Counterterrorism Blog

After years of debate over whether it could happen, started almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, there is a clear case of a radical Islamist group actively and successfully recruiting inside the United States: the case of al Shabaab (the Youth) in Somalia.

The most famous case was that of Shirwa Ahmed, a 27-year-old college student from Minneapolis who blew himself up in Somalia on Oct. 29 in one of five simultaneous bombings attributed to al-Shabaab. The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, and it has close links to al-Qaeda.

As the Washington Post reports, this is becoming an increasing worry to U.S. officials, in part because the use of a U.S. passport is so valuable.

Since November, the FBI has raced to uncover any ties to foreign extremist networks in the unexpected departures of numerous Somali American teenagers and young men, who family members believe are in Somalia. The investigation is active in Boston; San Diego; Seattle; Columbus, Ohio; and Portland, Maine, a U.S. law enforcement official said, and community members say federal grand juries have issued subpoenas in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

Officials are still trying to assess the scope of the problem but say reports so far do not warrant a major concern about a terrorist threat within the United States. But intelligence officials said the recruitment of U.S. citizens by terrorist groups is particularly worrisome because their American passports could make it easier for them to reenter the country.

This represents a movement toward the "Europeanization" of the Islamist threat in the United States, where terrorists recruit among the disasporas in an adopted country (or where the young people are second generation and feeling lost between two worlds.) The recruits, with the requisite language skills and knowledge of how society functions, are far easier to hide plain site than foreigners would. My full blog is here.