Washington: The United States needs to
refocus its efforts on extremists born and raised in American
communities following a spurt in cases of arrest of "home
grown terrorists", a leading think-tank has warned.
The Government should do more to combat the notion that
America is at war with Islam, and to improve cooperation with
local law enforcement, said the report released by the Centre
for Strategic and International Studies.
The report 'A Growing Terrorist Threat? Assessing
Homegrown Extremism in the United States' notes that facing
comparatively few restrictions, US residents and citizens can
travel abroad, connect with terrorist groups to gain
explosives or weapons training, and return here to plan and
execute attacks.
Referring to some of the high-profile arrests in 2009
including that of Najibullah Zazi, David Coleman Headley and
Nidal Malik Hasan, the report said, this rash of arrests has
important implications for policymakers and officials in
charge of counter-terrorism and homeland security because US
legal residents and citizens are lucrative assets for global
terrorist organisations.
"Particularly troubling are homegrown extremists who
possess facility with both American and foreign cultures,
including language skills. Such multicultural familiarity
could allow them to operate freely both at home and overseas
and to elude far more easily than foreign nationals," it said.
The Obama administration must give special consideration
to how homegrown extremism fits within the United States'
larger strategic framework for dealing with global terrorism.
"As a basic matter, officials should dispel any and all
notions that US military involvement in Muslim countries
constitutes some kind of anti-Islam agenda," the report said.
"Longer term, the White House must consider ways to shift
the US approach to counterterrorism away from large-scale and
overt intervention and toward partnerships with countries
plagued by extremist violence," it said.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, March 11, 2010, 21:53