to September 11th, it was suggested that “U.S. Customs personnel should give extra scrutiny to the passports of young foreigners claiming to be "students" and meeting the following general description: physically fit males in their early twenties of Egyptian, Jordanian, Yemeni, Iraqi, Algerian, Syrian, or Sudanese nationality, or Arabs bearing valid British passports, in that order. These characteristics generally describe the core membership of Osama bin Laden's Arab "Afghans"…who are being trained to attack the United States with WMD.” [16] The inclusion of possible British passports reflects recognition that mujahedin had been establishing themselves throughout Europe since the early 1990’s. [17] However, more recent profiles clearly emphasise Western nationality as being a likelihood, rather than a possibility, of one attacking a target in the West. Summarizing the characteristics of the terrorists behind five plots from 2004 to 2006 Silber & Bhatt [18] describe those responsible as being male Muslims below the age of 35 and local residents/citizens of Western liberal democracies, a profile repeated in their analysis of groups throughout the United States. [19] It also noted that these men are often second or third generation inhabitants as opposed to recent immigrants. They generally also had ‘ordinary’ backgrounds and included recent ‘converts’ to Islam among their numbers. Along similar lines, Leiken & Brooke [20] report that of a sample of 373 terrorists charged, convicted, or killed in Europe and North America between 1990 and 2004, 41% were Western nationals. [21] Such observations are almost certainly the least contestable aspect of HGIT, indeed they are the very basis for the term as a recognition of the evolution of the threat posed by terrorism in the West from ‘exogenous’ to ‘endogenous.’ [22] Who carries out attacks is of course very much related to the Where of Islamist terrorism. [23]
While Islamist terrorists were responsible for the first World Trade Centre bombing of 1993, and a group of French-born militants acting for the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) were responsible for the 1995 spate of bombings in France, [24] the consensus is that Europe and the West have now emerged as primary targets, as well as bases of operation. This is reflected in the apparent graduation of terrorist networks in the West as they have moved beyond logistical support and dawa to carry out attacks, as evidenced by the steady stream of uncovered plots since 9/11. For purposes of assessing the home-grown element of terrorism, it is notable that in addition to radicalisation, it appears that the internet and camping trips are utilised for training purposes within the West. [25] This means that, at least theoretically, a terrorist group could emerge and reach attack capability without ever leaving their home country, although foreign travel seems to occur more often than not.
Returning briefly to the profile of HGIT, further developments seem to suggest that terrorists are getting younger and females are playing an increasingly important role. Taarnby Jensen [26] states “it is now possible to radicalise and recruit very young Muslims in much more diverse settings than previously” and the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Agency (AIVD), [27] describes the radical pool of potential and emerging terrorist recruits as “youngsters” between the ages of 16 and 25. They also note “the growing participation of young women in local jihadist networks.” Such findings reflect a growing awareness and accessibility of radical Islamist messages in the West, propagated via successful attacks and the dissemination of related (often online) propaganda. However, in terms of assessing the nature of HGIT, it is also important to note that seemingly wider dissemination goes hand in hand with a degree of bastardization as new audiences input their own knowledge and experience into the basic ideological ‘us versus them’ formula popularised and re-expressed countless times in the wake of 9/11. Thus, the Hofstad group’s ideological and operational innovation demonstrates active reconstruction and interpretation of the Islamist terrorist cause (although interestingly this ‘innovation’ –focussing on local issues and opting for targeted assassination- is reminiscent of terrorist approaches in the pre-Global jihad era). The ‘cultural dilution’ of militant Salafism is exemplified by the observation that “Many youngsters from the Muslim-majority ghettoes of various European cities adopt several behaviors typical of Western street culture, such as dressing like rappers, smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, yet watching jihadi videos and having pictures of Osama bin Laden on the display of their cell phones.” [28] Whether or not increasingly popular, distorted and diverse interpretations of Islamist terrorist ideology will eventually detract from the potency of the overall cause, their existence confirms and re-emphasises a truly home-grown phenomena.
Consistent with recognition of Western input into the overriding anti-Western campaign are assertions as to the autonomy of HGIT groups. This brings us to the what, how, and why of terrorism and relates to both the genesis of terrorist activity (radicalisation and jihadisation) and the physical acts involved (preparation and execution of attacks). The radicalisation of a minority of young Muslim men of differing backgrounds in Western countries seems to have traditionally been viewed as a direct result of the presence of foreign ‘recruiters,’ usually in the form of experienced jihadis and sheiks operating out of established “centres of gravity” [29] such as London’s Finsbury Park mosque, part of an extensive international network established in the post-Afghan jihad era. However, accounts of contemporary processes of radicalisation and jihadisation tend to emphasise spontaneous group interaction, bottom-up “grass roots” [30] adoption of militancy and “only marginal ties to structured terrorist groups” [31] indicating a lack of organisational support or control. These developments have lead HGIT groups such as the 7/7 bombers to be regarded as ‘self-starters’ and have been widely attributed to the ““decentralization of Al Qaeda” [caused by post-9/11 counter-terrorism measures] or the growth of Salafism as a social movement.” [32] Spontaneous group interaction and bottom-up recruitment have nevertheless been important throughout the life of the ‘global Salafi jihad’[33] and although societal conditions have changed,(including growth of the Internet, greater public awareness of Islamist terrorists’ cause, and a more restrictive security environment),basic patterns of radicalisation still share certain key features. Thus, while Taarnby Jensen [26] draws attention to differences in the profiles of recent Danish terrorists as being younger, raised and radicalised within Denmark, and of questionable organisational affiliation, his description of the ‘Glostrup’ cell follows a very familiar sounding trajectory. This small group of friends spontaneously formed in and around mosques and grew extremely close to each other before eventually rejecting the mosques as too moderate. Group meetings continued in more private settings and they established associations with known radicals [34]as they sought to pursue terrorist activities, in this case abroad in Bosnia. This closely resembles descriptions of the basic patterns of radicalisation, [18],[22] which capture underlying social-psychological processes at the heart of extremism and seem to be widely applicable to various Islamist terrorist groups over the years.
