TerrorismTerrorist recruitment in the United States

A-Shaabab has been especially active in U.S. recruitment // Source: biyokulule.com

In an analysis submitted to House Homeland Security Committee hearings yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) highlighted efforts by international terrorist groups to influence and recruit Americans to commit attacks in the United States and abroad.

The security hearings — “Al Shabaab: Recruitment and Radicalization within the Muslim American Community and the Threat to the Homeland” — are the committee’s third in a series examining the homegrown terrorist threat, focused specifically on the threat from Muslim extremists. In a letter accompanying its submission, ADL urged Congress to do everything in its power “to promote trust, reject unfair stereotyping, and encourage stronger relationships to counter attempts by international terrorist organizations to recruit disaffected or alienated Americans.”

ADL’s analysis — Responding to The Call: Al Qaeda’s American Recruits — examines the threat posed by terror groups like al Shabaab and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and documents efforts by individuals such as Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric living in Yemen, to recruit and radicalize Americans.

According to ADL, since the 9/11 attacks, a growing number of American citizens and residents motivated by radical interpretations of Islam have been involved in plots and conspiracies against American interests at home and abroad.

ADL notes, however, that as seen in the 22 July terrorist attacks in Norway, extremists seeking to commit harm do not all adhere to any one ideology or religion. Following the tragedy in Norway, ADL encouraged awareness that “hateful ideologies and lone-wolf terrorism remain a ‘serious and potent’ threat” and “warned against the rush to judgment that led some to blame Muslims for the attack before all of the facts were known to the authorities.”