'Home-grown terror now threatens US'

WASHINGTON: Nine years after the September 11 attacks, the United States faces a growing threat from home-grown insurgents and an "Americanization" of al-Qaida leadership, according to a report released on Friday.
Former heads of the 9/11 Commission that studied the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington presented the 43-page study, calling it a wake-up call about the radicalization of Muslims in the United States and the changing strategy of al-Qaida and its allies.
"The threat that the US is facing is different than it was nine years ago," said the report, released by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center.
"The US is arguably now little different from Europe in terms of having a domestic terrorist problem involving immigrant and indigenous Muslims as well as converts to Islam."
The report comes at a sensitive time for the United States. In the past few days, passions simmered over a Florida Christian preacher's threat to burn copies of the Quran, and plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site in New York. US officials warn such cases could lead to a recruiting bonanza for al-Qaida.
The report said al-Qaida and its affiliates in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen had minimally established an "embryonic" recruitment infrastructure in the United States.
It pointed to convictions last year of 43 US citizens or residents aligned with militant ideology. The report also stated that Americans were increasingly forming part of leadership of al-Qaida and its allies.
The report highlighted the increased risk of small-scale attacks on hard-to-protect US targets. Reuters