Wednesday, August 15, 2007

nypd warns of homegrown terror threat

nypd warns of homegrown terror threatfrom ap: Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men - often legal immigrants from the Middle East who are frustrated with their lives in their adopted country - adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence...

The study is based on an analysis of a series of domestic plots thwarted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including those in Lackawanna, N.Y.; Portland, Ore.; and Virginia. It was prepared by senior analysts with the NYPD Intelligence Division who traveled to Hamburg, Madrid and other overseas spots to confer with authorities about similar cases.

The report found homegrown terrorists often were indoctrinated in local "radicalization incubators" that are "rife with extremist rhetoric."

Instead of mosques, those places were more likely to be "cafes, cab driver hangouts, flop houses, prisons, student associations, non-governmental organizations, hookah bars, butcher shops and bookstores," the report says.

The Internet also provides "the wandering mind of the conflicted young Muslim or potential convert with direct access to unfiltered radical and extremist ideology."

The threat posed by homegrown extremists - from "eco-terrorist" groups to neo-Nazis - has long been a top concern for federal counterterror officials.


The full report is available at this link “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat” (2.11mb pdf) on the department’s Web site.

1 comment:

Pat Rogers said...

For all of its blustering ignorance of human nature the NYPD report "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat" contained an inadvertent and dangerous truth buried deep down inside of it.

Prison is "A Radicalizing Cauldron".

"Prisons can play a critical role in both triggering and reinforcing the radicalization process. The prison’s isolated environment, ability to create a “captive audience” atmosphere, its absence of day-to-day distractions, and its large population of disaffected young men, makes it an excellent breeding ground for radicalization."

So I have to ask, what does this mean for America with its ever growing world record prison population? An ever growing population that the New York Times characterized just last January as breeding a permanent "felon caste" in America.

"Worse still, the country has created a growing felon caste, now more than 16 million strong, of felons and ex-felons, who are often driven back to prison by policies that make it impossible for them to find jobs, housing or education." NYT

So one wonders why America pursues a drug war policy that gives our nation this world record prison population.

SEE: U.S. drug war prisons: "A Radicalizing Cauldron"
http://independentsofamerica.blogspot.com/2007/08/us-drug-war-prisons-radicalizing.html

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