By any metric, the past year has been the worst since 2001 afor the United States in terms of terrorist threats, and now perhaps a terrorist attack. Although the exact circumstances behind the tragic shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, which killed 12 persons and wounded 30 others, at this time are still obscure, the possibility that the attack was motivated as much in protest of continued American military operations in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan as by personal fears of deployment to one of those war zones, raises new and acutely discomforting concerns about the likelihood of future terrorist attacks and related violent acts in the U.S.
To date, at least ten jihadi terrorist plots (eleven, if Fort Hood is seen to fall into this category of politically-motivated violence infused with a salient religious component)——an average of one a month——have come to light. Many continue to involve clueless incompetents engaged in half-baked conspiracies. These are the so-called bottom-up, “bunches of guys,” homegrown terrorist phenomenon. But some, as the Fort Hood shootings show, involve a lone gunmen who, fueled by rage, fear, and perhaps a misguided religious righteousness, are tragically capable of wrecking widespread carnage. Still others, however, even more alarmingly evidence the activities of trained, terrorist operatives who are part of an identifiable organizational command and control structure, acting on orders from terrorist leaders abroad. And, while it is easy to dismiss the threat posed by wannabes, who are often effortlessly entrapped and snared by the authorities, or to discount as aberrations the mass homicides inflicted by patently unstable individuals, it is harder to be complacent when al Qaeda and its Pakistani and, as inSITE has previously detailed, its Somali allies as well, clearly have been able to accomplish the unthinkable: establish a terrorist recruitment, radicalization and operational infrastructure in the U.S. Even more worrisome are the warnings from American intelligence and law enforcement officials that the ten or eleven incidents thus far this year represent only the tip of an iceberg that they are still struggling to get a better and more complete picture of.
Fresh evidence of A Leader-Led Jihad Threat From Al Qaeda
The arrest in September of Najibullah Zazi provided yet another shattering blow to arguments that al Qaeda is a spent force and that the most serious threat to the U.S. comes from homegrown “self-starters” and “lone wolves,” acting entirely on their own, outside of any organizational structure or operational direction.[1] Zazi, an Afghan-born, U.S. resident, has reportedly admitted to FBI agents that he was trained in bomb making at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan. He was the alleged ringleader of a plot to stage simultaneous suicide attacks on multiple targets in New York City. The “Mumbai-on-the-Hudson”-like operation is believed to have contemplated deploying upwards of sixteen persons with back-packs filled with homemade explosives——exactly as was effectively used on a far smaller scale in the 7 July 2005 suicide attacks on London transport. The New York operation is believed to have been guided and directed from the highest levels of al Qaeda’s remaining senior command. Indeed, federal authorities say that Zazi telephoned someone in Pakistan presumably seeking final operational instructions shortly before his arrest.[2]
The reputed mastermind of the plot and Zazi’s controller or handler was a long-time al Qaeda operative named Mustafa Abu Yazid, also known by his nom de guerre, “Sheikh Saeed.” Abu Yazid is one of the original hardcore who was literally present at al Qaeda’s creation twenty-one years ago. An Egyptian who is also closely associated with the movement’s deputy leader and chief strategist, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abu Yazid steadily advanced through al Qaeda’s ranks. In the mid-1990s, when al Qaeda was based in the Sudan, for instance, he was in charge of the organization’s finances——in essence its CFO (chief financial officer). More recently, Abu Yazid reportedly has ascended to the al Qaeda number three slot: in charge of the depleted organization’s most important networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as chair of its General Command Committee——which is responsible for both attack planning and overall strategy. As National Public Radio’s Dina Temple-Raston has reported, “Intelligence officials worry because Abu Yazid’s name keeps popping up in relation to Westerners who have trained in al-Qaida camps. Officials say they think Abu Yazi sometimes contacts recruits. They also say he has become the person who must approve their participation in attacks.” [3] U.S. Authorities believe that the training and guidance that al Qaeda provided to Zazi, made his plan more likely to succeed than those of other terrorists arrested in the U.S. in recent months[4]——including the four men who attempted last May to bomb two Bronx synagogues; a plot by a convert to Islam named Michael Finton allegedly to bomb a Springfield, Illinois federal building in September; and, an attempt to bomb a downtown Dallas office tower by Hosam Maher Hussein Smadi, a Jordanian who had overstayed his U.S. tourist visa.
