Study: Homegrown Terror Risk Exaggerated

Everything to do with terrorism is exaggerated. Probably because the politicians don't know. If we had an agency dedicated to fighting terrorism we wouldn't so many miscalculations and/or intelligence failures. Those who call for giving Muslims in America extra scrutiny might want to look at these facts:

A new study of homegrown terrorism in the United States says that the threat of radicalization among American Muslims has been overstated.

Researchers identified 139 American Muslims who had been accused of planning or carrying out terror-related violence since the September 11 attacks.

Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans

The report's authors say that number is significant but small compared to terror cases in other countries, and compared to overall violent crime in the U.S.

The study credits self-policing in American Muslim communities for limiting radicalization.

Researchers also found that most of the publicly known cases since the Sept. 11 attacks involved young men who were U.S.-born or naturalized citizens. More than half of the suspects were radicalized as part of a group.

The analysis by researchers from Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found the accused were almost evenly divided in terms of ethnicity.

Although Arabs formed the largest group of suspects, their numbers were only slightly higher than African-Americans, South Asians, Somalis and whites. About a third were converts to Islam.

Using a broad definition of homegrown terror, the report identified 139 American Muslims who were accused in the last eight years of planning or carrying out violent attacks motivated by extremism. The cases include Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, charged with the Fort Hood mass shooting last November, and the five young men from Virginia who were recently arrested in Pakistan, allegedly on their way to get terrorist training and join the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The largest number of cases by far occurred last year, with a total of 41 suspects, although researchers say it's too early to know if that is an aberration or a trend. The 2009 increase is partly due to the cases of young Somali-Americans in Minneapolis believed to have joined Somalia's al-Shabab jihadist, or holy war, movement, the report's authors said. U.S. Muslims accused of sending money to overseas terrorist groups were not part of the study.

Meanwhile, the administration tries to figure out what happened on Christmas.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the unclassified version of a "comprehensive" preliminary White House review of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day will be released Thursday.

According to Gibbs, President Obama will make remarks in conjunction with the release of the review. He expected the release and comments in the early afternoon.

Officials are engaged in separate reviews of passenger screening procedures and the use of terror watch lists. The review to be released tomorrow largely relates to the watch lists, and was prepared by counterterrorism and homeland security adviser John Brennan.

Both Brennan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will likely discuss their review at the White House tomorrow, Gibbs said. Napolitano's review has focused largely on detection capabilities and screening.

Following a meeting with top officials Tuesday, the president said that the reviews continue to "reveal more about the human and systemic failures that almost cost nearly 300 lives."

Officials have already updated government watch lists in the wake of the attack. The president says the system "is not broken" but lamented in comments Tuesday that 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged bomber, was able to board the airplane despite numerous red flags being raised about him.