Misleading to speak of "homegrown" vs "foreign" jihadists. For Muslims there is only one nationality: Islam. National origins are irrelevant. Bruce Kelly fears terror within
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/425712p-359033c.html Homegrown Qaeda sympathizers on rise, he sez Daily News Exclusive <http://www.nydailynews.com/images/editors/header_dnexclusive.gif> BY ALISON GENDAR DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF Police commissioner Raymond Kelly has a warning for New Yorkers: Homegrown jihadists pose an increasing risk to the city. Kelly described the dangerous fanatics, during an exclusive interview with the Daily News, as mostly impressionable young men in their late teens and early 20s. "Immediately after 9/11 the first concern was people trying to get into the country," Kelly told The News. "Now there is an equal concern about sympathizers here in the United States taking up the cause." Last Tuesday's arrest of Syed Hashmi - who is accused of providing "material support and resources" to Osama Bin Laden's terror group - dramatically underscores Kelly's message. Though born in Pakistan, Hashmi, 26, was indoctrinated in radical Islam growing up on the streets of Queens. He attended Robert Wagner High School in Long Island City, where friends said he became enthralled in the extremist claims of jihadists he found on the Internet. "Al Qaeda has changed from an organization into an inspiration, a philosophy, with the Internet as the new Afghanistan, the place where people are recruited and trained," Kelly said. The jihadists have grown increasingly sophisticated with their propaganda, sending videos of beheadings of "infidels" around the globe along with tales of torture at the hands of U.S. soldiers. The Internet sites - translated into dozens of languages - go so far as to offer ways for volunteers to sign up to be suicide bombers, Kelly said. "The sites have become a way to identify, and recruit, people who at least on the surface say they are willing to die for the cause," the commissioner said. Hashmi's outrage was fueled by what he called the abuse and degradation of Muslims at the hand of Americans, friends said. By the time he graduated from Brooklyn College in 2003, the political science major had become something of a magnet and powerhouse recruiter for the Al-Muhajiroun. This extremist group was one of a handful the NYPD had been closely watching before its virulent founder, cleric Omar Bakri, called for the group to disband in 2004. "Before it was dissolved, Al-Muhajiroun was political and was aimed at a college student constituency," Kelly said. Hashmi's college acquaintances said he brought leaders of the Jackson Heights faction to Brooklyn College to talk to students. The budding radical also was credited with recruiting fellow Queens terrorist Muhammad Junaid Babar, a student at St. John's University, into the New York chapter of Al-Muhajiroun. After the organization disbanded, many members reformed into a fringe group called the Islamic Thinkers. By then, Hashmi already had headed to Great Britain, where he allegedly began conspiring with terror-cell members who have been plotting to blow up pubs, restaurants and trains. Hashmi's arrest at Heathrow Airport as he prepared to board a plane bound for Pakistan marked just the latest time an American has been nabbed for trying to directly aid Bin Laden or carry out his message. The Herald Square bomb plot in 2004 is considered "a classic case" of a homegrown terrorist with no known ties to terror organizations, Kelly said. Shahawar Matin Siraj, a 24-year-old Queens resident, was convicted last month of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station. A jury rejected his defense that he was entrapped by a paid police informant. Siraj, who worked at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, was secretly recorded over several months in 2004 declaring his hatred for America and talking about a plan to bomb the subway. He was arrested three days before the Republican National Convention after canvassing the hub. In 2003, Iyman Faris, a Pakistani-born American citizen, schemed with Al Qaeda to sever the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge. Police said the attack was abandoned because of the NYPD's counterterrorism patrols along the famed span. Faris, 34, an Ohio truckdriver, had met Bin Laden at an Afghanistan terror training camp. Faris kept in touch with one of Bin Laden's lieutenants through the Internet after he moved to the U.S. in 1994. A similar pattern can be seen in other Western countries. In Great Britain, three of the four Islamists who carried out last July's attacks on the subway and a bus, killing 52, were citizens. And just over a week ago in Canada, authorities announced the arrests of 17 suspects allegedly plotting to build massive bombs. Investigators said the suspects, who were in their teens and 20s, were all Canadian residents and many of them citizens. Through living relatively unremarkable suburban lives, they allegedly trained together at a camp north of Toronto. "Al Qaeda is now a mission, and they are dedicated to the idea that anyone can take up that mission," Kelly said. Originally published on June 11, 2006 FAIR USE NOTICE: All original content and/or articles and graphics in this message are copyrighted, unless specifically noted otherwise. All rights to these copyrighted items are reserved. Articles and graphics have been placed within for educational and discussion purposes only, in compliance with "Fair Use" criteria established in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. The principle of "Fair Use" was established as law by Section 107 of The Copyright Act of 1976. "Fair Use" legally eliminates the need to obtain permission or pay royalties for the use of previously copyrighted materials if the purposes of display include "criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research." 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