Posted on 07/06/2008 8:48:15 AM PDT by vietvet67
As the global war on terror approaches the start of its eighth year, the NYPD says it has never been more prepared - but also warns that the city can never let its guard down. In a two-part series, Daily News reporter Patrice O'Shaughnessy looks at the terror threat in New York - and around the world. Sunday's installment focuses on an NYPD undercover officer who dug deep into the potential terrorists in our midst.
A young undercover city detective spent four years in the shadowy world of terrorist wanna-bes - taking part in jihadist discussions and training in parks in the dead of night - to get a handle on the homegrown threat.
At great personal risk, he participated in everything from prayers at a mosque to martial arts training under cover of darkness to watching jihadist videos, with many of the activities laced with talk of killing, according to a source familiar with the undercover's investigations.
His experiences paint a vivid portrait of the potential for local terror. While the picture is in no way indicative of the city's Muslim population as a whole, it provides insight into its most radical element.
The detective spent his time interacting with informal groups of youths and men who shared extremist views - and his experiences illustrate what police say is the potential for radicalization of some elements in the community.
He reported that after prayers at a neighborhood mosque, there were often private classes that included discussions about bombing different areas.
The men discussed violent jihad in bookstores, private houses and on buses en route to paintball and shooting-range events.
He was invited to join in "bonding" activities like working out at a gym and martial arts training in parks at night, during which the group discussed ideological justifications for killing Westerners.
He also watched military movies and jihadist videos with groups of young men in private homes. During one such evening, one man got so excited he punched a wall.
The detective reported that some youths became extremists after they traveled to their home countries; others went on the hajj - the pilgrimage to Mecca - and came back fired up by imams who encouraged violence as a religious obligation.
Others, after visiting relatives abroad, became enraged at their family's living conditions and blamed the U.S. for supporting nondemocratic governments.
Although the youths talked about ways to attack the U.S., they lacked a strong leader who could help them follow through on a plan, the detective reported.
The undercover, a Muslim who came to America from Bangladesh when he was 7, gave only a glimpse of his work as an undercover when he testified during the trial of the Herald Square bomb plotters, the only known New York City homegrown plot to reach the jihadization stage.
The groups the detective interacted with resemble the "bunches of guys" that Marc Sageman, a noted terrorism authority and new scholar-in-residence at the NYPD, says are the real concern. His position has stirred a debate among security analysts.
While some experts contend the chief threat is Al Qaeda, Sageman, author of "Leaderless Jihad," contends the threat comes more from radicalized individuals who meet and scheme in their neighborhoods and on the Internet.
"We're still very much learning about our enemy," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "Sageman will help us do that. He was with the CIA, a consultant to France and Spain. He's a heavyweight."
While the homegrown threat is real, "An attack from afar by Al Qaeda is always a possibility," Kelly emphasized.
Intelligence analysts for the department have compiled a report, "Radicalization in the West," that "conceptualized the whole notion of the homegrown threat," said David Cohen, deputy commissioner of intelligence. The Internet as training ground and recruitment tool for homegrown radicals is strong, Cohen said, but the number of jihadist Web sites - up from a dozen in 1998 to more than 5,000 now - has probably flattened out.
"Along with expanding computer investigations done by the cyber unit, we have expanded our human program," Cohen said, referring to traditional undercover detective work. The detective appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court two years ago as the final witness at the four-week trial of Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, a Pakistani immigrant who was convicted of plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station during the Republican National Convention in 2004.
The detective was not involved in that case, but testified that he had come across Siraj during his undercover work.
Testifying under the fake name of Kamil Pasha, he said he was taken from the Police Academy in October 2002 to be a "walking camera," eyes and ears, among Muslims. He interacted with groups in Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city.
The detective has been involved in "numerous" investigations for the intelligence division, part of a cadre of undercovers who act as listening posts.
"We don't target a group as a whole; we look for patterns of behavior, travel, training," Cohen said.
The NYPD has studied attacks in Europe to enhance its understanding of the homegrown threat. For example, the July 7, 2005, London subway bombings that killed 52 people drove home the issue of plotting being done outside the target area. The attack plan was hatched in Leeds - more than 150 miles from London.
"We drew a 200-mile perimeter around the city, and we work with all the local police agencies from Maryland to Canada," Cohen said.
"We have our ear to the ground," Kelly said. "We are aware of the possibility of a threat to this city developing very close to home."
poshaughnessy@nydailynews.com
Many cancers can be cured. Some need a large dose of radiation before they succumb
Pakistanis absolutely loathe Jews because they feel inferior to Arabs & are treated badly by them when in Arab countries. They figure that the more they hate Jews the more Arabs will approve of them.
Good points made.
If the MSM is already on the side of the islamic insane - why worry about the tapdancing politicians?
If this is the wish of the majority, I’ll have to follow along (with dire regret).
If there resistance by the people, I guarantee I will be on the side of those who will never bend.
There is NO SUCH THING as “the majority.” We are ALL minorities in terms of interests, ideology, religion, etc. We also DO NOT live in mobocracy where the swinish multitude tells us what to do with our lives. Thankfully, the fact that we are a collection of competing interests prevents us from going along with the mob, while anyone who blindly follows the MSM is a lemming.
Good heavens calm down.
It was a turn of phrase - rather clumsy but I didn’t know I was preparing a thesis for your inspection.