Whether or not the role of autonomy in the past has been under-emphasised, it seems generally accepted that HGIT groups today are significantly more independent, and as a result, more amateurish when they progress to the operational stage because they must rely on their own resources and initiative to gain the knowledge and skills required. Nevertheless, the existence and nature of (international) ties to external groups, networks, or organisations remains a poorly understood area of concern, sometimes tainted with rumour or speculation, and perhaps at times too easily dismissed as a thing of the past. Commenting on the Operation Crevice trial of UK-based would-be bombers arrested in March 2004 [35] the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan police remarked upon evident links between the UK group and al-Qaeda in Pakistan as well as links to the US and Canada, “What this case and others in the future will show is that we are dealing with a threat posed by interlinked networks of terrorists.” [36] Likewise, Australian Parliament [37] reported in 2006 that recent experience of Islamist terrorism showed that it “has an international dimension, in the sense that perpetrators are likely to receive training or get financial support from sources in other countries”. Jonathan Evans, the Director General of MI5, reported this year that a “development in the last 12 months has been the extent to which the conspiracies here are being driven from an increasing range of overseas countries.” [38] Given the highly social nature of Islamist terrorist activity and the apparent importance of status systems as well as the sustained popularity of jihadi combat zones within radical Islamist subcultures it seems likely that ‘official’ affiliation will often be sought and achieved to varying degrees. It is therefore prudent not to think of HGIT as a homogenous phenomenon, but instead a continuum encompassing “a whole spectrum of realities, positioned according to the level of autonomy of the group.” [39] Along such lines, Hoffman15 identifies four levels of al-Qaeda, including the remaining core central staff (still representing the biggest potential threat) various organisational affiliates, ‘al-Qaeda locals’ who have established links to al-Qaeda, and finally the ‘al-Qaeda network’ with no organisational links.[40]
The why of terrorism is possibly the most difficult question to answer. While isolated individuals may crop up who are experiencing some form of psychopathology, [41] there is nothing to indicate that perpetrators of HGIT on the whole are more likely than terrorists of the ‘past’ or than the world’s general population to be suffering from mental illness. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to explore the full range of explanations for why people take to terrorism, suffice to say there are multiple, interacting factors that make it more or less likely one will do so. Thus, for example, at the individual level experience of personal adversity or change might contribute to decisions that lead to terrorist involvement whilst at the societal and global level political grievances and worldly events can have a profound impact on groups and individuals. A common thread which seems to tie these levels of explanation together is a process of social identification. Thus what both personal and global circumstances share is the power to lead individuals to identify with a certain social category, in this case the perceived Muslim umma. What then drives individuals beyond identification and empathy towards violent action is rooted in spontaneous group dynamics and continued exposure to violent ideology, which together act to narrow down the gamut of acceptable identities and to define related scripts for action.[42] It is extremely difficult to say whether antecedents of HGIT are any different from ‘imported’ terrorism. Terrorists born in Middle Eastern or other countries may have been more likely to have been involved in violent political conflicts or to have experienced oppression first hand growing up. Therefore, terrorist militancy, while still extreme, would be an extension of an existing almost innate and more ‘real’ identity. Conversely the adoption of terrorist identities by ‘purely’ home-grown participants born and raised in the West appears to have a strong reactionary or deliberately rebellious nature as they consciously reject Western identities that they are geographically born, if not raised into. Along these lines, Roy has asserted that “To convert to Islam today is a way for a European rebel to find a cause; it has little to do with theology” [43] and Durodié [44] has suggested that acts of home-grown terrorism are “akin to the Columbine high school massacre,” finding their basis in cultural nihilism. An interesting related implication is that there may have been a change in expectations about what it means to get involved in radical and militant Islam. Hence Silber & Bhatt remark that “there is no longer any illusion as to what the adoption of jihadi-Salafi ideology means” [45] and Taarnby Jensen [46] observes that individuals drawn to radical mosques “often know exactly which interpretation of Islam they want to hear.” If such claims are accurate, it is possible to make a distinction between earlier generations of Islamist terrorists and their home-grown ‘descendants’ based upon their social identities. Relatively speaking, in earlier generations an identity congruent with the cause preceded or went hand in hand with some form of frustration and desire to act, whilst in later generations ‘frustration’ precedes adoption of an identity which enables action. From this perspective, the radical Islamist ideology behind HGIT is more of a vehicle for expression rather than a cause of violence per se, which therefore implies that in the absence of such an ideology groups and individuals would presumably find some alternative avenue of expression. A potential danger with this line of reasoning; however, is the possibility of underestimating HGIT as it paints a picture of home-grown terrorists as something less than the genuine article, (and tendencies toward underestimation would be exacerbated if the disruption caused by counter-terrorism efforts has been inflated). There may well be many ‘wannabes’ and ‘amateurs’ among the ranks of Islamist terrorists, but they are still committed to killing. As evidenced by racial tensions and violence in the Netherlands following the murder of Theo Van Gogh, it does not take a huge number of casualties to have a significant impact on society. [47]
Furthermore the ‘decentralised’ or dispersed network structure attributed to contemporary Islamist terrorism, (seemingly therefore integral to HGIT), in conjunction with the apparent growth in the number of terrorists holding Western passports, is thought to be evidence of increased difficulty in detecting their activities. Such a perspective is given credence by the AIVD [48] who have acknowledged that “The emergence of these local cells, some of which interact with members of international veterans networks, has complicated the anticipated threat for the near future, especially since such locally operating cells can easily blend in with the society in which they live, which makes it more difficult to identify them.” Conversely, heightened counter-terrorism measures (for instance, France alone has arrested some 1422 people on terrorist charges since 2002 [49]) have increased chances of detection. This fact, along with the significant number of successfully foiled plots, seems to suggest that –pending an exceptional group of terrorists- overall, the odds remain stacked in the favour of the security services. Of course, the maxim remains that terrorists only have to succeed once. Given that there has been a marked increase in radical Islam, what may be the true difficulty for security services is the problem of false positives, or being confronted with a haystack of potentially dangerous radicals that demand attention, sometimes at the expense of being able to distinguish the truly ‘jihadized’ terrorists.