Much of the information about al Qaeda’s training camps in Pakistan——and perhaps even about Abu Yazid and Zazi too——comes from a 26 year-old Long Island, New York resident——named Bryant Neal Vinas.[5] A convert to Islam, Vinas has reportedly provided details to the FBI about his training in Pakistan and participation in high-level al Qaeda targeting meetings. It is believed that information from Vinas about an al Qaeda plot to bomb a Long Island Railway train in New York’s Pennsylvania Station led to the heightened security over the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday. The FBI has described Vinas as a “gold mine of information” about al Qaeda recruitment, plans, and operations. What is most worrying about the Zazi case though he is that he was able to recruit at least 16 other persons, if not even more, as part of his plot——which included detonating a truck packed with explosives in a suicide attack on lower Manhattan. The fact that his fellow conspirators were attempting to rent such a truck just before Zazi was arrested suggests that the attacks may indeed have been imminent.
Further, much like that of the British Muslim terrorists responsible for the July 2005 London attacks and the August 2006 airline bombing plot, Zazi’s al Qaeda training included not only instruction in the fabrication of homemade explosives devices but also tradecraft in counter-intelligence and counter-surveillance.[7] Moreover, Zazi was not deterred by the enhanced physical security in and around New York City nor by the New York City Police Department——the world’s largest municipal police force with nearly 40,000 personnel and arguably the best trained and prepared to counter terrorist threats by dint of its special operations[6] Hercules teams and its separate Intelligence and Counterterrorism Divisions——from returning to the scene of two previous spectacular terrorist attacks in the same Wall Street area of lower Manhattan. Finally, Zazi was training at an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan in August 2008——when the U.S. program of unmanned drone aircraft attacks was ramping up. The failure of both the NYPD and heightened security in New York City to deter Zazi and of the drone campaign to de-rail his al Qaeda-directed plot raises fundamentally disquieting questions about our ability to prevent al Qaeda from striking at what it considers the most desirable, high value targets——no matter how well protected they are——and moreover our ability to effectively disrupt its operations through a campaign reliant mostly upon aerial attack by unmanned drones.
The Bad News ONLY Gets Worse
In addition, it is not only al Qaeda that Americans have to worry about operating within the U.S. The indictment in October of two Chicago men of Pakistani heritage on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in Denmark revealed their links two of al Qaeda’s key Pakistani jihadi allies: Lashkar-e-Toiba (“Army of the Pure,” or LeT), the group responsible for last November’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India; and, Harakat ul-Jihad ("Islamic Struggle Movement,” or HuJI). David Headley (who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006), age 49, and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a 48 year-old Pakistani-born Canadian, were both charged with plotting terrorist attacks against targets outside the U.S., including the facilities and employees of the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. This is the newspaper that published cartoons in 2005 of the Prophet that many Muslims consider as derogatory. Both Headley and Rana were indicted on charges of conspiring to provide material support to commit terrorist acts. In addition, Headley was indicted on the more serious additional charge of conspiring to murder or maim persons abroad——which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment compared with the maximum 15 years for conspiracy.[8]
Headley is alleged to have identified and conducted surveillance of the Danish newspaper’s offices in Copenhagen and Arhus, as well as of an army barracks, the central train station, and a Jewish synagogue in Copenhagen. He reportedly made at least two trips to Denmark in January and July 2009 and provided his terrorist handlers in Pakistan with the results of his reconnaissance. Rana, the owner of several businesses, including an agency called First World Immigration Services, arranged for Headley’s trips——which included multiple visits to Pakistan.
