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BBC MUNDO RADIO
Wednesday, February 9th 2011, 2:12 PM
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Efforts to recruit Westerners for attacks against America has skyrocketed the threat of terrorism to its highest level since the 9/11 attacks, warned Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.
The latest intelligence shows that the threat - from Al Qaeda cells and their allies - is increasingly coming from inside the country, said Napolitano ominously noting that another attack could come "with little or no warning."
"The terrorist threat to the homeland is in many ways at its most heightened state since 9/11," Napolitano said in a speech to the House Homeland Security Committee in Washington Wednesday.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY), chairman of the security committee, called the hearings to explore the threat from Islamic extremists.
Over the past two years, U.S. intelligence agencies have seen a rise in the number of terrorist groups inspired by Al Qaeda who are trying to inspire people with clean records and no obvious links to extremists to launch attacks in the West.
The recruits include Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day "underwear bomber" who attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit in 2009, and Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square last year.
"This threat of homegrown violent extremism fundamentally changes who is most often in the best position to spot terrorist activity, investigate, and respond," Napolitano said.
As a result, Napolitano said, the DHS needed to work increasingly with state and local law enforcement agencies to fight terrorism using the same techniques police use to fight domestic crime.
Michael Leiter, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told CNN that the most significant risk was posed by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its American-born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki.
The English-speaking Al-Awlaki was linked in emails to both Abdulmutallab and Nidal Hasan, the Army major accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 in a massacre at Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009.
Shahzad also said he was inspired by Al-Awlaki.
A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies released Tuesday concluded that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda has been significantly weakened by drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The report said the primary threats are now Al-Awlaki's group and Somalia's al-Shabaab, which counts dozens of U.S. citizens among its ranks.
The Pakistani Taliban group Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan has also placed a growing emphasis on recruiting Westerners, Napolitano said.
Napolitano also mentioned that DHS was in the process of scrapping the old color-coded alert system in favor of a simpler one that focuses on informing the public as soon as a threat develops.
King urged lawmakers to recognize that "homegrown radicalization is a growing threat, and one we cannot ignore."
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