U.S.: Homegrown extremism poses growing threat

WASHINGTON - Efforts by extremists abroad to radicalize and recruit U.S. residents present new security threats, three top Obama administration officials told Congress on Wednesday.

The threat posed by homegrown extremists shows that the battle against terrorism has become more complex in the last year, underscoring the challenges of pinpointing and blocking plots, said Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

"Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures," FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

It appears "domestic radicalization and homegrown extremism" are becoming more pronounced, Mueller said.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said al-Qaeda had inspired an array of extremist organizations.

"We are all seeing more diverse activity" by a more diverse collection of groups, Napolitano said.

Leiter said al-Qaeda in Pakistan was at one of its weakest points organizationally. Nonetheless, he said, it remains a capable and determined enemy that has proven its resilience over time.

Since 2009, at least 63 U.S. citizens have been charged with or convicted of terrorism or related crimes, "an astoundingly high number of American citizens who have attacked - or intended to attack - their own country," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.), the committee's chairman.

In his prepared testimony, Mueller said it was possible that more American extremists were feeling increasingly disenchanted with living in the United States or angry about U.S. and Western foreign policy, "making their decision to leave for extremist opportunities abroad all the more appealing."

Omar Hammami, an Alabaman now known as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, or "the American," has become one of the highest-profile members of the Somalia-based group al-Shabab and appeared in a jihadist video in May 2009.

Leiter said the rising profiles of U.S. citizens such as Hammami in overseas groups provide young extremists with American faces as role models.

Leiter said plots by homegrown Sunni extremists were disrupted in New York, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alaska, Texas, and Illinois in the last year and point to "a collective subculture and a common cause," even though the plots were unrelated.

Napolitano said U.S.-born, Yemen-based Anwar al-Awlaki was an illustration of an English-speaker spreading propaganda over the Internet.

Lieberman said extremists "are working increasingly to build alliances or essentially recruit soldiers for their army from within the United States."