The plot’s commander is alleged to have been Ilyas Kashmiri, the 45 year-old operational chief of HuJI’s Azad Kashmir (“Free Kashmir”) section. Kashmiri, a one-eyed Pakistani militant, once served as a special operations commando in Pakistan’s Army. During the Afghan mujahedeen’s war against the Soviet Union, whose military occupied that country from 1979-1989, Kashmiri was assigned to train guerrilla units. He lost his eye fighting alongside them against the Red Army. Kashmiri then went on similarly to train and advise Pakistani Kashmiri jihadis fighting against India. He attained some notoriety in Pakistan after escaping from an Indian jail, where he had been imprisoned for two years. After President Pervz Musharraf ordered the HuJI banned after the September 11th 2001 attacks, Kashmiri turned against the government and was subsequently implicated in the December 2003 attempts on President Musharraf’s life. Following the Pakistani government’s siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque in July 2007, Kashmiri fled to North Waziristan where he began to cooperate closely with both al Qaeda and the Taliban. Currently the fourth most-wanted-man in Pakistan, he was erroneously reported to have been killed in a drone missile strike on 7 September 2009. In October, however, Kashmiri issued a statement that he was alive and working with al Qaeda.[9] U.S. officials describe him as among the most dangerous jihadis at large in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA): “a nightmare guy . . . an operator who [can] make things happen.”[10]
Headley, it should be noted, is alleged in the U.S. criminal complaint documents to have been in contact with an unnamed associate of Kashmiri’s, who is also accused of belonging to LeT. The indictment charges Headley with having direct links to still another individual that the indictment describes as a person of “substantial influence and responsibility within the organization [e.g., LeT] and whose identify is known to the government.” Headley is believed to have communicated with his two LeT contacts over telephone and by e-mail. Coded language, variously referring to the operation as the “Mickey Mouse Project” or “mmp” or the “northern project,” was used in these communications. The intended targets were called “investments”; “projects”; “business” and “action” and the anticipated religious rewards for Headley’s martyrdom were termed getting “rich”; becoming “richer”; and making a “profit.” It appears from surveillance reports, however, that in July and August, Headley’s LeT handler altered his agent’s targeting instructions. Headley was told to begin surveillance of potential targets in India for a new operation. He was en route to Pakistan via Philadelphia to meet with this person when federal agents arrested Headley in Chicago as he was about to begin the first leg of the journey.[11] The active role played by the LeT in this plot provides further evidence of the Pakistani government’s inchoate efforts to eliminate the militant organization as it had pledged to do following the November 2008 Mumbai attack.[12]
The Headley and Rana indictments are troubling for another, significant reason. It is worrisome enough that close al Qaeda allies like LeT and HuJI are active on U.S. soil and that an especially dangerous and adept al Qaeda associate such as Ilyas Kashmiri, was the alleged mastermind behind the operation. It is also disturbing that neither the middle-aged Headley nor Rana fit the stereotypical profile of the testosterone-driven, young jihadi, aged between 16 and 28. Indeed, for more than a century the average age of terrorists worldwide has been roughly 24. Indeed, this was the average age of the 19 September 11th 2001 hijackers. And, moreover, Zazi, for instance, is also 24 years old as was Abdullah Hassan Tali Assiri, the al Qaeda terrorist who in September attempted to assassinate Prince Ahmed bin Nayef, the Saudi assistant Minister of the Interior and counterterrorism chief, with a bomb concealed in his rectum.[13] Headley and Rana’s older age bracket——and by more than two decades——provides further evidence of the continuing efforts by terrorist organizations to frustrate government profiling efforts and thereby evade suspicion and detection.
