Al Qaeda Stepping up Recruitment of White Europeans
June 23, 2008
An important story that slipped through the cracks somewhat over the weekend. from ABC News:
Dozens of white Europeans have trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan's tribal regions in recent months, U.S. intelligence sources tell ABC News, in what officials fear may be the beginnings of a new breed of al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorism.
Government officials suspect the terrorists, recruited in Europe, have been dispatched to plan attacks against Europe and possibly the United States. The alleged terrorists hail from Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Romania and Estonia, sources said.
There is growing evidence that some European recruits may have already gone operational. Two of the suspects arrested in a September 2007 plot to kill American soldiers in Germany were native Germans, and U.S. officials say they are investigating whether they were trained in Pakistan.
An April 2008 report from Europol also noted that an increasing number of European nationals attended training in Pakistan "and were later involved in, or suspected of, terrorist offences in the EU."
Intelligence officials say the remote tribal areas along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan have in the last several years become a haven for terrorist recruiting and training. Hundreds of radicals from across the region have flocked to al-Qaeda training camps in the area.
In interviews with ABC News and in a series of little-noticed public statements and reports, intelligence officials have said they believe al-Qaeda has successfully completed a major goal: recruiting and training Western would-be terrorists.
I was able to get a behind-the scenes look last Friday at TSA's new "Checkpoint Evolution" program, which is getting a trial run at BWI Airport (be on the lookout for my upcoming story on the 700 Club).. The TSA rep I interviewed made clear that the agency is putting an onus on behavior, not race, when profiling possible terrorists at airports. This ABC piece shows the rationale behind TSA's thinking.
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