WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- The United States is facing an increased threat from homegrown Islamic terrorism, experts and officials say.
U.S. anti-terrorism experts have asserted in recent days that radicalization is increasing among American Muslims thanks in part to waves of English-language online propaganda, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.
Anti-terrorism experts told the newspaper that 2009 has been the most dangerous year for terrorism domestically since 2001. They cited several arrests of Americans accused of plotting with al-Qaida and its allies, Somali-Americans going from Minneapolis to battlegrounds in their homeland and an Albanian-American from Brooklyn who was arrested in Kosovo.
Meanwhile, FBI agents made alleged homegrown terrorism arrests in Dallas, Detroit and Raleigh, N.C.
"You are seeing the full spectrum of the threats you face in terrorism," former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Times.
Those who think the United States is different from Europe when it comes to producing homegrown terrorists are wrong, Zeyno Baran, a scholar at the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, told the newspaper.
"People focused on the idea that we're different, we're better at integrating Muslims than Europe is," he said. "But there's radicalization -- especially among converts (and) newcomers, such as the Somali case shows."
