America endangered by homegrown terrorism - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Authorities in the United States are no longer dismissing the possibility of indigenous US terrorists as 'hypothetical'. The discovery of the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, has come as a rude reality check. According to a CBS News report, Shahzad's case is not isolated, and that there are innumerable examples of impressionable, middle-class young men being exposed to Islamic demagogues. For example, Omar Hammami was raised by a Syrian father and an American mother in Daphne, Alabama., where he once attended a Baptist church before converting to a radical form of Islam. Now, he appears in a recruiting video aimed at young Muslim men, swearing vengeance against America , promising to "blow up" as many Americans as he can. These US citizens are the perfect candidates for US based terror operations since they have the advantage of accessibility, detailed knowledge about the conditions prevailing in US and are less likely to rouse suspicion. "That is sort of a gold standard. That's what al Qaeda and their surrogates look for. Someone who can travel. Someone who has clean paper. Someone who can go to Pakistan, come back and get into the United States because they're a citizen or have resident cards that get 'em back into this country. That gives them tremendous flexibility," CBS quoted New York Police Commissioner, Raymond Kelly as saying. Philip Mudd, a former intelligence advisor to the FBI, added that the Internet has become a vital communication tool for rabble-rousing. While it has tried to counter such brainwashing by zeroing in on the promulgators, America feels most of them eventually get a clean chit.