The Creeping Homegrown Terror Threat

(Analyst's note: Absolutely must read.)

by Steven Emerson

The arrest of seven North Carolina residents, including Daniel Boyd and his two sons, on charges of supporting terrorism and conspiracy to commit murder abroad, showed how the problem of homegrown Islamic terrorism is far more rampant than the media or the public is aware of. Just look at the major cases in the past year alone:

• The convert from Long Island who joined al Qaeda (disclosed this past week) and gave the group information about Long Island trains and New York City’s subways.
• The plot to blow up two synagogues and a National Guard plane in upstate New York by prison converts (scheduled to go to trial).
• The plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix by assimilated American Muslims living here 25 years (all convicted).
• The plot to operate a terrorist training camp in Oregon (pleaded guilty).
• The plot to blow up buildings by the Liberty City 7 (all convicted).
• The sweeping conviction of Hamas officials for conspiring to support terrorism overseas.
• The cases of young Somali teenagers raised in the U.S. going overseas to become suicide bombers.

The Boyd case in North Carolina proves that radical Islamic ideology transcends economic class problems as has been claimed by pointy-headed sociologists. The Boyd family was white, had a middle-class existence, and had the economic opportunities afforded all Americans — just like most of the terrorists cited above — and yet chose to engage in jihad to the point that Daniel Boyd was willing to send his two kids on suicide missions to Israel.

That the FBI stopped all these plots is amazing, but they will never continue to bat a thousand. One of these days, the jihadists will succeed. ....