And Our Worst Fears May Now Have Been Realized
The disquieting developments detailed above suggest that an important watershed has been crossed with respect to the terrorist threat not just to the U.S. but in the U.S. as well. Since September 11th, the operable assumption has been that the most salient terrorism risk to this country still involved terrorists coming from abroad to carry out attacks here——as occurred on September 11th 2001. But, like the case of the nearly 30 Somali-American youths who were radicalized and recruited in the U.S. by a terrorist group linked with al Qaeda, the Zazi case and those of Headley and Rana, provide further, additional compelling evidence of the existence of a terrorist infrastructure of some kind in the U.S.——and linked both to al Qaeda and its Pakistani allies. Moreover, it is one that may be sufficiently robust if, as it appears with Headley and Rana, these terrorist organizations are now both able and sufficiently confident to use assets in the U.S. to carry out attacks elsewhere. In sum, the aforementioned warnings from American authorities that the events of the past few months provide only a glimpse of a more complex and threatening picture must be taken very seriously indeed.
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1 See, in particular for example, Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), passim; and, Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York: New York Police Department Intelligence Division, August 2007), passim accessed at: http://www.nypdshield.org/public/ SiteFiles/documents/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_ in_the_West.pdf.
2 Dina Temple-Raston, “Ranking Terrorist Threats By Degree Of Separation,” National Public Radio “Morning Edition,” 31 October 2009 accessed at: accessed at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/ story.php?storyId=114343626
3 Idem, “Officials: Suspect Contacted Top Al-Qaida Leader,” National Public Radio “Morning Edition,” 15 October 2009 accessed at: http://www. npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113811961; and, idem, “New Face Emerges Among Al-Qaida’s Leaders,” National Public Radio “Morning Edition,” 27 October 2009 accessed at: http://www.npr.org/ templates/story/story.php?storyId=114195026&ft=1 &f=3. The story, it should be noted, was first reported by the Associated Press on 14 & 15 October 2009 but then AP issued a retraction on 16 October 2009. See “Correction: Terror suspect stories,” Associated Press, 16 October 2009. Others, however, maintain that the information linking Abu Yazid to Zazi are correct. In any case, even while some may dispute that Abu Yazid was Zazi’s al Qaeda handler, no one doubts the information——provided by Zazi himself——that he trained in an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan and was in direct contact with senior al Qaeda operatives.
4 See David Johnston and Eric Schmitt, “Smaller-Scale Terrorism Plots Pose New and Worrisome Threats, Officials Say,” New York Times, 1 November 2009.
5 Ibid.
6 Temple-Raston, “Officials: Suspect Contacted Top Al-Qaida Leader,” 15 October 2009; and, Michael Wilson, “From Smiling Coffee Vendor to Terror Suspect,” New York Times, 26 September 2009.
7 See Johnston and Schmitt, “Smaller-Scale Terrorism Plots Pose New and Worrisome Threats, Officials Say.” or HuJI).
8 U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Chicago Men Charged In Connection With Alleged Roles In Foreign Terror Plot That Focused On Targets In Denmark,” Press Release, 27 October 2009; United States v. David C. Headley, also known as “Daood Gilani,” United States Court Northern District Of Illinois, Eastern Division, 09CR 830, 11 October 2009; and, United States v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 11 October 2009.
9 Ibid. See also Matthew Rosenberg and Siobhan Gorman, “Al Qaeda’s Diminished Role Stirs Afghan Troop Debate,” Wall Street Journal, 5 October 2009.
10 Quoted in Johnston and Schmitt, “Smaller-Scale Terrorism Plots Pose New and Worrisome Threats, Officials Say.” Coded
11 See U.S. Department of Justice, “Two Chicago Men Charged In Connection With Alleged Roles In Foreign Terror Plot That Focused On Targets In Denmark”; United States v. David C. Headley, also known as “Daood Gilani,” United States District Court Northern District Of Illinois, Eastern Division, 09CR 830, 11 October 2009; and, United States v. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 11 October 2009.
12 See Lydia Polgreen and Souad Mekhennet, “Militant Group Is Intact After Mumbai Siege,” New York Times, 30 September 2009. 24 years
13 Christopher Dickey, “The New TNT,” Newsweek.com, 29 September 2009 accessed at http:// www.newsweek.com/id/216401/output/print.