There is more than meets the eye to ‘home-grown’ Islamist terrorism, and yet, it is widely referred to without clarification. It is undeniable that “Islamist terrorism can no longer be regarded as an external threat, but rather as a threat rooted in and aimed against the Western society itself.” [50] This is reflected in the increasing popularity of radical Islam within various Western countries and the obvious willingness of a minority of Western citizens and residents to perpetrate acts of terrorism in their home countries in the name of ‘Islam.’ References to HGIT have helped draw attention to ‘endogenous’ elements of a pervasive global Islamist struggle, whereby processes of radicalisation, jihadisation, and preparation for attack all take place within the West. This recognition has helped to focus the efforts of various security agencies, policy makers, and analysts alike as Western societies are now scrutinised as much if not more than their Middle Eastern or North African counterparts in the search for ‘answers’ to terrorism. However a closer, yet still brief, examination of underlying assumptions has highlighted the fact that contemporary Islamist terrorism in the West does not appear to be an entirely distinct manifestation from previous decades and is both varied and complex. Invoking unqualified reference to HGIT with the advent of each new plot uncovered runs the risk of overemphasising homogeneity. Groups of terrorists do seem to share common patterns of development as individuals come together, radicalise and decide to take action but there appears to be considerable variation both within and between these groups. In particular levels of international support and cooperation may have been underemphasised as foreign links are often uncovered [51] and the nature and role of ‘autonomy’ (ideological, financial, and operational) is poorly understood. By taking a much more systematic approach to the analysis and cross-comparison of groups of terrorists in and out-with the West rather than relying on anecdotal evidence it will be possible to describe with more confidence the existing range of HGIT, which in turn will increase pattern-recognition and chances of prediction of future trends. In addition, qualified and consistent usage of terms such as ‘home-grown’ has the potential to aid research into terrorism because researchers and authors of open source materials both mutually influence each other’s work. Finally, Islamist terrorism is a diverse and dynamic phenomenon. Researchers must remain sensitive to change and development but also continuity in order to be able to accurately capture and understand the progression of its various manifestations.
Sam Mullins gained an MSc in Investigative Psychology from the University of Liverpool,(UK), writing a thesis on the small group psychology of terrorism. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (CTCP) at the University of Wollongong, Australia.
REFERENCES
[1] The author would like to thank Dr. Adam Dolnik for his comments on the preparation of this article.
[2] Mueller, R, (2006), Remarks Prepared for delivery by Director Robert S. Mueller 3rd Federal Bureau of Investigation, The City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio, June 23rd 2006; accessed online 31/10/07 http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/mueller062306.htm
[3] Maley, P, (2007), “Home-grown Terrorism Now Main Threat” The Australian, October 4th 2007; accessed online 31/10/07 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22527581-5001561,00.html
[4] Leiken, R, (2005), “Europe’s Mujahideen: Where Mass Immigration Meets Global Terrorism” Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, April 2005; accessed online 25/10/07 http://www.cis.org/articles/2005/back405.html
[5] Each country is clearly geographically unique and hosts its own particular established immigrant populations. As Leiken7 has noted “Algerians [typify the Muslim population in] in France, Moroccans in Spain, Turks in Germany, and Pakistanis in the United Kingdom.”
[6] See chapter 1 in Vidino, L, (2006), “Al Qaeda In Europe: The New Battleground of International Jihad” New York: Prometheus Books
[7] Leiken, R, (2005), “Europe’s Angry Muslims” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005; accessed online 7/11/07 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050701faessay84409/robert-s-leiken/europe-s-angry-muslims.html?mode=print
[8] Sageman, M, (2007), “Radicalization of Global Islamist Terrorists” Address to Unite States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, June 27, 2007; accessed online 25/10/07 http://hsgac.senate.gov/_files/062707Sageman.pdf
[9] Silber & Bhatt18 cited in Neighbour, S, (2007), “Self-made Terrorists” The Australian, August 17th, 2007, accessed online 8/10/07 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22257201-28737,00.html
[10] The difficulty in achieving objectivity when it comes to applying definitions of terrorism has yet again been demonstrated as the Council of Europe recently condemned lists of terrorist organisations kept by the EU and UN as “totally arbitrary,” (“Totally Arbitrary: Marty Slams EU, UN Terror Blacklists” Der Spiegel, 13th November 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,517043,00.html
[11] For example in the UK it was reported that “In 2004 the JIC [Joint Intelligence Committee] noted that *** % of current Security Service targets for investigation were British and judged that over the next five years the UK would continue to face a threat from ‘home-grown’ as well as foreign terrorists,” (Murphy, P, (2006), “Intelligence and Security Committee: Report into the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005” Crown Copyright: The Stationery Office).
[12] As the Director of the FBI has emphasised, “They may not have any connection to al Qaeda or to other terrorist groups.”2
[13] Radicalisation within this context can be defined as coming to accept an extreme interpretation of Islam that a) Portrays Islam as under attack from Western and Western-influenced powers b) Divides the world into Muslims and infidels (‘us’ and ‘them’) and c) Defines ‘jihad’ as necessary violence against Islam’s oppressors, thus legitimising and encouraging acts of terrorism. Jihadisation18 22 has been defined as a distinct and by no means inevitable extension of radicalisation and involves accepting violent jihad as one’s personal responsibility and making effort to provide operational support to terrorists, participate in armed conflict or carry out acts of terrorism.
[14] The fact that there are multiple criteria, none of which are entirely straight-forward in themselves, highlights the difficulty of definition. For example, Taarnby23 notes that a key feature of the Hamburg 9/11 group is the fact that it emanated from within Europe in the absence of applied top-down recruitment, which clearly emphasises its ‘home-grown’ nature. However the fact that cell members were all recent immigrants and there was strong involvement with an international terrorist organisation means that for some, including Hoffman,15 this group is quite distinct from truly ‘home-grown’ terrorism. Such definitional issues raise the need for a system of classification of groups of terrorists in order to reduce levels of ambiguity and aid assessment of continuity and change.
[15] p49 in Hoffman, B, (2007), “The Global Terrorist Threat: Is Al-Qaeda on the Run or on the March?” Middle East Policy, Vol.14, no.2; pp44-58
[16] p50 in Hudson, R, (1999), “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” (Majeska, M, (ed.)) report by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress for The National Intelligence Council (USA); accessed online 1/5/06 http://www.mipt.org/pdf/socio_psychofterrorism.pdf
[17] pp24-25 in AIVD, (2002), “Recruitment for Jihad in the Netherlands: From Incident to Trend” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[18] Silber, M, & Bhatt, A, (2007), “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” New York City Police Department
[19] Outside of the US, plots covered included Madrid 2004; Amsterdam 2004; London 2005; Sydney/Melbourne 2005; and Toronto 2006. US plots included Portland 2002, Lackawanna 2002, Northern Virginia, 2003 and New York, 2004 & 2006.
