Thursday February 10, 2011
Michael Leiter, the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center director, said the greater danger now comes from U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his al-Qaeda ties in the Arabian Peninsula.
Testifying Wednesday before the House homeland security committee, Mr. Leiter told lawmakers that continued "offensive pressure" on bin Laden's Pakistani safe havens had substantially reduced al-Qaeda's ability to launch a "large-scale attack" on the United States.
But he said al-Awlaki had demonstrated some capability to strike at the United States from outside the country and had emerged as the primary influence over homegrown terrorists plotting to strike within the United States.
"I actually consider al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with al-Awlaki as a leader within that organization, probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland," Mr. Leiter said. "I'm hesitant to rank them too personally, but [al-Awlaki is] certainly up there."
U.S. President Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, last December had described al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as the "most operationally active node" of the al-Qaeda network. The Obama administration has authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate al-Awlaki.
Often described as the "bin Laden of the Internet," al-Awlaki has been cited for inspiring U.S. army Major Nidal Hasan, who is accused in the November 2009 shooting spree in Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and two dozen injured, through anti-American Internet postings and emails.
He is said to have trained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused in the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines jet.
Al-Awlaki has also taken credit for organizing last fall's plot to plant explosives aboard two U.S.-bound cargo planes from Yemen, and reportedly influenced failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
Of particular concern to the Obama administration is al-Awlaki's effort to radicalize Muslims in the United States. He exchanged 18 emails with Hasan in the year before to the Fort Hood shooting.
"Al-Awlaki is the most well-known English-speaking ideologue who is speaking directly to folks here in the homeland," Mr. Leiter said. "There are several others who we're concerned with, but I think al-Awlaki probably does have the greatest audience and the like. So, in that sense he is the most important."
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, testifying alongside Mr. Leiter, said bin Laden's Pakistanbased al-Qaeda "is at one of its weakest points in the past decade" and has been forced into a defensive crouch because of "reduced safe haven and personnel losses."
The overall terrorist threat to the United States "may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly 10 years ago," Ms. Napolitano said, because of offshoot terrorist groups such as the Yemen-based AQAP that are placing greater emphasis on recruiting and radicalizing U.S. Muslims to carry out attacks.
"They are ... encouraging individuals in the West to carry out their own small-scale attacks, which require less of the co-ordination and planning that could raise red flags and lead to an attack disruption," she said.