Threat from domestic terrorists in sharper focus
Recent arrest of accused al-Qaida operative has heightened government concerns.
The recent arrest of accused al-Qaida operative Najibullah Zazi for allegedly plotting a bomb attack in New York has heightened concerns among federal officials about U.S. residents who become radicalized abroad and then easily re-enter the United States to commit an act of terrorism, senators and Obama administration officials said on Wednesday.
U.S. counterterrorism officials have worried in recent years that foreign terrorist groups would lure people from the United States and western Europe to their training camps and then return them to their home countries, where they could easily get through border security controls, to carry out attacks.
Intensifying those worries is the case of Zazi, an Afghanistan-born permanent legal resident of the United States, whom authorities say was radicalized in the western tribal region of Pakistan. Zazi, a 24-year-old airport shuttle driver, has pleaded innocent to charges of conspiring to bomb targets in New York.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, said during a hearing today that the Zazi case fuels their concerns about individual terrorists plotting within the United States. Their committee has been investigating the roots of homegrown radicalization and terrorism.
But the senators said the investigation that led to Zazi's arrest Sept. 19 also exposed gaps and uneven coordination between local officials and the federal government.
Authorities have acknowledged that New York police had questioned an imam who then tipped off Zazi about the federal probe. Lieberman said the lack of coordination was significant.
Nonetheless, Lieberman and Collins applauded the work of U.S. counterterrorism officials and agencies for the Zazi case, as well as other recent cases involving suspected terrorism plots.
FBI Director Robert Mueller testified that there is no imminent threat of attack in the United States stemming from the Zazi case, which is being investigated. He said there is no evidence Zazi was radicalized before he came to the United States 10 years ago.
Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said al-Qaida and its allies remain intent on targeting the United States, adding that domestic attacks "remain quite possible."