WASHINGTON — Efforts by terrorists abroad to radicalize and recruit U.S. residents present new security threats, three top Obama administration officials told Congress on Wednesday.
Al-Qaida and its allies are likely to attempt small-scale, less-sophisticated terrorist attacks in the United States, the officials said, noting that it’s extremely difficult to detect such threats in advance.
“Unlike large-scale, coordinated, catastrophic attacks, executing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-operational steps,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Accordingly, there are fewer opportunities to detect such an attack before it occurs.”
The threat posed by homegrown extremists shows that the battle against terrorism has become more complex in the past year, underscoring the challenges of pinpointing and blocking plots, said Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
“Groups affiliated with al-Qaida are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures,” FBI Director Robert Mueller told the committee.
It appears that “domestic radicalization and homegrown extremism” is becoming more pronounced, Mueller said.
Napolitano said al-Qaida has inspired an array of terrorist organizations.
“We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats,” Napolitano said. “It’s directed at the West generally.”
Militants have found that it is easier to plot operations such as those in Bombay in 2008 that are less spectacular than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and still receive widespread media attention, Mueller said.
The terrorists “get substantial coverage and impact with smaller attacks,” he said.
Bombay is known in India as Mumbai.
“The impact of the attempted attacks during the past year suggests al-Qaida, and its affiliates and allies, will attempt to conduct smaller-scale attacks targeting the homeland, but with greater frequency,” Leiter said, pointing to plots against the subway system in New York, the attempt to down a commercial airliner approaching Detroit and the failed car bombing in Times Square.
Leiter said al-Qaida in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points organizationally. Nonetheless, he said, the terrorist group remains a capable and determined enemy that has proven its resilience overtime.
Since 2009, at least 63 American citizens have been charged or convicted for terrorism or related crimes, “an astoundingly high number of American citizens who have attacked - or intended to attack - their own country,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., the committee’s chairman.
A year ago, the FBI arrested Michael Finton in Illinois and Hosam Smadi in Texas in connection with unrelated bomb attempts. The bureau used online undercover agents and confidential informants who monitored Finton and Smadi until their arrests.
Several U.S. residents from Somali-American communities in Minneapolis were recruited to fight with the Somali-based terrorist group al-Shabab. That prompted the FBI to deploy bureau personnel to cities with high ethnic Somali populations in an outreach initiative to community leaders.
In his prepared testimony, Mueller said it is possible that more American extremists are feeling increasingly disenchanted with living in the United States or are angry about U.S. and Western foreign policy, “making their decision to leave for extremist opportunities abroad all the more appealing.”
Omar Hammami, an Alabama man now known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or “the American,” has become one of al-Shabab’s most high-profile members and appeared in a jihadist video in May 2009.
Leiter said the rising profiles of U.S. citizens such as Hammami in overseas terrorist groups provide young extremists with American faces as role models.
“The spike in homegrown violent extremist activity during the past year is indicative of a common cause that rallies independent extremists to want to attack the homeland,” said Leiter. “Key to this trend has been the development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individuals to violence. This narrative - a blend of al-Qaida inspiration, perceived victimization and glorification of past plotting - has become increasingly accessible through the Internet, and English-language websites are tailored to address the unique concerns of U.S.-based extremists.”
U.S. military officials have charged Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan with killing 13 and injuring 43 in a Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas. U.S. intelligence agencies before the attack intercepted communications between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric in Yemen who supports violence against U.S. targets.
Napolitano said the U.S.-born al-Awlaki is an illustration of an English-speaker spreading propaganda over the Internet, an approach she said could be helping to increase the number of homegrown extremists.
Terrorists “are working increasingly to build alliances or essentially recruit soldiers for their army from within the United States,” Lieberman said.
The panel’s ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said the shootings at Fort Hood and the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner show that the terrorist threat “is evolving and ever-changing” and “a chameleon by design.”
Since May 2009, U.S. authorities have made arrests in 19 plots involving U.S. residents, Collins said, citing Congressional Research Service figures. That compares with arrests made in 21 plots between Sept. 11, 2001, and May 2009.
Mueller said the diverse backgrounds of homegrown extremists are troubling, and a challenge for investigators.
“During the past year, the threat from radicalization has evolved,” he said. “A number of disruptions occurred involving extremists from a diverse set of backgrounds, geographic locations, life experiences and motivating factors that propelled them along their separate radicalization pathways. Beyond the sheer number of disruptions and arrests that have come to light, homegrown extremists are increasingly more savvy, harder to detect and able to connect with other extremists overseas.”
Mueller and Napolitano also told the panel the U.S. can’t ignore violence such as the Mexican drug-cartel wars that is unrelated to radical Islam.
“The situation in Mexico is very, very serious,” Napolitano said.
Mueller said the threat from Mexico has increased recently, and Napolitano noted Mexico’s rising homicide rate.
Information for this article was contributed by Pete Yost of The Associated Press, by Peter Finn of The Washington Post and by Jeff Bliss of Bloomberg News.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/23/2010