TERROR THREAT AT HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 9/11…HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIALS SAY
Terror threat to U.S. at highest level since 9/11, Homeland Security officials say
By Richard A. Serrano
JewishWorldReview.com |
ASHINGTON — (MCT) Senior Homeland Security officials warned Wednesday that the threat to the United States is the highest it has been since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, citing the emergence of more foreign terrorist groups, a sharp increase in extremists in this country and the “lone wolf” operator who authorities worry is out there but they may not be able to stop.
“The terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “In some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks.”
Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said his concerns include someone operating unbeknownst to authorities and with the means and determination of a Faisal Shahzad, who last summer parked a car bomb in New York’s Times Square. The bomb failed to detonate, and Shahzad was captured just as he was boarding a flight out of the United States.
“Perfection is no more possible in counterterrorism than it is in any other endeavor,” Leiter acknowledged. While officials “work tirelessly,” he said, ” … we cannot guarantee safety.”
They testified before the House Homeland Security Committee in its first hearing since Republicans took control last month. Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y., the new chairman, is planning more hearings next month into the domestic radicalization of homegrown terrorists. Despite growing complains that the hearings will unfairly target Muslim Americans, King again vowed Wednesday to press forward.
“Homegrown radicalization is a growing threat, and one we cannot ignore,” he said. “This shift, as far as I’m concerned, is a game changer that presents a serious challenge to law enforcement and the intelligence community.”
King also wants to study the danger from biological and chemical weapons.
“It’s very likely that the next attack against a major city in this country will be launched from the suburbs, similar to what happened in Madrid and London,” he said. “The nightmare scenario would be to have that attack involve a dirty bomb, which would put that metropolitan area off limits, besides the massive loss of human life.”
Napolitano said “there still is much work to be done” in combating biological or chemical weaponry, but added, “We are more prepared than we were two years ago.”
She and Leiter said that while al-Qaida has been damaged by U.S. retaliation, other terror groups in Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan are gaining in strength and numbers, and have been linked to recent attempts to strike in the United States. They mentioned the Times Square incident and the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bomb an airplane landing in Detroit.
Leiter said that al-Qaida losing some of its effectiveness “reduces the likelihood of a large-scale organized attack.” But, he said, “the negative aspects of it is it allows the franchises to innovate on their own.”
On another matter, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said the FBI often infiltrates mosques in her district. “What are the safeguards that we now have in place that we aren’t sending people into mosques and trying to elicit proactively somebody to create some sort of terrorist attack?” she asked.
Leiter said FBI and Department of Justice guidelines prohibit targeting religious groups, and added: “Many of our tips to uncover active terrorist plots here in the United States have come from the Muslim community. So we have to make quite clear that the communities are part of the solution and not part of the problem.”
Comments are closed.
