NYT : Study Cites Danger of Homegrown Terrorism

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Study Cites Danger of Homegrown Terrorism

By AL BAKER and JOHN HOLUSHA | August 15, 2007

The potential for homegrown terror, particularly among disaffected immigrants, was the focus of a new study by the New York Police Department. It concluded that there is some danger from unassimilated Muslims, but less so than in some European countries.

The Police Department studied 11 real cases from the past six years — including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — to understand terrorist patterns. The report lays some groundwork for a public policy debate about the growing concern for homegrown terrorism and is a tool for law enforcement to better understand the threat here, compared with threats by Al Qaeda members overseas.

Staying one step ahead of terrorists is a challenge, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in a news conference today.

“That’s what this report does,” Mr. Kelly said. ”It puts it in perspective and it actually gives a framework to the radicalization process. Before you can disrupt, I think it is important to have a brighter line, so to speak, as to how the radicalization process takes place.”

Mitchell D. Silber, a senior intelligence analyst who co-authored the 90-page report, said it highlights how the “threat has evolved since 9/11 and that many of these plots and cases that we perceived as being sort of an outside threat, really actually are more of an inside threat in the sense that radicalization drove them.”

Mr. Kelly said he was equally concerned about homegrown terrorism and about threats from overseas.

“The world in which we live presents to us threats from both overseas and right here at home,” Mr. Kelly said. “We can’t take our eye off the ball as a country or as a city from either one.”

Police officials from New York outlined their findings for officials in Washington earlier this week, Mr. Kelly said. They made six stops in all, said Lawrence Sanchez, the department’s assistant commissioner for intelligence.

“We met with the White House, we met with the F.B.I., we met with the director of National Intelligence’s office,” Mr. Sanchez said. “We also met with the C.I.A, and the Department of Homeland Security and also the national terrorism center.”

Mr. Sanchez said officials in Washington were “very receptive.”

The report is an augment to the recent National Intelligence Estimate, Mr. Kelly said. The N.I.E. report said Al Qaeda “is and will remain the most serious terrorist threat to the homeland, as its central leadership continues to plan high-impact plots, while pushing others in extremis Sunni communities to mimic its efforts and to supplement its capabilities.”

The report did note that the “radical and violent” parts of the Muslim population in western nations, including the United States, is expanding. But it said, “we assess that this internal Muslim terrorist threat is not likely to be as severe as it is in Europe.”

Mr. Sanchez said the report would be distributed to as many officers in the field as possible. Mr. Kelly said the department would continue its surveillance practices, which have been “totally vetted by our attorneys.”

“We’re doing everything that we reasonably can do, as a city, to protect the city,” Mr. Kelly said. “We take each case, each situation on its own merits. There is no cookie-cutter, there is no exact template. But this report helps us put together our ideas and our tactics and our strategies to address the challenge.”

The study has not yet been presented to leaders in the Muslim community in the city, officials said. But Mr. Kelly is engaged in visiting mosques around the city. He visited a mosque on Monday night, he said.

Mr. Kelly said the 3,000 members of a group of corporate security professionals in New York City have been given the report, which has also been placed on the department’s Internet site.

Mr. Kelly said the report should not concern people in the Islamic community. “I don’t see this report as stereotyping,” Mr. Kelly said. “I don’t see it as doing that at all. I see it as, again, an investigative tool that will be helpful for law enforcement as we go forward.”

Still, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee expressed disappointment in the New York Police Department’s report, entitled, “Radicalization in the West and the Homegrown Threat.”

“The report is at odds with federal law enforcement findings, including those of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, and uses unfortunate stereotyping of entire communities,” said the group’s national executive director, Kareem W. Shora. “This approach runs counter to successful efforts by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. at building constructive partnerships with these communities.”

Richard A. Falkenrath, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism, said that, “the percentage of terrorists in the Muslim population, worldwide, is very, very small, and one of the big questions we in the western world face is: `Why is this happening? What exactly is going on in the Muslim world that causes such a small percentage to become terrorists in one way or another?’ It’s one of the great questions facing the United States in the post-9/11 era.”