Experts Say America At Risk

America faces a growing threat from terrorists drawn from “immigrant and indigenous Muslims as well as converts to Islam,” a new report finds. These new sources of radical Islamic terrorism defy attempts at profiling because they come from all walks of American life.

The report, Assessing the Terrorist Threat,  was written by terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman and veteran journalist Peter Bergen and published by the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group, which is headed by 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, former Democratic representative of Indiana.

The report’s main conclusion is that the United States faces a new and growing threat from Islamic extremists radicalized in America. The conventional wisdom, that America could avoid the problem of increased domestic radicalization plaguing Europe, is wrong, according to the report.

“The conventional wisdom has long been that America was immune to the heady currents of radicalization affecting both immigrant and indigenous Muslim communities elsewhere in the West,” the report says. “That has now been shattered by the succession of cases that have recently come to light of terrorist radicalization and recruitment occurring in the United States.”

Those incidents, including the failed Times Square bombing attempt, the shooting rampage of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and the shooting of two Army recruiters in Arkansas, show that America is “little different from Europe” when it comes to the domestic threat of Islamic radicalization.

 “Given this list of incidents involving homegrown radicals, lone wolves, and trained terrorist recruits, the U.S. is arguably now little different from Europe in terms of having a domestic terrorist problem involving immigrant and indigenous Muslims, as well as converts to Islam,” Hoffman and Bergen conclude.

“There seems no longer any clear profile of a terrorist,” states the report.  “Moreover, the means through which many of these persons were radicalized, over the Internet, suggests that these days you can aspire to become a terrorist in the comfort of your own bedroom.”

This is because as America’s counter-terrorism has evolved, authorities have learned how to prevent and disrupt high-cost, complex terror plots. With low-rent terrorism however, the operational and financial links that are often the undoing of complex plots are minimal, making them substantially more difficult for authorities to detect and disrupt, states the report’s authors.

“Now it is clear that terrorist groups see operational value in conducting more frequent and less sophisticated attacks that can place severe stress on finite intelligence and law enforcement resources,” state Bergen and Hoffman.

“When the U.S. demonstrates its national resilience in the face of terrorism, terrorist groups will have little to gain by attacking the American homeland,” reads the report. “When federal agencies work well with one another and their counterparts at the state and local levels, and reach out to everyday Americans, the United States will be far better able to detect and prevent future attacks.”

“Only then can America succeed at maintaining the upper hand in the face of an adversary who continues to demonstrate the ability to learn and adapt,” state Hoffman and Bergen.

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