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| "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat" - NYPD Report |
| 2008-04-07 |
| They grew beards, gave up women and booze, surfed the Web for radical Islamic sites and turned their back on American pop culture. All red flags, according to a new NYPD analysis that details how otherwise "unremarkable" young Muslim men morph from middle-class nobodies with no criminal records into homegrown terrorists, posing a threat as dangerous as that from Al Qaeda. The NYPD's report - "Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat" - is a 90-page road map to jihad based on the actions of about 100 extremists and 11 terror plots. The analysis was created by the NYPD's Intelligence Division to help law enforcement authorities identify terrorists and prevent attacks. The warning signs include becoming more religious, growing a beard, taking part in activities like paint-ball war games and expressing significant dissatisfaction with the U.S. As the individuals follow the destructive path, they start hanging out with like-minded extremists in back rooms of bookstores, isolated corners of prayer rooms, Islamic community centers and Muslim student associations, rather than traditional mosques, the report says. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the primary motivation behind the assessment was to determine: "Were there any early-warning signs?" "Hopefully, the better we're informed about this process, the more likely we'll be to detect and disrupt it," Kelly said. NYPD Assistant Commissioner for Intelligence Lawrence Sanchez described the report as "a guide to know what to look for, what to watch for and how to interpret what you see. It is a start, a way to a look at a series of benign activities, to try to decide what is really benign and what is virulent." The experts found that direct command from Al Qaeda is the exception, not the rule. The NYPD traced how legal immigrants - mostly Muslim men, ages 15 to 35, with high school or even college degrees - grew disillusioned with life in America or other adopted countries and took up radical Islam that put them on the path to jihad. NYPD analysts charted how the London bombers in July 2005 devolved from second-generation Brits who loved soccer, cricket and gambling into jihadists willing to travel to Pakistan for military and explosives training. They cut ties with their families and exchanged less radical mosques for hard-core coffee klatsches led by sympathizers with an often dubious grasp of the Koran, the report found. "For detectives, they can now look at a series of signals and see if there is a pattern," said Mitchell Silber, the NYPD's senior intelligence analyst and a co-author of the report. "They notice a group of young men are no longer attending a certain mosque. They might interpret that as a good thing. But a signature, or a red flag, is that jihadists leave a mosque because it is not radical enough, and go and meet in someone's apartment." |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #12 The NYPD traced how legal immigrants - mostly Muslim men, ages 15 to 35, with high school or even college degrees - grew disillusioned with life in America or other adopted countries and took up radical Islam that put them on the path to jihad. No offense to the fine folks at NYPD, who (literally) risk life and limb policing that City, but I could've told ya this in far less than 90 pages, and probably a LOT cheaper too. How many times have we stated...."Profile these guys (Muslims aged 18-35 or so) UNTIL 80 year-old Amish women start strapping on bombs." |
| Posted by: BA 2008-04-07 21:00 |
| #11 I thought this looked familiar. The linked article is from August 2007. Still relevant, however. |
| Posted by: Tibor 2008-04-07 18:46 |
| #10 Do you mean like Adam Yahiye Gadahn or otherwise screwed up losers? |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2008-04-07 18:42 |
| #9 Yes Abu. My design to take over the world is to provide free sat tv and run Randy Newman's 'I Love LA' repeatedly. It will be the utter destruction of any other civilization unable to adapt. Mawhahahahahahh. :) |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-04-07 12:53 |
| #8 All this time I've been telling my kids that MTV is bad. Guess I should just let 'em watch and be grateful for it. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque (aka Ebbang Uluque6305) 2008-04-07 12:11 |
| #7 I didn't want to complicate things. Anarchists from the late 1800s to the early 1920s. Communism from thereon. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-04-07 11:44 |
| #6 The early 20th century? Wasn't the real issue then the violent anarchists? Who, admittedly, morphed into both fascists and marxist-trotskyist-leninist-stalinists a few years later. (Splitters!) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-04-07 11:14 |
| #5 It's really not new - substitute 'communism' for 'Islam' and 'european' for for 'muslim', and you pretty much have the same scenario from the early 20th century. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-04-07 11:06 |
| #4 No. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-04-07 11:00 |
| #3 One nice thing about Muzz...they keep repeating patterns over and over...with or without educations. Now that we have all this fine information, what are we doing about it ? Are they being quietly gathered up ? Disappeared from our streets ? The next step needs to be executed, if you know what I mean. |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-04-07 10:36 |
| #2 I like the idea that's "homegrown". Deep down, you've got to reach the conclusion it's not homegrown at all, it's imported, first generation or followings, as muslims pour into non-muslim countries - and terror is only the surface threat. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-04-07 09:52 |
| #1 turned their back on American pop culture....For detectives, they can now look at a series of signals You might be an Islamist terrorist if ... you don't check out Hilton/Spears/Lohan web sites every day. |
| Posted by: Menhadden Snogum6713 2008-04-07 09:18 |