[oema] CQ:Experts: al Qaeda Still Dangerous and Seeping Into the U.S.

From: George Houston <ghouston@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Most Significant, Yet Undisclosed Folks List" <ghouston@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:57:13 -0800

> CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
>
> Nov. 19, 2009 ? 7:33 p.m.
>
> Experts: al Qaeda Still Dangerous and Seeping Into the U.S.
>
> By Matt Korade, CQ Staff
>
> The al Qaeda organization is declining but still dangerous, relying as
> much as ever on local initiative as on top-down direction, experts
> told a House Homeland Security subcommittee on Thursday.
>
> Battered in its safe-haven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the
> transnational terrorist network is spreading into Yemen, Somalia and
> the Maghreb ó and into America, as the example of the September arrest
> of U.S. legal resident Najibullah Zazi for an alleged New York bombing
> plot seems to show, witnesses said.
>
> Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., chairwoman of the House Homeland
> Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk
> Assessment, said she called the hearing to assess how the threat of al
> Qaeda has changed since the panelís last hearing on the subject more
> than a year ago.
>
> Despite U.S. and allied success in eliminating al Qaeda leaders in the
> Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on Pakistanís border
> with Afghanistan, Westerners are now training in the region, Harman
> said.
>
> Al Qaeda is also inspiring copycat attacks, which might have been the
> motivation for the FortHood shootings earlier this month, she said.
>
> ìThe ënew terrorist template,í as Time magazine calls it, will prove
> an even more difficult threat to mitigate than that posed by the
> original al Qaeda,î Harman said.
>
> Ranking Republican Peter T. King, R-N.Y., said he agreed al Qaeda is
> in decline and has morphed. As the London subway attacks showed, ìIt
> is second and third generation homegrown terrorists we have to be
> concerned about,î King said.
>
> Peter Bergen, a senior fellow at the New American Foundation and
> national security analyst for CNN, said Zazi, a citizen of Afghanistan
> who was living in Denver, appears to be the first genuine al Qaeda
> recruit living in the United States in years.
>
> Zazi allegedly traveled to Pakistan in August 2008 and received
> explosives training from al Qaeda members in the Pakistani tribal
> region, Bergen said.
>
> Other recent incidents involving U.S. citizens have a similar
> ring, Bergen said. Bryant Neal Vinas, of Queens, New York, allegedly
> took al Qaeda courses on rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons
> in summer of 2008. Vinas allegedly told FBI interrogators that he gave
> the terrorists information on the Long Island Rail Road commuter rail,
> ìwhich the terror group had some kind of at least notional plan to
> attack,î Bergen said.
>
> David Coleman Headley, a resident of Chicago, also allegedly had
> significant dealings with terrorists in the FATA region, Bergen said.
> Headley, believed by authorities to have been plotting an attack
> against a Danish newspaper, has been charged with a criminal complaint
> of conspiring to provide material support for terrorism.
>
> The cases appear to be part of a larger trend, Bergen said. According
> to an unpublished count by New YorkUniversityís Center on Law and
> Security, 25 U.S. citizens or residents have been charged with
> traveling to an overseas training camp or war zone since 9/11, he
> said.
>
> These include the training of:
>
> ï Two Americans with the Taliban;
>
> ï Seven with al Qaeda;
>
> ï Ten with the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba;
>
> ï Four with the Somali al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabab;
>
> ï And three with unspecified jihadists in Pakistan.
>
> Considering the number of people who have avoided charges, Bergen
> said, the number of those who have received terrorist training
> overseas is probably much larger.
>
> For instance, about two dozen Somali Americans, mostly from Minnesota,
> traveled to Somalia to receive terrorist training, but only three were
> charged or convicted of crimes for doing so, he said.
>
> ìSo this number under-counts the real number,î Bergen said, ìAnd I
> think itís a fairly large number, given the fact that itís getting to
> a training camp that really makes a differenceî in producing serious
> terrorists.
>
> The experts agreed that the core al Qaeda organization has become a
> diminished threat that probably is incapable of carrying out another
> attack in the style of Sept. 11, 2001. But the group should not be
> underestimated, said retired Army Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, director of
> the Near EastSouthAsiaCenter for Strategic Studies at
> the NationalDefenseUniversity.
>
> Al Qaeda has proven a resilient and determined enemy, he said, and
> their targets canít slip up or let their guards down even once, ìwhich
> is a very tough standard to meet,î Barno said.
>
> Martha Crenshaw, senior fellow at the Center for International
> Security and Cooperation at StanfordUniversity, said estimates of al
> Qaedaís strength ó which range from about 400 to less than 2000 ó are
> ìmisleading and even meaningless.î Al Qaeda has always been a cross
> between a centralized hierarchy and decentralized flat network, she
> said.
>
> But, while adaptable and flexible, it is not a global social movement,
> she said.
>
> ìInstead, it is a web of overlapping conspiracies, often piggy-backing
> on local conflicts and grievances,î Crenshaw said.
>
> Paul Pillar, a professor and director of graduate studies
> at GeorgetownUniversityís Security Studies Program, said it is
> critical for counterterrorism officials to examine the reasons for
> radicalization at home, which includes pre-existing anger and personal
> discontent that is strong enough to make terrorism seem appealing.
>
> ìEven the most adept and aggressively proselytizing foreign terrorist
> group could not make gains without raw material in the form of
> disaffected and alienated individuals,î Pillar said.
>
> Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@xxxxxx
>
>                     Source: CQ Homeland Security
>        © 2009 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved.
>
>
>
[oema] CQ:Experts: al Qaeda Still Dangerous and Seeping Into the U.S.

Other related posts:
