Incidents of Jihadist Terrorist Radicalization in the United States Since September 11, 2001

Effective intelligence gathering and a Muslim community unsympathetic to calls to violence have discouraged homegrown jihadist terrorism in the United States, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation. Between September 11, 2001, and the end of 2009, 46 publicly reported cases of domestic radicalization and recruitment to jihadist terrorism occurred in the United States; 13 of those cases occurred in 2009. Most of the would-be jihadists were individuals who recruited themselves into the terrorist role. Some provided assistance to foreign terrorist organizations; some went abroad to join various jihad fronts; some plotted terrorist attacks in the United States, usually with little success because of intervention by the authorities. The threat of large-scale terrorist violence has pushed law enforcement toward prevention rather than criminal apprehension after an event — or, as one senior police official put it, “staying to the left of the boom,” which means stopping the explosions or attacks before they occur. This shift toward prevention requires both collecting domestic intelligence — always a delicate mission in a democracy — and maintaining community trust and cooperation.

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Indonesia: Jihadi Surprise in Aceh

The International Crisis Group recently published a new report on a surprise change in the Islamic extremist environment in Indonesia. It says:

The discovery in late February 2010 of a jihadi training camp in Aceh came as a surprise in three ways. It revealed a major mutation in Indonesian jihadi ranks: a new coalition had emerged that rejected both Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the best-known such organisation in the region, and the more violent splinter group led until his death in September 2009 by Noordin Top. It had chosen Aceh as a base, despite the antipathy of Acehnese to radical Islam. And it was led by Dulmatin, one of South East Asia’s most wanted terrorists, whom officials in both Indonesia and the Philippines believed was in Mindanao.

By mid-April police had arrested 48 coalition members, killed eight, including Dulmatin, and were looking for about fifteen others. The group’s existence and the government response show that despite enormous gains made in counter-terrorism efforts since the first Bali bombs in 2002, intelligence remains weak; monitoring of prisons and ex-prisoners remains a problem; police handling of “active shooters” needs improvement; and corruption continues to be a major lubricant for terrorist activities in Indonesia.

To read the full report, please go to International Crisis Group, Asia Report N°189, Indonesia: Jihadi Surprise in Aceh.

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Terrorism’s new target: Econo-Jihad

Jihadist terror organizations have set economic terrorism as their new target, intending to harm and paralyze Western economies, the United Sates in particular, claims Prof. Gabriel Weimann, expert researcher of terrorism over the Internet at the University of Haifa. Prof. Weimann monitored websites hosted by terrorist and terrorism-supporting organizations and concludes: “For the Jihadists, the present economic crisis signifies an ideal opportunity and platform to leverage a economic terrorist campaign.”

In the course of a study that was carried out over a number of years, Prof. Weimann surveyed public and encoded websites run by Islamic terrorist organizations, forums, video clips, and practically all the information related to Islamic Jihad terrorism that is flowing through the network. According to Prof. Weimann, the focus on economic terrorism was set in motion with the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers, when Osama bin Laden stated on the video tapes that he sent out that these attacks mostly damaged the United States’ economic base and that these attacks, which cost $500,000 to carry out, cost the U.S. $500 billion. Other publications by bin Laden himself and by other terrorist leaders show that they understand that Western and U.S. power lies in their economic strength.

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