NYPD Warns of Homegrown Terror Threat

[sHiZo963]

Sick bag required for this one...

Associated Press
NYPD Warns of Homegrown Terror Threat
By TOM HAYS 08.15.07, 2:21 PM ET

NEW YORK -

Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men - often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country - adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence.

The report was intended to explain how people become radicalized rather than to lay out specific strategies for thwarting terror plots. It calls for more intelligence gathering, and argues that local law enforcement agencies are in the best position to monitor potential terrorists.

"Hopefully, the better we're informed about this process, the more likely we'll be to detect and disrupt it," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said during a briefing with private security executives at police headquarters.

The study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Madrid and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.

The report found homegrown terrorists often were indoctrinated in local "radicalization incubators" that are "rife with extremist rhetoric."

Instead of mosques, those places were more likely to be "cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores," the report says.

The Internet also provides "the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology."

The threat posed by homegrown extremists - from "eco-terrorist" groups to neo-Nazis - has long been a top concern for federal counterterror officials.

Recently, authorities have taken a closer look at radicalization happening in U.S. prisons, where a study last year by George Washington University and the University of Virginia found that Islamic extremists were turning jail cells into terrorist breeding grounds by preaching violent interpretations of the Quran to their fellow inmates.

Additionally, the Justice Department last year indicted 28-year-old Adam Gadahn, who was raised on a farm in southern California, with treason and supporting terrorism for serving as an al-Qaida propagandist.

Gadahn is believed to have tried to recruit supporters through videos and messages posted on the Internet.

The NYPD report warns that more intelligence gathering is needed since most potential homegrown terrorists "have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble," the study says.

They "look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them," the study adds. "In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct jihad."

Kareem Shora, legal adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called the findings faulty and potentially inflammatory.

Police "paint such a broad brush," Shora said. "It plays right into the extremists' plans because it's going to end up angering the community."

A recently released National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Osama bin Laden's network had regrouped and remains the most serious threat to the United States.

Kelly insisted the NYPD report made no effort to provide a "cookie-cutter" profile for terrorists. He also argued that the NYPD report "doesn't contradict the National Intelligence Estimate - it augments it."


Associated Press Writer Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

link: _http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/15/ap4023270.html

 

[sHiZo963]

Internet is "the new Afghanistan": NY police commissioner
Wed Aug 15, 2007 3:51PM EDT

By Michelle Nichols and Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Internet is the new battleground against Islamist extremism because it provides ideology that could radicalize Westerners who might then initiate home-grown attacks, New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly said on Wednesday.

"The Internet is the new Afghanistan," Kelly said, as he released a New York Police Department (NYPD) report on the home-grown threat of attacks by Islamist extremists. "It is the de facto training ground. It's an area of concern."

The report found that the challenge for Western authorities was to identify, pre-empt and prevent home-grown threats, which was difficult because many of those who might undertake an attack often commit no crimes along the path to extremism.

The report identified the four stages to radicalization as pre-radicalization, self-identification, indoctrination, and jihadization, and said the Internet drove and enabled the process.

Radicalization could be triggered by such things as the loss of a job, the death of a close family member, alienation, discrimination, and international conflicts involving Muslims, said the report by senior NYPD intelligence analysts.

"Much different from the Israeli-Palestinian equation, the transformation of a Western-based individual to a terrorist is not triggered by oppression, suffering, revenge or desperation," it said.

"Rather, it is a phenomenon that occurs because the individual is looking for an identity and a cause and unfortunately, often finds them in extremist Islam," said the report "Radicalization in the West: The Home-grown Threat."

While the September 11 strike on the United States by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was planned overseas, the report said the attacks had helped proliferate and accelerate radicalization, especially in the West.

"More importantly, 9/11 established the current trend of committing an act in the name of global jihad as a natural culmination of full radicalization and the ultimate responsibility for the fully radicalized jihadist," it said.

But starting the radicalization process does not mean everyone will progress to "become a terrorist."

"Individuals who have been radicalized but are not jihadists may serve as mentors and agents of influence to those who might become terrorists of tomorrow," said the report, which analyzed five home-grown U.S. attack plots.

It says Europe's failure to integrate second and third generation immigrants into society, both economically and socially, had left young Muslims more vulnerable to extremism.

While economic opportunities in the United States are better and the country's Muslims are more resistant to Islamist extremism, they are "not immune to the radical message."

"The powerful gravitational pull of individuals' religious roots and identity sometimes supersedes the assimilating nature of American society," the report said.

link: _http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1524872020070815?pageNumber=2

 

[GRiM]

Its like watching a car crash in slowmotion.

 

[tractmec]

Its like watching a car crash in slowmotion.

As in knowing its coming and seeing every bend and rent of the metal and hearing the sounds and realizing that you can do little if nothing to stop it?

I found this little quote interesting however!

"look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them,

As in the "home grown terrorist threat".

This almost sounds like it could have been copied from Political Ponerology except modified to mean just about everyone.

Maybe the subject is creating a reaction?


I could be seeing something that is not there however.

Shiz I ran out of sick bags. I'm afraid I have mess to clean up.
Did we not know it would come to this sooner or later?

 

[PopHistorian]

"Experts" are out in droves telling us that terror from inside is as big a threat as from outside -- they're creating this out of thin air as far as I can tell -- of course if such a "threat" existed, the US would've gone down long ago. US spy satellites are now being trained on the homeland. Bush wants to put away anyone who disagrees with him. The FBI wants to build a network of domestic informants (_http://faxanadu.gnn.tv/blogs/24436/FBI_Proposes_Building_Network_of_U_S_Informants) and Homeland Security has apparently hired Marcus Wolf, former Stasi chief, whose core competency is said to be building domestic networks of informants. They're up to something big with this, it seems.

 

[anart]

Yep, there can be no doubt about that at this point. The question that keeps coming to mind for me, considering the time frame we're dealing with before georgie is supposed to leave office, is exactly how far along are they really with such networks and systems. Such things are being pushed on the public lately all across the board, and we know that once the public hears of such things, the 'things' themselves are already far, far beyond what is being described.

I think it is a not so subtle psychological preparation for what is already in place - waiting for the trigger event to become 'above ground' and 'in our faces'. I could be mistaken - but if I am, I'll gladly eat my hat (and you should see this hat!).