WASHINGTON - The latest crop of Al Qaeda recruits is salted with white, Anglo-featured converts from Europe who look more like TV's Jack Bauer than Osama Bin Laden. U.S. officials are worried about fair-skinned Al Qaeda killers with light-colored eyes, who most Americans would never suspect as Muslim jihadis ready to die in martyrdom missions like Sept. 11.
"It is a very big concern," a top counterterror official told the Daily News of the possibility that real-life terrorists resemble Kiefer Sutherland's character on "24." The Europeans have been spotted in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, where a resurgent Al Qaeda runs small training camps.
"Al Qaeda is attempting to recruit 'Western' individuals to better blend into European and American societies," a senior military officer who monitors secret reports on the region said. "It's a continuing concern for the intelligence community." The danger is that they may blend in back home - or take advantage of the visa-waiver program the U.S. shares with Eurpean allies that eliminates a key layer of scrutiny for travelers. The travel loophole allows 15 million people to enter the U.S. from 18 European countries without visas, including Britain, France, Germany and Norway.
Intelligence on white jihadis cropped up long before Bin Laden warned Europe last week to leave Afghanistan in a new tape. Top CIA official John Kringen told lawmakers earlier this year that he was "very concerned" about Al Qaeda using Europe as "a launching point for bringing terrorists into the United States." One counterterror official said the Department of Homeland Security isn't moving aggressively to counter those who don't fit the typical Al Qaeda ethnic profile. Most of its agents are from Arab countries, Asia or North Africa.
But DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner said terrorists "come in all shapes, sizes and colors," and screening procedures "do not take appearances into account." Peculiar behavior, rather than appearance, is increasingly relied on to tell the difference between a safe traveler and a terrorist, Keehner said.
The number of white Europeans who have converted to Islam and been trained by Al Qaeda in Pakistan is believed small, but their value is incalculable. Besides ease of travel, they offer a window into Western culture.
Bin Laden has no one left in his top five tiers of leadership with experience in the West, such as captured 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who attended a North Carolina college. His only adviser on America is California-raised propagandist Adam Gadahn, the likely author of Bin Laden's recent speeches.
The first public inkling of the new threat came last year when a Newsweek reporter in Afghanistan met a Taliban leader who was guarded by a European with light-colored eyes, referred to as one of their "English brothers." Military officials in Afghanistan told The News last summer they've never captured or killed any Europeans near the border. But Al Qaeda has suggested that European jihadis are plentiful.
The military wing of Hamas pledged on Saturday to strike in the depth of Israel in response to the killing of five of its militants in pre-dawn air strikes in southern Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli army's happiness after killing the resistance men would not last long and the time of account is imminent," Abu Obaida, the spokesman of the Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades said at the funeral of the fighters in Khan Younis city. "The enemy must be ready for black funerals. Al-Qassam Brigades will turn everything on the head of the Zionists, destroy all their expectations and attack them unexpectedly," warned the spokesman.
Ezz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, have the capability to recruit 100 fighters at any time to succeed anyone killed by the Israeli troops, Abu Obaida said.
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ARTICLE SNIPPET:
""Al Qaeda is attempting to recruit 'Western' individuals to better blend into European and American societies," a senior military officer who monitors secret reports on the region said."