[20] Leiken, R, & Brooke, S, (2006), “The Quantitative Analysis of Terrorism and Immigration: An Initial Exploration” Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.18; pp503-521
[21] A cursory analysis of this dataset, (accessed online 9/11/07: http://www.nixoncenter.org/index.cfm?action=publications ), also reveals that from 1990 and up to and including 2001, 18% of the sample were born in Western countries, (limited to the US, UK, Spain and mostly France), whereas from 2002 to 2004, inclusive of those listed ‘at large,’ 24% were born in the West, (including the above countries as well as Germany, the Netherlands and Canada). Furthermore 143 terrorists were ‘hosted’ by Western countries between 1990 and including 2001 compared to 219 from 2002 to 2004, inclusive of those still ‘at large.’ These numbers suggest an increase in the numbers of Western-born terrorists and in Western-based terrorist activity, however for assessing home-grown terrorism it is also necessary to know where terrorists grew up and trained. Quantitative data must also be complemented by qualitative analysis and as a caveat, aspects of the particular dataset used by Leiken and Brooke are disputable, (eg Anthony Garcia of the UK fertiliser bomb plot is listed as British born, however he is reported elsewhere as being Algerian by birth, moving to the UK at the age of 5; Vasagar, J, (2007), “The Five Who Planned to Bomb UK Targets” Guardian Unlimited, Monday April 30th 2007, accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2068835,00.html : BBC News “Profile: Anthony Garcia” BBC News website, Monday 30th April 2007, accessed online 13/11/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6149798.stm ).
[22] AIVD, (2006), “Violent Jihad in the Netherlands: Current Trends in the Islamist Terrorist Threat” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[23] Both of these are topics covered together by Taarnby, M, (2005), “Recruitment of Islamist Terrorists in Europe: Trends and Perspectives” Danish Ministry of Justice
[24] US Department of State, (1995), “Patterns of Global Terrorism” cited p137 in6.
[25] Home Office, (2006), “Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London in 7th July 2005” London: The Stationery Office
[26] Taarnby Jensen, M, (2006), “Jihad in Denmark: An Overview and Analysis of Jihadi Activity in Denmark 1990-2006” Danish Institute for International Studies: Copenhagen; Vesterkopi
[27] pp38-39 in22.
[28] p9 in Vidino, L, (2007), “Current Trends in Jihadi Networks in Europe” Terrorism Monitor, vol.5, Issue 20; October 25th 2007; pp8-11
[29] p73 in Neumann, P, (2006), “Europe’s Jihadist Dilemma” Survival, Vol.48, No.2; pp71-84
[30] Chapter 3 in22.
[31] p579 in Vidino, L, (2007), “The Hofstad Group: The New Face of Terrorist Networks in Europe” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.30; pp579-592
[32] p415 in Kirby, A, (2007), “The London Bombers as “Self-Starters”: A Case Study in Indigenous Radicalization and the Emergence of Autonomous Cliques” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol.30; pp415-428
[33] Sageman, M, (2004), “Understanding Terror Networks” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
[34] These included Said Mansour in Denmark and Omar Abu Bakri of al-Muhajiroun in London.
[35] Summers, C, & Casciani, D, (2007), “Fertiliser Bomb Plot: The Story” BBC News Home Affairs, 30 April 2007; accessed online 12/11/07 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6153884.stm
[36] Clark, P, (2007), “Operation Crevice: MPS Statement” Metropolitan Police Service; accessed online 12/11/07 http://cms.met.police.uk/news/convictions/terrorism/operation_crevice_mps_statement
[37] p8 in Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, (2006), “Review of Security and Counter Terrorism Legislation” Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia
[38] Evans, J, (2007), “Intelligence, Counter-Terrorism and Trust” Address to the Society of Editors by the Director General of the Security Service; “A Matter of Trust” conference; Manchester, 5th November 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page562.html
[39] p9 in28.
[40] For Hoffman home-grown terrorists are strictly part of the unaffiliated network, this being their defining feature, however usage of the term generally has so far been liberal and not limited to one (problematic) definitional dimension.
[41] As a possible example see The Associated Press, (2007), “Man Shot Dead Attacking Amsterdam Police Had Mental Problems, Possible Terrorism Link” International Herald Tribune, October 15th 2007; accessed online 13/11/07 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/10/15/europe/EU-GEN-Netherlands-Police-Stabbing.php
[42] This social psychological interpretation of processes of radicalisation and jihadisation is based upon accounts given by Silber & Bhatt18, the AIVD22 and Sageman.33
[43] Roy, O, (2003), “EuroIslam: The Jihad Within” National Interest, March 22nd 2003
[44] Durodié, B, (2007), “Home-grown Nihilism – The Clash Within Civilisations” in Cornish, P, (ed) “Britain and Security” London: The Smith Institute
[45] p10 in.18 Interestingly a change in expectations implies that ‘terrorism’ is already justified in the minds of newcomers to radical Islamist groups, to an extent undermining the importance ascribed by the NYPD authors to so-called ‘spiritual sanctioners’ for providing justification. Nevertheless identification of such roles does draw attention to the existence and importance of status systems and social support and encouragement within jihadi subcultures.
[46] p70 in26.
[47] See Castle, S, (2004), “Bombing of Muslim School linked to Murder of Film-Maker” The Independent, 9th November 2004; accessed online 13/11/07 http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article19376.ece
[48] p14 in AIVD, (2005), “Annual Report 2004” The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service
[49] US Department of State (2006), “Country Reports on Terrorism 2006” chapter 2, accessed online 30/10/07 http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2006/82732.htm/
[5049] p13 in48.
[51] The importance of international links has recently been emphasised once more in a so called ‘home-grown’ case. As Der Spiegel reports, “Investigators [working under Operation Alberich, which uncovered a plot in Germany in September this year] believe that the trips abroad are one of the keys to understanding this case,” (Stark, H, “The Fourth Man: Suspect in German Bomb Plot Tells His Story” Der Spiegel, November 15th 2007; accessed online 16/11/07 http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,517609,00.html ). The account so far of the German plot also shows overall remarkable conformity to the ‘usual’ patterns of radicalisation and jihadisation.
Note: Perspectives on Terrorism invites a diversity of opinions to be presented in articles. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Perspectives on Terrorism or the Terrorism Research Initiative.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
RADICALIZATION : REMEMBER JOHN WALKER LINDH ?
FROM:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/world/africa/17abdulmutallab.html
KADUNA, Nigeria — Well before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab disappeared into the rugged mountains of Yemen with an ominous goodbye to his father — warning him that “this is the last time you are going to hear from me,” according to top Nigerian officials — the tensions between the two pious men had already begun to show.
Though his father’s career in banking had brought great wealth, enough to finance a neighborhood mosque in the family name and hire a private imam at home, his cousins said the young Mr. Abdulmutallab openly condemned the profession as immoral for charging interest and lectured his father to quit.
“Anytime he came back on vacation” from studying abroad, a cousin said on the condition of anonymity because the family has forbidden contact with the press, “he would tell his father he needed to quit banking because it was un-Islamic.”
Behind Mr. Abdulmutallab’s journey from gifted student to terrorism suspect, accused of trying to bring down a plane headed to Detroit on Dec. 25 with explosives sewn into his underwear, is the struggle between father and son, between piety and radicalism, between an investment in this life and a disconnected young man’s apparent longing for the next.
