Militants Overtake India as Top Threat, Says Pakistan's ISI

Pakistan's main spy agency says homegrown Islamist militants have overtaken the Indian army as the greatest threat to national security, a finding with potential ramifications for relations between the two rival South Asian nations and for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. A recent internal assessment of security by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful military spy agency, determined that for the first time in 63 years it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, according to a senior ISI officer.

The assessment, a regular review of national security, allocates a two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to the state coming from militants rather than from India or elsewhere. It is the first time since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947 that India hasn't been viewed as the top threat. Decades into one of the most bitter neighborly rivalries in modern history, both countries maintain huge troop deployments along their Himalayan border. "It's earth shattering. That's a remarkable change," said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism specialist and professor at Georgetown University. "It's yet another ratcheting up of the Pakistanis' recognition of not only their own internal problems but cooperation in the war on terrorism

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Terrorism in Britain 'mostly home grown'

The Centre for Social Cohesion has compiled profiles of 124 individuals convicted of Islamic terrorism offences since 1999. It found that 69 per cent of offences were perpetrated by individuals holding British nationality. Robin Simcox, co-author of the report, said their aim was to “focus the government’s counter-terrorism efforts.” “There are clear trends emerging with those involving themselves in terrorist activity in the UK,” he added. “It is crucial that this is recognised and then acted upon by the relevant authorities.” His comments follow private remarks by Assistant Commissioner John Yates, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, that the country faces “eye-watering cuts” in counter-terrorism funding that could hand an advantage to al-Qaeda.Douglas Murray, Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “The report proves how great a threat violent Islamism poses to the world – and the fact that Britain is at the centre of this global struggle.”

The Social Cohesion report outlines the links individuals had to terrorist groups, their nationality and ethnic origin, their age, hometown, occupation and education, which other radical Islamists they were connected to and what legislation the government used to jail them. The report also shows how Britain’s links to violent Islamism are almost two decades old by profiling almost 100 other offences committed abroad since 1993 that are connected to Britain, including terrorist convictions, terrorist training, suicide attacks, and extraditions. The survey found almost half (46 per cent) of offenders had their origins in south Asia including 28 per cent who had Pakistani heritage - of whom at least 80 per cent were British nationals. Six of the eight major plots in Britain, 75 per cent, contained individual members who had trained in Pakistan and four of the leaders of those plots were directly linked to one or more Pakistani based terrorist groups. The next most common origin for offenders was Somalia, accounting for 6 per cent, demonstrating a growing threat from East Africa.

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Napolitano: Internet Monitoring Needed to Fight Homegrown Terrorism

Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents.

"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights. The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries.

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Terrorism In The U.S. Takes On A UK Pattern

The car bombing attempt in Times Square has been a wake-up call for counter-terrorism officials. For years, the U.S. seemed largely immune to homegrown terrorism, but experts think the recent attack is more proof that has changed. The relative ease with which immigrants could better themselves in America convinced many experts that they were less vulnerable to radicalization. Increasingly, however, the terrorists who are seeking to attack the U.S. — including the Times Square bombing suspect – have been living in America for a while.

It's a problem that has haunted the UK for years. Now it appears to be an issue for the U.S. as well. "What we're seeing is kind of a metastasized al-Qaida," says Phil Mudd, a senior researcher at the Center for American Progress. He was, until recently, the FBI's senior intelligence adviser. "We've seen this in Europe, now we're seeing it here,” Mudd says. “Slowly, you're not only getting al-Qaida operatives conducting operations, you're getting people who have absorbed the message. Who see reports, I am sure, of civilians dying in drone strikes in Pakistan; who see the Pakistani army putting incredible pressure, not only on al-Qaida, but on Pakistani villages — and saying, ‘I want to do something about it.'"

• "Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Square Plot", New York Times, 5/9/10.
• "In Pakistan, a jumbled scaffolding of militancy", Washington Post, 5/9/10.
  

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Fear of homegrown terror up in U.S.

The Obama administration, grappling with recent Islamic terrorism cases on U.S. soil, has concluded that the country is confronting a rising threat from homegrown extremism. The warnings point to a threat more immediate than that posed by terrorism from overseas, because U.S.-based militants are frequently American citizens who are able to travel freely and strike at home or abroad.

The growing administration concern comes at a time when anti-terrorism officials and experts have pointed to signs of accelerated radicalization among some American Muslims, a trend driven by online propaganda and the influence of foreign networks. Until recently, Europe has been the front line for Islamic terrorist activity, suffering successive attacks and major plots, while the U.S. remained relatively calm.

But the number, variety and seriousness of recent U.S. cases make 2009 seem the most dangerous year here since 2001, anti-terrorism officials and experts say. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned of the homegrown threat last week in her strongest public comments yet on the issue.

"We've seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as al-Qaida," Napolitano said in a speech in New York on Wednesday. "Home-based terrorism is here. And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront."

• "Paying attention to the grassroots", Stratfor, 8/5/09.
• "On Our Turf", WorldMag.com, 12/5/09.
  

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The threat of homegrown terrorism

The apprehension last week of Sudbury native Tarek Mehanna is the fifth terrorism-related arrest in the United States in as many months, putting homegrown radicalism back on the radar screen. But many question whether individuals like Mehanna are the “real deal.’’ Do they really pose a significant terrorist threat or are they acting out but lack the capability to inflict any real damage? How dangerous are homegrown radicals? Will the United States, like Europe, become more susceptible to native radicals rather than terrorist plots hatched abroad from organized groups like Al Qaeda?

Terrorism specialist Marc Sageman claims that we are facing a “leaderless jihad.’’ Al Qaeda central is not the driving force of terrorism as an operational machine but rather its ideology serves as an inspiration for self-organizing local groups to carry out their own attacks. But other experts, including Bruce Hoffman, maintain that it is established organizations like Al Qaeda that remain the dominant threat and that we must focus more on the organization and its capabilities rather than random, radicalized individuals.

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