January 6, 2010
2009: The Year of Homegrown Jihad
Erick Stakelbeck
CHICAGO, Ill. – From the Fort Hood massacre to the failed attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas day, Islamic jihadists have never been more active in their attempts to attack the U.S.
Many of the plots were hatched by U.S. citizens – homegrown jihadists.
Exibit A: Five middle class friends from the Washington, D.C., suburbs: one was a dental student at a local university, all were praised as "good kids" by leaders of their northern Virginia mosque.
"I have always known these kids as fun loving, career focused children that had a bright future ahead of them," said Mustafa Abu Maryam, youth coordinator of the young men’s mosque in Alexandria, Virginia.
I talked with Pat Robertson on "The 700 Club" about the growing threat of homegrown jihad. Click here for the interview.
Now, a good part of that "bright" future may be spent behind bars. The men traveled to Pakistan in November to link up with Islamic terrorist groups and wage jihad against U.S. troops.
Their capture by Pakistani authorities capped a full year of terrorist plots, attacks and arrests involving U.S. citizens
Terrorism experts say the rise of homegrown terrorism has left the U.S. more vulnerable to attack than at any time since 9/11.
"I see these individuals, these homegrown individuals, as sort of the crown jewel for international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda," Rick Nelson of the Center for Stragic and International Studies said.
Indeed, 2009 saw no shortage of American recruits for al Qaeda and its allies:
Fort Hood psychiatrist Nidal Hassan contacted an al Qaeda recruiter in Yemen before carrying out his terrorist rampage. Afghan native Najibullah Zazi stands accused of planning major attacks in New York City after involvement with an al Qaeda training camp. Fourteen Somali Americans are under indictment for providing support to an al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia. And two Pakistani Americans in Chicago were charged with seeking to attack targets in Denmark and India. One of those men, David Coleman Headley, traveled to India to scout out targets for the Islamic terror group, Lashkar e-Taiba.
The group later struck those targets in the Nov. 2008 Mumbai massacre that killed 166.
"Someone who has the ability as a legal U.S. resident to travel fairly freely throughout the world with a passport makes them a very useful tool," Nelson explained.
Headley and his partner in the plot, Tawahurr Hussein Rana attended school together in Pakistan. The two reconnected after moving to a heavily Pakistani neighborhood in north Chicago.
FBI agents seized two al Qaeda videos during a raid at Rana's home. The videos featured speeches by Osama bin Laden and vicious rhetoric against the U.S., Denmark and Jews.
The Chicago case has raised fears that American Islamists could have designs outside the U.S.
They're already attempting to wage jihad inside the U.S., in places like Springfield, Illinois, where a white convert to Islam was recently arrested and charged with attempting to blow up a federal building.
Michael Finton, 29, converted to Islam in prison and idolized American Taliban John Walker Lindh.
A federal affidavit revealed Finton traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and received $1,400 from an unidentified man in that country.
"These networks are able to recruit on the Internet and there are so many jihadist Web sites out there that particularly play to young, impressionable individuals," former FBI special agent Dennis Lormel said.
A co-worker of Finton's at a fast food restaurant in the blue-collar town of Decatur, Ill., said he "didn't like America very much." Finton and other American Muslims turned that rage against their country in 2009.
New York City: Four Muslims were charged with plotting to bomb synagogues and U.S. military planes. North Carolina: Seven Muslims were arrested for planning attacks against overseas targets and U.S. military facilities in Virginia. Dallas: A 19-year-old Jordanian plotted to blow up a downtown skyscraper. Boston: A Muslim charged with planning to kill U.S. soldiers and civilians. Dearborn, Mich.: The leader of a radical Islamic group was killed in a shootout with FBI agents. Fort Hood wasn't the only successful Islamic terrorist attack on American soil in 2009. In a shooting almost ignored by the media, a radical Muslim killed a U.S. military recruiter in Arkansas last spring.
Lormel told CBN News the "low-tech" paramilitary tactics used in those two attacks and in Mumbai could be the future of homegrown jihad.
"I think that plays to what happened in Mumbai," he said. "You had a group of individuals who were able to commit such devastation. Even though the death count was nowhere near 9/11, that still had a devastating impact on India."
Wafa Sultan, a former Muslim and author of the book A God Who Hates, told CBN News that until America faces the fact that Islamic ideology drives the jihadists, homegrown plots will continue in 2010.
"I heard it a million times [at mosques here in the United States]," she said. "That we are here to spread Islam and eventually to replace the American constitution with Islamic Sharia law."
Solution is simple. Name a islamic country where infidel can live in peace ,practice his religion or has some basic rights. Look at Saudi arebia iran ,iraq ,pakistan and indonatia ground for killing for all infidels and conversion. Its time to isolate muslims from democratic world. Give them no job ,cancel Visa immigration take back citizen deport . Islam is sick idealogy will effect soon our people who are lazy and love killing over power women and hate idealogy.
posted by: arish sahani
Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 12:11 AM
The shame of it all is that the leadership of our country including the Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama don't see or don't want to see that our country is at war with Islamic jihadists. I am reminded of the President's speech in Cairo where he lauded the wonderful contributions Islam has made to this country?! The real contributions they made in 2009 resulted in death and mayhem. I wish Erik would send this list of "contributions" to the leadership in Congress, to Eric Holder, and to President Obama, though I doubt it would do any good. They seem to believe what they want to believe in spite of the evidence to the contrary!
posted by: Dore
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 03:02 AM
You Missed an important opportunity this morning to talk about:
Migration (hijra هجرة) and Concealment or Disguise (taqiyah تقية).
Migration
Migration is legally obligatory on a Muslim as preparatory to other forms of jihad for the victory of Islam and Muslims in other countries . . . . Migration precedes jihad and both are inextricably linked . . . . It is not possible to consolidate the Islamic religion without migration. There is no way to raise the profile of Islam in the abode of apostasy without the help of Muslims and the increase of their numbers.
Since the role of the mosque is so critical in securing victory over non-Muslims, mosques are sometimes built for the purpose of raising awareness of Islam among non-Muslims rather than serving the needs of the Muslim community as a place of worship. This is why a small group of Muslims in a non-Muslim community sometimes build a large mosque which far exceeds the needs of their group.
Migration and the building of mosques serve the purpose of bringing a witness to non-Muslims that Islam is superior.
And More importantly,,,
Disguise
S. Solomon & E. "The Mosque Exposed".
Despite the overtly cruel, harsh, and intolerant Quranic views toward others, namely Jews and Christians, there are injunctions in the Quran that enable the Islamic community to disguise, play down, and when necessary, deny both the intensity and the validity of these anti-Semitic and anti-Christian teachings of its religious system.
This particular injunction is Taqiya, Islamic sanctioned "Lying", which permeates almost all the activities and dealings of Muslims within non-Muslim societies, be they religiously sacred or religiously temporal, secular or civic, since Islam does not distinguish between sacred and secular.
posted by: concerned
Thursday, January 7, 2010 at 12:24 AM
