Napolitano Calls Local Cultivation of Terror Recruits `Growing Phenomenon'
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said “homegrown” terrorism is a “growing phenomenon” that can be more difficult to thwart than larger, more complex foreign operations.
U.S.-based militants often are inspired by Internet postings or radical clerics and don’t have direct ties to known terrorist groups, she told reporters today.
“Whereas maybe a few years ago we could have devised our thinking” to counter international threats, “we ought to also look at the interior,” Napolitano said at a Washington lunch sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.
Her comments echoed statements she made in February that the threat of homegrown terrorism had increased in the previous 12 months. Several incidents last year underscored the influence of militant ideas among some U.S. citizens.
Military officials have charged Army Major 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.
Officials said about 20 men, all but one of Somali descent, traveled from the Minneapolis area to Somalia between September 2007 and October 2009 to train with al-Shabaab, a militant group with links to al-Qaeda.
Napolitano said she is trying to increase awareness of the threat and have the public report on any suspicious activity.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net
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