Christian Science Monitor, 11 March 2010: Pennsylvania woman Colleen LaRose, who called herself Jihad Jane, is only the latest in a string of Americans to support violent jihad. Her alleged mission to recruit fighters and murder a Swedish artist falls into a rising tide of homegrown Islamic militants who are using their passports and linguistic skills to promote global jihad.
“Homegrown terrorism is increasing. There is no doubt about it,” says Steven Emerson, author of Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US
. . . . Our top 10 list is somewhat subjective. To keep it short, a number of notable US-born terrorists were not included, including Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam, a Pennsylvania native who became an Al Qaeda operative and reportedly “close friend” of Osama bin Laden. Pakistani media have reported that he was arrested this past weekend in Karachi. Our list also leaves out the 2007 plot of six New Jersey men charged with conspiring to attack Fort Dix; the 2009 Synagogue terror plot of four men arrested for plotting to blow up Jewish centers in the Bronx; and the Lackawana plot of six Yemeni-Americans arrested in September 2002 on allegations of giving material support to Al Qaeda.
Mr. Emerson, who heads The Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, D.C., says the fundamentalist Islamic community is quick to pounce on young and impressionable foreign converts. “I was amazed at the way the global jihad village converged very quickly after [LaRose] offered to carry out jihad,” he says. “It was pretty eye-opening to see how quickly she was able to insert herself into a jihad plot. The question is whether there is a growth of radicalism within the American Muslim community, or whether in fact it’s always been there and it’s now being exploited by virtue of technology.”