It is a struggle within Islam itself, not just in the Middle East or in centers of jihadist ideology like London, but also here in Kaduna, the northern Nigerian city where Mr. Abdulmutallab grew up and returned to on vacation.
This is a place where the dividing line between devotion and extremism is often blurred, where Islamic police ensure that moral codes are obeyed, where scores were killed in religious violence incited by the Miss World contest in 2002, and where even a family as Westernized as Mr. Abdulmutallab’s has had contact with clerics espousing anti-Western and anti-Israeli ideals.
(MS: Cuz that's what Nigerian Muslims cry out for: a Miss World Contest - let's not forget the "Muhammad would have liked the contest too" comment that triggered the violence. This is to in the interest of linking insult to the Prophet Muhammad to a trigger for violence; it should be prevented just like those who, by giving their speeches, are likely to endanger national security.)
“Kaduna city has a long history of religious extremism and intolerance,” said a neighbor, Shehu Sani. “For 30 years, there has been violence here. People like Farouk grew up in this atmosphere. I don’t think all his radical ideas came from Yemen.”
While it may be rare for a child of privilege like Mr. Abdulmutallab to embrace extremism, it is far from unprecedented, analysts say, bringing to mind some infamous cases.
John Walker Lindh, the American captured as a fighter for the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, was the son of a lawyer and grew up in the gentle, moneyed suburbs of Marin County, Calif. Osama bin Laden’s father was a staggeringly wealthy contractor in Saudi Arabia, while his second in command in Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, is a doctor who comes from a highly prestigious family in Egypt.
And like Mr. Zawahri, some analysts say, Mr. Abdulmutallab shared another trait of some notable jihadists.
“He is alone and isolated,” said Hani Nesira, a director at Al Mesbar Studies and Research Center who specializes in Islamic movements. “These kind of individuals are usually different from their social surrounding and are unable to find themselves.”
Moreover, they often come from families that may monitor educational performance but are removed from “their moods and their psychological and intellectual inclinations,” Mr. Nesira added, enabling the lonely or depressed to seek belonging in “a religious utopia,” sometimes a very radical one.
‘The Real Islam’
That kind of detachment from others and singular focus on Islam was a common thread in Mr. Abdulmutallab’s life, according to family members, friends and classmates. It was evident long before he sent the kind of strident text messages to his father — saying that he had found “the real Islam” and that his family “should just forget about him,” the cousin said — which alarmed his father enough to warn American officials this November that Mr. Abdulmutallab was a security threat.
“He is a total teetotaler,” said Mr. Abdulmutallab’s uncle by marriage, Mahmoon Baba-Ahmed, who runs a television station in Kaduna. “He doesn’t do what his peers used to do. He is always indoors reading his Koran.”
While other rich children were going to parties, Mr. Abdulmutallab spent his visits home across the street, at the mosque financed by his father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, and bearing his grandfather’s name, always in the front row. His piety was so pronounced that the young people around here mocked him for it, his neighbor said.
It also set the stage for conflict within his own family, devout though it was. Along Ahman Pategi Road, an oasis of palms and mango trees in this dusty city, the security guards of the affluent Unguwan Sarki neighborhood know the story well. One evening the young Mr. Abdulmutallab brought out a plate with leftovers from the family dinner table — his father’s plate — to give to one of the guards. His mother’s rebuke over this breach of etiquette was voluble enough to reach the domestic workers; the young man’s calm response was to cite a verse from the Koran on duties toward the less fortunate.
“He wasn’t close to his father,” said Aminu Baba-Ahmed, a cousin by marriage. Ill will had simmered after the lonely young man, at 21, had expressed a desire to marry, the cousin said, but his parents blocked it, saying he did not yet have a master’s degree.
(MS: A young boy, indoors all the time, piety reminding him he has to be married if he wants to express his sexual urges, gets turned down - no wonder he sought the virgins in heaven. There is a self-imposed oppression that comes from extreme piety and it usually explodes outward in the form of outward ritualism, infatuation with details of the religious code, and violent action to bring the change needed in that oppressive perspective. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, "do not overdo it in religion for you will be overcome by it" - this is why daily fasting is not allowed in Islam because of the notion, "your body has a right over you also".)
A church in Kaduna was one of 16 that were burned in 2002 in religious clashes that killed some 220 people.
Increasingly, Mr. Abdulmutallab was close to nobody, according to those who know him here in Kaduna. The young man who as a teenager who had happily played basketball and PlayStation with his cousin had retreated into his faith.
In Internet postings in 2005, when he was a student at a British boarding school in neighboring Togo, he pondered his sense of isolation. “I feel depressed and lonely,” he wrote. “I do not know what to do. and then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems.”
By 2007, as he studied mechanical engineering at University College London, the transformation was deep.
“He had changed; he was saying ‘Islam, Islam, Islam;’ he was saying we should all try to change, and be more Islamic,” Aminu Baba-Ahmed recalled. Even in recent months, he said, the fun-loving boy he had known was chiding him about going to parties. “I was really surprised,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed said.
Radicalism Takes Root
Radical politics had also firmly taken root. While in London, Mr. Abdulmutallab lived alone, according to a friend there, in a family property at 2 Mansfield Street, an imposing white-pillared building in an upscale neighborhood near Regent’s Park where Mercedes-Benzes and Bentleys abound. Newspapers, neighbors and even some family members in Nigeria now blame this lack of supervision, a symptom of what they call the neglect among the Nigerian elite, for facilitating Mr. Abdulmutallab’s slide toward extremism.
His family may have assumed that Mr. Abdulmutallab’s piety would stave off any profligacy, and it did, at least in the conventional sense. Instead, he took quite a different turn, attending prayers at London mosques under watch by British security services because of their radical links. Still, while he was seen to be “reaching out” to known extremists and appearing on “the periphery of other investigations” into radical suspects there, he was not considered a terrorist threat himself, according to a British counterintelligence official.
(MS: What he was doing, was trying to connect to some people who saw Islam as he thought it should be. They would be his community, his sense of belonging. While he may have started on the periphery, moving closer to the real terrorists, given his background, he was going end up somewhere as a direct threat - and that is preciseley what happened. This cannot be blamed on the British security services; there are already so many British Muslims in that same sphere to have to worry about a son of a wealthy Nigerian banker (!)
For the inaugural lecture of the “War on Terror Week” that Mr. Abdulmutallab helped organize as president of the college’s Islamic society from 2006 to 2007, the group booked a large lecture hall. It was a full house, said Fabian De Fabiani, a student at the time who attended, with about 150 other people. Some members of the society dressed in the orange jumpsuits of the Guantánamo Bay detainees; they stood at the doors and handed out leaflets.