The majority to which I refer is if during the next ten years this nation falls under stricter control of Islamic believers - we will have to make personal choices.
If the majority of the people of the U.S.A. decide to let them convert those who wish to join their insanity, we can choose to resist or acquiesce.
I think the answer is obvious. However these days I wonder why we are even now allowing such a broad spectrum of freedoms to people who hate us and wish to demolish democracy and free thought.
It is as if none of the prevous atrocities committed by Islamic madmen against our nation are forgotten. Certainly the media are showing their nasty colors in an ugly way.
I for one - will never forget 9/11.
Agreed on that.
As a non-believer, I think I am in good position to say that there is only one faith that, on a global basis, wants to overthrow everything we have accomplished since the 18th century in terms of constitutional government and personal liberty. I for one long for the day where the peoples of the Islamic world become "corrupted" and overthrow the clericals, while not embracing secular authoritarianism either.
Of course it's not reflective of the muslim population as a whole...just their mosques, their clerics, their sons and fathers...but not the community as a whole. Of course not.
Excellent insight!
Are you aware of the North-Split in the Islam of the Middle East?
Are you aware that Shiites are 35-40% of the Muslims in the only place that really counts and that is the Middle East, meaning from Egypt to Persia
Take a look how the Shiites of Teheran Syria Lebanon are north of Sunni Mecca and the Saudis.
Thanks for the ping Squantos.
#
stepping back in time...
[Freedom House report on] Saudi Venom in U.S. Mosques
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
February 1, 2005
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2384
It’s a general stereotype among Muslims that Shi’ism doesn’t transfer well to non-Arabs, Iran being the exception. Azeris are Shi’a too, but they are Turks first.
Among the Muslims you have met who have you liked better? Shiites or Sunni? I think I would like Shiites better. I understand their lunacy better
Shi’a for sure. Much more open to reason & I like their spirit. Their religion is more fun too as opposed to soul-killing Wahhabiism. But religiously speaking, Sunnism is closer to Judaism in their hatred of all idolatry. Shi’a really are idolators & I’ve heard them already directing some prayers at Imam ‘Ali instead of God. They are very influenced by Christianity. Sunnism is purer Islam & more influenced by Judaism. However, Shi’a are usually associated with Jews for some reason & until recent events, they felt a connection with Jews.
LOLOLOLOL
I always thought
Shia= Catholics
Sunni= Protestants
You know the Alewites have a cult of Mary? And are sort of a Shiite offshoot? A few years ago the theologians in Iran kissed and made up with the Alewites of Syria. I'm sure it was to cement relations between Asad and the Ayatollahs
Sunnism is purer Islam & more influenced by Judaism. However, Shi’a are usually associated with Jews for some reason & until recent events, they felt a connection with Jews
I like the Persians and consider them higher IQ and not so tunnel vision as the Arabs. But Islam has a lock on that nation. The Persian woman can be much more beautiful than the Arab woman. Like an upper caste Bollywood star. If I had three wishes, one would be to wave a wand and make Iran into Zoroastrian Persia
Alawi are strange, strange people. They don’t have mosques or go on hajj & they only pray twice a year. One told me that going on hajj is for fakes & “the real hajj is in your heart”. Once a year they have a secret holiday that involves crawling on all fours, going into a trance, & throwing water on 12 candles. 12 candles for the 12 a’immah.
Shi’a have Imam Husseyn as their Jesus figure “who spilled his blood so we could enter paradise,” they adopted a copy of the Christian confirmation ceremony called taqlif (at least in Lebanon), have passion plays (masirah), & even their practice of latham (the whipping & the cutting) was adopted from Christian converts to Shi’ism from Azerbaijan. In South America I saw the Catholics doing their cross procession & whipping themselves similar to Shi’a. We Lebanese Mizrahim do it too, for Yom Kippur.
Persians are smarter & nicer than Arabs, but I prefer Arabs personally.
IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT
just like 9-11 was our fault. I'm just hoping that if this does happen, it happens in a liberal bastion like NYC, Boston, DC, LA or San Fran..... then I want to see all the liberals whining like little b#tches about how dog on mean those muzzies are.
and don't they understand that it's the conservative Christians down south that are the mean ones.....
.... I still remember Jon Stewart whimpering about the 9-11 and then later making fun of Bush and all the "lies" about muzzies and how "stupid" it was to invade Iraq....yawn.
The muzzies are so frickin backward and ignorant of history. Our country DESTROYS people that make us mad. Just ask the Japanese, Germans, Vietnamese, .... ask Tojo, Mussolini, Noriega, Hussein...
We lumber along and then a critical mass occurs and then bang, bang, bang...out go the lights.
The “blame Bush” Liberals need to have their BS directed right back at the human waste in the US Congress where the blame belongs. The President is on the receiving end of the BS that Congress sends him to either sign or veto. Blame for the ills we face need to be directed right back at the instigators, the morons/human waste sitting on their butts in the US Congress.
Los Penetientes (also used to be in New Mexico)
Ashura
We Lebanese Mizrahim do it too, for Yom Kippur
Oy vey!
Forgot to say that now the practices of the Alawi are changing. Hafiz Assad built Alawi mosques & encouraged them to go on hajj & to wear hijab, as a way to protect them from fanatics by giving them the appearances of mainstream Islam.
Agreed
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