Thursday, December 10, 2009

Al-Qaida is not the only group with global ambitions that we have to worry about

"The example of David Headley indicates, al-Qaida is not the only group with global ambitions that we have to worry about," said Daniel Benjamin, Coordinator, and Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, at the State Department.



The State Department official said Sunni radicals continue to succeed is in persuading religious extremists to adopt their cause, even in the United States.
"A bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, was trained in Pakistan and now faces charges in federal court for planning to set off a series of bombs in the United States, he said.
An indictment that was unsealed Monday in Chicago portrays an American citizen-David Headley-playing a pivotal role in last year's attack in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people and dramatically raised tensions in South Asia," he said.
So even if this radical movement is not mobilising the masses, it is still galvanising enough people to take to violence and poses a continuing, powerful threat, he noted.
The importance of these two cases should not be glossed over-the conspiracies these men were engaged in had roots in the FATA, and eight years after 9/11, should give us all pause. The threat to the US remains substantial and enduring despite the operational constraints on al-Qaeda central," Benjamin said.
He worked on terrorism in the White House when al-Qaeda first surfaced in the late 1990s. "I can tell you now, after having access to the intelligence again, that the threat has become far more complicated due to the proliferation of groups and the cross-pollination of networks.
The global radical milieu has become thicker. There is so much more that we have to keep tabs on than there was in 1999," he said.

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