A spike in domestic terrorism and attacks by American citizens directed from overseas are top concerns for police departments across the country, according to a new survey by the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.
“Homegrown and foreign-directed jihadi terrorism and radicalization are perceived as a real threat by local law enforcement in the United States,” the report, “Counterterrorism Intelligence: Law Enforcement Perspectives,” says. The survey covered the police intelligence chiefs for the 56 largest cities in the U.S. in advance of the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The survey identifies 21 homegrown terrorism cases from Sept. 11, 2001 through May of 2009, but 31 cases in the last two years alone — more than one new case of homegrown terrorism every month.
Speaking at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance in Washington, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said the plots are real and credible.
“Yes it’s a threat. Yes, we worry about somebody grabbing a gun and then going down some place and doing something awful,” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. told the forum. “But they will never just do that. In all the cases you have seen, there are indicators leading up to that particular event. They were radicalized in order to get there.”
After 9/11, the U.S. intelligence community believed there needed to be person-to-person contact for an individual to cross the threshold to violence. Now, it may be possible to do it virtually. Social networking is creating a new generation of digital jihadists.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, also speaking at the event, acknowledged that the web is the driver of radical Islam and the new generation of Al Qaeda 2.0.
“The increasingly savvy use of the Internet, mainstream and social media and information technology by these groups adds an additional layer of complexity to an already complex threat picture,” she said.
The new report also found that the intelligence chiefs believe gaps remain a decade after the attacks. In addition to believing that the U.S. lacks “an adequate understanding of the counterterrorism intelligence enterprise,” the chiefs cited a lack of access to some intelligence products and said in some cases the information lacked detail: it wasn’t shared adequately, or the data was stale or there was just too much of it.
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We need to be vigilant in terms of our safety and health as a community connected, and equally as important is to be watchful of our spirituality of ourselves and as a whole, connected, forever.