US ‘home-grown’ terrorists multiply

US ‘home-grown’ terrorists multiply
By Edward Luce in Washington
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 9 2007 22:15 | Last updated: May 9 2007 22:15



The US is seeing a growth in the number of “home-grown” terrorist plots that have no connection with overseas groups such as al-Qaeda, says Robert Mueller, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr Mueller, who was speaking the day after the FBI said it had foiled an alleged plot by six radical Islamists to attack the Fort Dix base in New Jersey, said the number of such plots had risen “in recent years”. Of the 12 high-profile home-grown plots that the FBI has announced since the attacks of September 11 2001, six have been revealed since June 2005.

Although all six of the alleged Fort Dix terrorists were born overseas – four in the former Yugoslavia – they had no apparent connection to foreign groups, according to the FBI, which described the plot as a “brand-new form of terrorism”.

“We have seen an increase in the number of self-radicalised groups that use the internet...and are not organised by overseas groups such as al-Qaeda,” Mr Mueller told journalists at a breakfast meeting in Washington. “In most cases you have individuals who go through a period of radicalisation by meeting individuals...group leaders...in a mosque or a school or a gym, as you saw with the London July 7 plot.”

But Mr Mueller, who has overseen the creation of a large FBI counter-terrorist operation involving 2,000 of its 12,500 agents, said there was a continued threat from overseas groups. “There is no doubt in my mind that al-Qaeda is plotting to attack the US and there may be individuals sitting here in America who are known to al-Qaeda and not to us [who are involved in such plots],” he said.

The FBI has been criticised for allegedly exaggerating the seriousness and ­capabilities of home-grown terrorist groups. It has also come under attack for “sting operations” in which FBI undercover agents have encouraged isolated groups of US Muslims to buy weapons or proceed with other terrorist-like plans.

Last year the FBI arrested seven men in Miami and Atlanta for allegedly plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. In September 2002 in New York state it arrested six men of Yemeni descent who pleaded guilty to supplying material to a terrorist organisation, even though there was no specific plot. Unusually, the Fort Dix plot was announced by the White House, not the FBI.

“A lot of these groups are just wannabe terrorists with no real intelligence or capability and who are sometimes manipulated by FBI informants,” said Daniel Benjamin, former head of counter-terrorism at the National Security Council. “Having said that, there is also a genuine threat out there of increased home-grown terrorism.”

Mr Mueller said just 200 of the FBI’s agents had Arabic language skills, of which only 50 were at the level of being “conversant”. He said the agency had no data on how many of its employees were Muslim.