US Muslims unsympathetic to terrorism
Effective intelligence gathering and a Muslim community unsympathetic to calls to violence have discouraged homegrown jihadist terrorism in the United States, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation
While there were 13 cases of domestic terrorism during 2009—a spike over recent years—the perpetrators were mostly individuals who recruited themselves into the role of terrorists, according to the study. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, there has been no evidence of widespread or large networks of homegrown terrorists planning attacks on the United States.
"Last year was troubling because it saw the most incidents of domestic radicalization since 2001," said study author Brian Michael Jenkins, senior advisor to the president of RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "While most of these plots were detected and foiled—in many cases they were planned by would-be terrorists who were particularly inept—there certainly will be more domestic terrorist attempts in the future."
Jenkins says that the attempted weekend bombing in New York's Times Square, allegedly by a naturalized U.S. citizen, is another reminder that homegrown terrorism poses a real threat.