Mr. Abdulmutallab was seated “where the lecturer would usually sit,” Mr. De Fabiani said, “very close” to Moazzam Begg, a former Guantánamo detainee then in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical preacher whom officials say Mr. Abdulmutallab probably met in Yemen before setting off on his failed bombing attempt. In an interview, Mr. Begg acknowledged attending the event but said he did not recall meeting Mr. Abdulmutallab.
“When we sat down they played a video that opened with shots of the twin towers after they’d been hit, then moved on to images of mujahedeen fighting, firing rockets in Afghanistan,” Mr. De Fabiani said. “It was quite tense in the theater, because I think lots of people were shocked by how extreme it was. It seemed to me like it was brainwashing, like they were trying to indoctrinate people.”
There is a very big difference, of course, between religious devotion or radical politics and violence, and while “many, many people start the journey” toward extremist Islam, only a “small number” of people are committed to bloodshed, the British counterintelligence official said. Since the bombing attempt, newspaper editorials, psychologists and officials in Nigeria have suggested that Mr. Abdulmutallab was hardly Nigerian at all, that his ideas came from his time studying overseas.
No Shield From Islamic Fervor
But as rich and shielded as Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family was, it was not quarantined from the Islamic fervor that has led to outbreaks of violence in Kaduna.
In 2002, Muslim youths rioted and clashed with Christians after a newspaper article suggested that the Prophet Muhammad might have been happy to choose his wife from among the Miss World contestants, who were set to compete in the capital, Abuja. About 220 people were killed, and mobs burned 16 churches, 9 mosques, 11 hotels and 189 houses, according to a local civil rights groups led by Mr. Sani, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s neighbor.
(MS: First of all, there is absolutely no insult by suggesting the Prophet Muhammad would have liked a beautiful woman as a wife - but it was the blatantly disrespectful nature of bringing a Miss World contest to an ultra-conservative Muslim population. This is incitement by definition.)
Though the violence did not touch the serene family compound, the radical views permeating society might well have. Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family attends one of Kaduna’s largest mosques, the Sultan Bello mosque, for Friday Prayer and sermons, said the imam there. Anti-Western and anti-Israeli sermons are staples within its walls, said Nasir Abbas, a local human rights advocate who attends the mosque. “You would hear about what Israel has been doing to Palestine, you would hear that, and also America’s contributions to the Israelis,” Mr. Abbas said. In fact, at “all of the mosques” in Kaduna it is possible to hear anti-Western preaching, he said.
(MS: Just like we hear very little good about Islam in the West. Its an inclination to anger and fear that is shared by both sides.)
Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father evidently did not share those views, since he was the first to blow the whistle on his son. Yet even Mr. Mutallab encounters people here like Imam Ibrahim Adam, who said he had been in the family home and had met with the father at “religious gatherings” and meetings for a proposed Islamic bank, of which Mr. Mutallab is chairman of the board, according to the bank’s Web site. “Yemeni Muslims should have been the ones to attack America, not a Nigerian,” said the imam, carefully adding that he did not personally support the attack.
Exactly what drove Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father to report his son is still a source of debate within the family. In telling the Americans, he “acted on the dictates of his religion,” said the uncle, Mr. Baba-Ahmed. The father later viewed his son’s arrest in much the same way. “He summed it up with a verse from the Koran,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed recounted. “ ‘This is a trial: your offspring can be a source of happiness and sadness.’ ”
But the cousin who asked to remain anonymous had a more nuanced explanation for Mr. Mutallab’s whistle-blowing. “This is somebody who has investments in the Western world since before the boy was born,” he. “He’s got a £4 million house in London. Now the boy is jeopardizing everything.”
While studying last year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Abdulmutallab did not appear overly restless, doing better than average in his classes and quietly reading the Koran on the shuttle bus from student housing to campus each day, according to a classmate and the school director. But inwardly, he was apparently chafing against the secularism around him, and he argued with his father over the graduate business program in which he was enrolled before abruptly dropping out. “His father wanted him to continue his studies,” said an Arab official with ties to Persian Gulf intelligence services. “He didn’t want to. It wasn’t the Arab world for him. It wasn’t the Muslim world.” That, the official said, is when Mr. Abdulmutallab became angry “and went to Yemen without his dad’s permission.”
(MS: Another sign: looking for that utopian Islamic land in which all is well, and everyone is perfect like the people from the days of Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). They end up realizing X place is not good enough, Y place is not good enough...heaven becomes the only place to find peace.)
He entered Yemen on Aug. 4, with a visa to resume his studies at the Sana Institute for the Arabic Language, where he had studied the language in 2004 and 2005. But this time his mind was elsewhere, and he offered excuses about why he was seldom in class. He said he had a throat infection and “and was thinking of going to Dubai to check it out, and we said that there are hospitals here,” said an American classmate of his, adding, “He’d even leave class in the middle to go to pray at the mosque.”
Investigators are now trying to piece together his movements, examining how he managed to slip out of sight after being driven to the airport on Sept. 21 with an exit visa. Yemeni officials have said he went to the remote, rugged mountains of Shabwa Province, where he met with “Al Qaeda elements” before leaving Dec. 4, a few weeks before his fateful journey to Detroit.
After the disappearance, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father tried desperately to get him back. He enlisted one of his powerful friends, a retired national security adviser, to track his son down using the National Intelligence Agency, Nigeria’s version of the C.I.A. But the new director of the agency did not go along with it, officials here said.
“The impression he had was, they were using the service to locate the prodigal son of a rich man, who was off enjoying himself somewhere,” said a top Nigerian security official. “I don’t think he did anything. He didn’t have any idea about terrorism.”
Since his son’s arrest, Mr. Mutallab has remained out of public view. The father “is extremely worried,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed said. “Everybody is worried.”
*** As a father, I cannot even begin to imagine what a parent would be going through with a son/daughter on this path. Parents that are in this situation - please contact www.p4e.ca - I personally guarantee this organization as being above board and able to help you with your situation. MS ***
KADUNA, Nigeria — Well before Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab disappeared into the rugged mountains of Yemen with an ominous goodbye to his father — warning him that “this is the last time you are going to hear from me,” according to top Nigerian officials — the tensions between the two pious men had already begun to show.
Though his father’s career in banking had brought great wealth, enough to finance a neighborhood mosque in the family name and hire a private imam at home, his cousins said the young Mr. Abdulmutallab openly condemned the profession as immoral for charging interest and lectured his father to quit.
