U.S.: Al-Qaida affiliates larger threat

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- With U.S. public attention shifting from terrorism, a U.S. intelligence director said al-Qaida affiliates are a growing concern for national security.

Most of the likely American voters taking part in a survey by the Pew Research Center said the state of the economy and employment prospects were their primary concern. Terrorism, the polling company stated, fell from the No. 1 position in 2007 to No. 3 in the most recent survey.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a U.S. Senate intelligence committee that the May assassination of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was a major blow to the organization's base.

"We judge that al-Qaida's losses are so substantial and its operating environment so restricted that a new group of leaders, even if they could be found, would have difficulty integrating into the organization and compensating for mounting losses," he said in written remarks.

Clapper stressed, however, that al-Qaida affiliates like Yemen's al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia's al-Shabaab and North Africa's al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb "will surpass the remnants of the core al-Qaida group in Pakistan" in terms of national security threats.

AQAP claimed responsibility for several attacks on Western targets in 2010. The BBC reported Wednesday that a group of men, all British nationals, confessed to plotting an attack on the London Stock Exchange. They said they were inspired by the preaching of slain AQAP ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki.

The Pew survey of 1,502 adults was conducted by telephone mid-January. It had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.