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The U.S. was slow to take seriously the threat
posed by homegrown radicals and the government has failed to put
systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to
a new report compiled by the former heads of the Sept. 11
Commission.


      The report says U.S. authorities failed to realize that
Somali-American youths traveling from Minnesota to Mogadishu in
2008 to join extremists was not an isolated issue. Instead, the
movement was one among several instances of a broader, more diverse
threat that has surfaced across the country.


      "Our long-held belief that homegrown terrorism couldn't happen
here has thus created a situation where we are today stumbling
blindly through the legal, operational and organizational minefield
of countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment occurring in
the United States," said the report.


      As a result, there is still no federal agency specifically
charged with identifying radicalization or working to prevent
terrorist recruitment of U.S. citizens and residents, said the
report, which was released Friday by the Washington-based
Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group.


      The group, headed by former 9-11 commission leaders Tom Kean and
Lee Hamilton, laid out a detailed description of domestic terror
incidents ranging from the Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree and the
attempted Christmas Day airliner attack in late 2009 to last May's
botched truck bombing in New York's Times Square.


      "The threat has both diversified and become much more complex
than it has been at any time since the attack on Sept. 11, 2001,"
said Bruce Hoffman, one of the authors of the report. "There is no
single profile of the terrorists threatening the United States
today. What we see is an adversary that in essence is drawn from
all sectors of society and all walks of life."


      Over the past year, terrorism experts and government officials
have warned of the threat posed by homegrown radicals, saying
terror recruits who go abroad could return to the U.S. to carry out
attacks.


      But the U.S., the group said, should have learned earlier from
Britain's experience. Prior to the 2005 London suicide bombings,
the British believed they were less vulnerable to an attack because
Muslims there were better integrated, educated and wealthier than
their counterparts elsewhere.


      Similarly, the U.S. believed that its melting pot of
nationalities and religions would protect it from internal radical
strife, the report said.


      The terrorists, said the report, may have discovered America's
"Achilles' heel in that we currently have no strategy to counter
the type of threat posed by homegrown terrorists and other
radicalized recruits."


      U.S. officials have acknowledged the need to address the
radicalization problem, and for the first time, the White House
this year added combating homegrown terrorism to its national
security strategy.


      The National Counterterrorism Center and a National Security
Council interagency group of representatives from 13 federal
agencies and offices have taken the lead in looking at ways to
counter violent extremism within the U.S. and abroad, Denis
McDonough, the chief of staff of the president's National Security
Council, said in an interview with The Associated Press in June.


      The effort includes officials from the departments of Defense,
Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice
and State.


      The FBI has worked to reach out to Somali communities, in an
effort to counter the radicalization of young people.


      The report also points to an "Americanization" of the
leadership of al-Qaida and its allied groups, noting that radical
cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who had links with suspects in the failed
Times Square bombing and the Fort Hood shootings, grew up in New
Mexico. And Chicagoan David Headley played a role in scoping the
targets for the Lashkar-e-Taiba attacks on Mumbai in late 2008 that
killed more than 160.


      Abroad, Al-Qaida, its affiliates and other extremist groups have
splintered and spread, seeking safe havens in under-governed areas
of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and places in North and East Africa.
That diversified threat has intensified as militants reach out to
potential recruits through the Internet.


      Assessing future threats, the report lists potential future
domestic targets, including passenger jets, western or American
hotel chains, Jewish or Israeli sites and U.S. soldiers, even at
their own bases in America.


      And it also warns that it is no longer wise to believe that
American extremists will not resort to suicide bombings. As an
example they point to Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who has been charged
with killing 13 people and wounding 32 in last year's shootings at
Fort Hood, saying he had written about suicide operations in
e-mails, and that his attack appeared to be one.
   

Gallery

The U.S. was slow to take seriously the threat
posed by homegrown radicals and the government has failed to put systems in place to deal with the growing phenomenon, according to a new report compiled by the former heads of the Sept. 11
Commission.

Report: US must deal with domestic radical problem

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