“Anytime he came back on vacation” from studying abroad, a cousin said on the condition of anonymity because the family has forbidden contact with the press, “he would tell his father he needed to quit banking because it was un-Islamic.”
Behind Mr. Abdulmutallab’s journey from gifted student to terrorism suspect, accused of trying to bring down a plane headed to Detroit on Dec. 25 with explosives sewn into his underwear, is the struggle between father and son, between piety and radicalism, between an investment in this life and a disconnected young man’s apparent longing for the next.
It is a struggle within Islam itself, not just in the Middle East or in centers of jihadist ideology like London, but also here in Kaduna, the northern Nigerian city where Mr. Abdulmutallab grew up and returned to on vacation.
This is a place where the dividing line between devotion and extremism is often blurred, where Islamic police ensure that moral codes are obeyed, where scores were killed in religious violence incited by the Miss World contest in 2002, and where even a family as Westernized as Mr. Abdulmutallab’s has had contact with clerics espousing anti-Western and anti-Israeli ideals.
(MS: Cuz that's what Nigerian Muslims cry out for: a Miss World Contest - let's not forget the "Muhammad would have liked the contest too" comment that triggered the violence. This is to in the interest of linking insult to the Prophet Muhammad to a trigger for violence; it should be prevented just like those who, by giving their speeches, are likely to endanger national security.)
“Kaduna city has a long history of religious extremism and intolerance,” said a neighbor, Shehu Sani. “For 30 years, there has been violence here. People like Farouk grew up in this atmosphere. I don’t think all his radical ideas came from Yemen.”
While it may be rare for a child of privilege like Mr. Abdulmutallab to embrace extremism, it is far from unprecedented, analysts say, bringing to mind some infamous cases.
John Walker Lindh, the American captured as a fighter for the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, was the son of a lawyer and grew up in the gentle, moneyed suburbs of Marin County, Calif. Osama bin Laden’s father was a staggeringly wealthy contractor in Saudi Arabia, while his second in command in Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, is a doctor who comes from a highly prestigious family in Egypt.
And like Mr. Zawahri, some analysts say, Mr. Abdulmutallab shared another trait of some notable jihadists.
“He is alone and isolated,” said Hani Nesira, a director at Al Mesbar Studies and Research Center who specializes in Islamic movements. “These kind of individuals are usually different from their social surrounding and are unable to find themselves.”
Moreover, they often come from families that may monitor educational performance but are removed from “their moods and their psychological and intellectual inclinations,” Mr. Nesira added, enabling the lonely or depressed to seek belonging in “a religious utopia,” sometimes a very radical one.
‘The Real Islam’
That kind of detachment from others and singular focus on Islam was a common thread in Mr. Abdulmutallab’s life, according to family members, friends and classmates. It was evident long before he sent the kind of strident text messages to his father — saying that he had found “the real Islam” and that his family “should just forget about him,” the cousin said — which alarmed his father enough to warn American officials this November that Mr. Abdulmutallab was a security threat.
“He is a total teetotaler,” said Mr. Abdulmutallab’s uncle by marriage, Mahmoon Baba-Ahmed, who runs a television station in Kaduna. “He doesn’t do what his peers used to do. He is always indoors reading his Koran.”
While other rich children were going to parties, Mr. Abdulmutallab spent his visits home across the street, at the mosque financed by his father, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, and bearing his grandfather’s name, always in the front row. His piety was so pronounced that the young people around here mocked him for it, his neighbor said.
It also set the stage for conflict within his own family, devout though it was. Along Ahman Pategi Road, an oasis of palms and mango trees in this dusty city, the security guards of the affluent Unguwan Sarki neighborhood know the story well. One evening the young Mr. Abdulmutallab brought out a plate with leftovers from the family dinner table — his father’s plate — to give to one of the guards. His mother’s rebuke over this breach of etiquette was voluble enough to reach the domestic workers; the young man’s calm response was to cite a verse from the Koran on duties toward the less fortunate.
“He wasn’t close to his father,” said Aminu Baba-Ahmed, a cousin by marriage. Ill will had simmered after the lonely young man, at 21, had expressed a desire to marry, the cousin said, but his parents blocked it, saying he did not yet have a master’s degree.
(MS: A young boy, indoors all the time, piety reminding him he has to be married if he wants to express his sexual urges, gets turned down - no wonder he sought the virgins in heaven. There is a self-imposed oppression that comes from extreme piety and it usually explodes outward in the form of outward ritualism, infatuation with details of the religious code, and violent action to bring the change needed in that oppressive perspective. The Prophet Muhammad is reported to have said, "do not overdo it in religion for you will be overcome by it" - this is why daily fasting is not allowed in Islam because of the notion, "your body has a right over you also".)
A church in Kaduna was one of 16 that were burned in 2002 in religious clashes that killed some 220 people.
Increasingly, Mr. Abdulmutallab was close to nobody, according to those who know him here in Kaduna. The young man who as a teenager who had happily played basketball and PlayStation with his cousin had retreated into his faith.
In Internet postings in 2005, when he was a student at a British boarding school in neighboring Togo, he pondered his sense of isolation. “I feel depressed and lonely,” he wrote. “I do not know what to do. and then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems.”
By 2007, as he studied mechanical engineering at University College London, the transformation was deep.
“He had changed; he was saying ‘Islam, Islam, Islam;’ he was saying we should all try to change, and be more Islamic,” Aminu Baba-Ahmed recalled. Even in recent months, he said, the fun-loving boy he had known was chiding him about going to parties. “I was really surprised,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed said.
Radicalism Takes Root
Radical politics had also firmly taken root. While in London, Mr. Abdulmutallab lived alone, according to a friend there, in a family property at 2 Mansfield Street, an imposing white-pillared building in an upscale neighborhood near Regent’s Park where Mercedes-Benzes and Bentleys abound. Newspapers, neighbors and even some family members in Nigeria now blame this lack of supervision, a symptom of what they call the neglect among the Nigerian elite, for facilitating Mr. Abdulmutallab’s slide toward extremism.
His family may have assumed that Mr. Abdulmutallab’s piety would stave off any profligacy, and it did, at least in the conventional sense. Instead, he took quite a different turn, attending prayers at London mosques under watch by British security services because of their radical links. Still, while he was seen to be “reaching out” to known extremists and appearing on “the periphery of other investigations” into radical suspects there, he was not considered a terrorist threat himself, according to a British counterintelligence official.
