[January 17, 2010] Calls for surveillance rise with jump in U.S. terrorism cases: Internet lets radical leaders quickly galvanize young extremists Tweet Jan 17, 2010 (Detroit Free Press - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- A spike in terrorist attacks or plots last year involving Muslims in the U.S. is drawing concern about the growing problem of radicalization among young extremists who use the Internet to connect with radicals. And so some are calling for increased efforts to step up domestic surveillance -- including the use of informants -- to track extremist groups and individuals. There were 12 terrorism cases last year involving Muslims living in the U.S., the highest number in a single year since Sept. 11, 2001. And the failed bombing attempt on a Detroit-bound plane on Dec. 25 -- suspected to have been by a Nigerian man influenced by a Yemeni cleric popular on the Internet -- has spotlighted the problem. President Barack Obama announced Jan. 7 that he had ordered national security officials to develop a plan "that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits," a reference to Muslim individuals who become extremists but aren't formal members of any group. While some civil rights advocates express concerns about domestic surveillance, others say that the FBI must rely on human intelligence in Muslim communities to discover extremist plots that could harm Americans. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the FBI was faulted by some for doing an inadequate job of using intelligence from informants to monitor Islamic extremism inside the U.S. prior to the attacks. In many of the recent cases, terrorism suspects used the Internet to reach out to radical Muslim leaders and groups in the Middle East and Pakistan, say terrorism experts. As a result, the U.S. government has stepped up its efforts to monitor Internet communications of terrorism suspects. "Bonds can form faster on the Internet," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for Terrorism Research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "It can create connections that were much more difficult to create before." That was seen in the case last month of five Virginia men who contacted extremist groups in Pakistan via the Internet to wage jihad against U.S. troops in Pakistan. The men said they wanted to help their cause. The Internet also played a role in the case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- the American Muslim who shot dead 13 and wounded 30 at the Ft. Hood, Texas, military base in November. Hasan had contacted Anwar al-Awlaki, an extremist cleric who once lived in the U.S. but now is in Yemen. Al-Awlaki, who has condoned violence against Americans, also reportedly met with the Nigerian man suspected of attempting to bomb the Detroit plane, according to the Yemeni government. In October, a Muslim man from Chicago was arrested after flying back from Pakistan for allegedly meeting with extremist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai that killed 173. "The radicalization process is a journey ... and for many of them, the journey begins on the Internet," said Brian Jenkins, a senior adviser at the Rand Corp. who studies terrorism. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of extremist Web sites has multiplied, including those in English -- such as al-Awlaki's Web site. Radical clerics like al-Awlaki and extremist mosques pose a challenge, said Gartenstein-Ross. Another concern, he said, is that countries like Saudi Arabia have financed extremist literature and Quran interpretations that have been placed in American mosques. To see more of the Detroit Free Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.freep.com Copyright (c) 2010, Detroit Free Press Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]