Good Overview on Status of Islamic Terrorism
Today’s Los Angeles Times piece, The Enemies in Their Midst, is a good overview to what is happening in the European evolution of Islamic terrorism. Though not addressed, it is instructive as to what is percolating within the U.S. Additionally; there is a unique fertile ground in the U.S., the black prison population.
While the U.S. does not have nearly the immigrant population threat of England and the European continental countries, it does nevertheless have large populations, such as in Detroit and Los Angeles.
But, beyond the threat that can be characterized as Islamic terrorism originating from peoples recently from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, the U.S, has its own additional Islamic threat growing within black communities, and specifically fueled by Islamic converts within the prison systems.
Five years from Ground Zero, the threats on this side of the Atlantic are fragmented and elusive. But they have moved uncomfortably close for Europeans and, as a result, for Americans as well.
European-born terrorists "are willing to attack their homeland," a U.S. law enforcement official said. "Something's happening in their melting pot. And the fear with these guys is that they are just an e-ticket away from getting to the U.S."
The evolution of terrorism in Europe in the five years since the Sept. 11 attacks can be told as a tale of two threats.
The first spread consternation worldwide when it was revealed in London last month. The alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners in midair raised again the specter of Britain's "home-grown" problem: militants with British passports and the accompanying resources and Western ways, as well as links to lethal networks in Pakistan.
The second threat unfolded more quietly in Paris. The suspects arrested beginning last year were largely French, but their inspiration came from a North African network that had allied itself with groups in Iraq to forge a strategy for jihad beyond the war zone. The new target: Europe.
While the U.S. does not have nearly the immigrant population threat of England and the European continental countries, it does nevertheless have large populations, such as in Detroit and Los Angeles.
But, beyond the threat that can be characterized as Islamic terrorism originating from peoples recently from the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, the U.S, has its own additional Islamic threat growing within black communities, and specifically fueled by Islamic converts within the prison systems.
posted by Paul Coambs | 6:11 AM
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