(MS: What he was doing, was trying to connect to some people who saw Islam as he thought it should be. They would be his community, his sense of belonging. While he may have started on the periphery, moving closer to the real terrorists, given his background, he was going end up somewhere as a direct threat - and that is preciseley what happened. This cannot be blamed on the British security services; there are already so many British Muslims in that same sphere to have to worry about a son of a wealthy Nigerian banker (!)
For the inaugural lecture of the “War on Terror Week” that Mr. Abdulmutallab helped organize as president of the college’s Islamic society from 2006 to 2007, the group booked a large lecture hall. It was a full house, said Fabian De Fabiani, a student at the time who attended, with about 150 other people. Some members of the society dressed in the orange jumpsuits of the Guantánamo Bay detainees; they stood at the doors and handed out leaflets.
Mr. Abdulmutallab was seated “where the lecturer would usually sit,” Mr. De Fabiani said, “very close” to Moazzam Begg, a former Guantánamo detainee then in contact with Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical preacher whom officials say Mr. Abdulmutallab probably met in Yemen before setting off on his failed bombing attempt. In an interview, Mr. Begg acknowledged attending the event but said he did not recall meeting Mr. Abdulmutallab.
“When we sat down they played a video that opened with shots of the twin towers after they’d been hit, then moved on to images of mujahedeen fighting, firing rockets in Afghanistan,” Mr. De Fabiani said. “It was quite tense in the theater, because I think lots of people were shocked by how extreme it was. It seemed to me like it was brainwashing, like they were trying to indoctrinate people.”
There is a very big difference, of course, between religious devotion or radical politics and violence, and while “many, many people start the journey” toward extremist Islam, only a “small number” of people are committed to bloodshed, the British counterintelligence official said. Since the bombing attempt, newspaper editorials, psychologists and officials in Nigeria have suggested that Mr. Abdulmutallab was hardly Nigerian at all, that his ideas came from his time studying overseas.
No Shield From Islamic Fervor
But as rich and shielded as Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family was, it was not quarantined from the Islamic fervor that has led to outbreaks of violence in Kaduna.
In 2002, Muslim youths rioted and clashed with Christians after a newspaper article suggested that the Prophet Muhammad might have been happy to choose his wife from among the Miss World contestants, who were set to compete in the capital, Abuja. About 220 people were killed, and mobs burned 16 churches, 9 mosques, 11 hotels and 189 houses, according to a local civil rights groups led by Mr. Sani, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s neighbor.
(MS: First of all, there is absolutely no insult by suggesting the Prophet Muhammad would have liked a beautiful woman as a wife - but it was the blatantly disrespectful nature of bringing a Miss World contest to an ultra-conservative Muslim population. This is incitement by definition.)
Though the violence did not touch the serene family compound, the radical views permeating society might well have. Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family attends one of Kaduna’s largest mosques, the Sultan Bello mosque, for Friday Prayer and sermons, said the imam there. Anti-Western and anti-Israeli sermons are staples within its walls, said Nasir Abbas, a local human rights advocate who attends the mosque. “You would hear about what Israel has been doing to Palestine, you would hear that, and also America’s contributions to the Israelis,” Mr. Abbas said. In fact, at “all of the mosques” in Kaduna it is possible to hear anti-Western preaching, he said.
(MS: Just like we hear very little good about Islam in the West. Its an inclination to anger and fear that is shared by both sides.)
Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father evidently did not share those views, since he was the first to blow the whistle on his son. Yet even Mr. Mutallab encounters people here like Imam Ibrahim Adam, who said he had been in the family home and had met with the father at “religious gatherings” and meetings for a proposed Islamic bank, of which Mr. Mutallab is chairman of the board, according to the bank’s Web site. “Yemeni Muslims should have been the ones to attack America, not a Nigerian,” said the imam, carefully adding that he did not personally support the attack.
Exactly what drove Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father to report his son is still a source of debate within the family. In telling the Americans, he “acted on the dictates of his religion,” said the uncle, Mr. Baba-Ahmed. The father later viewed his son’s arrest in much the same way. “He summed it up with a verse from the Koran,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed recounted. “ ‘This is a trial: your offspring can be a source of happiness and sadness.’ ”
But the cousin who asked to remain anonymous had a more nuanced explanation for Mr. Mutallab’s whistle-blowing. “This is somebody who has investments in the Western world since before the boy was born,” he. “He’s got a £4 million house in London. Now the boy is jeopardizing everything.”
While studying last year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Abdulmutallab did not appear overly restless, doing better than average in his classes and quietly reading the Koran on the shuttle bus from student housing to campus each day, according to a classmate and the school director. But inwardly, he was apparently chafing against the secularism around him, and he argued with his father over the graduate business program in which he was enrolled before abruptly dropping out. “His father wanted him to continue his studies,” said an Arab official with ties to Persian Gulf intelligence services. “He didn’t want to. It wasn’t the Arab world for him. It wasn’t the Muslim world.” That, the official said, is when Mr. Abdulmutallab became angry “and went to Yemen without his dad’s permission.”
(MS: Another sign: looking for that utopian Islamic land in which all is well, and everyone is perfect like the people from the days of Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him). They end up realizing X place is not good enough, Y place is not good enough...heaven becomes the only place to find peace.)
He entered Yemen on Aug. 4, with a visa to resume his studies at the Sana Institute for the Arabic Language, where he had studied the language in 2004 and 2005. But this time his mind was elsewhere, and he offered excuses about why he was seldom in class. He said he had a throat infection and “and was thinking of going to Dubai to check it out, and we said that there are hospitals here,” said an American classmate of his, adding, “He’d even leave class in the middle to go to pray at the mosque.”
Investigators are now trying to piece together his movements, examining how he managed to slip out of sight after being driven to the airport on Sept. 21 with an exit visa. Yemeni officials have said he went to the remote, rugged mountains of Shabwa Province, where he met with “Al Qaeda elements” before leaving Dec. 4, a few weeks before his fateful journey to Detroit.
After the disappearance, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father tried desperately to get him back. He enlisted one of his powerful friends, a retired national security adviser, to track his son down using the National Intelligence Agency, Nigeria’s version of the C.I.A. But the new director of the agency did not go along with it, officials here said.
“The impression he had was, they were using the service to locate the prodigal son of a rich man, who was off enjoying himself somewhere,” said a top Nigerian security official. “I don’t think he did anything. He didn’t have any idea about terrorism.”
Since his son’s arrest, Mr. Mutallab has remained out of public view. The father “is extremely worried,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed said. “Everybody is worried.”
*** As a father, I cannot even begin to imagine what a parent would be going through with a son/daughter on this path. Parents that are in this situation - please contact www.p4e.ca - I personally guarantee this organization as being above board and able to help you with your situation. MS ***
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
