THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010
KLMNO
EZ SU
Politics & The Nation
warn that such strikes are harder to prevent
BY PETER FINN Al-Qaeda and its allies are
likely to attempt small-scale, less sophisticated terrorist attacks in the United States, senior Obama administration officials said Wednesday, noting that it’s ex- tremely difficult to detect such threats in advance. “Unlike large-scale, coordinat-
ed, catastrophic attacks, execut- ing smaller-scale attacks requires less planning and fewer pre-oper- ational steps,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napoli- tano, testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Govern- mental Affairs Committee. “Ac- cordingly, there are fewer oppor- tunities to detect such an attack before it occurs.” Terrorism experts have puz-
zled over al-Qaeda’s apparent unwillingness after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to use car bombs, improvised explosives and small arms to conduct assaults in the United States. The group ap- peared fixated on orchestrating another dramatic mass-casualty event, such as the simultaneous downing of several commercial airliners. Indeed, attacks inspired by
al-Qaeda in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005 involved multi- ple, coordinated bombings tar- getingmass-transit systems. But the risk of a single-target
bombing or an attack by a lone gunman has increased, officials say, with the rise of al-Qaeda-af- filiated groups in the tribal areas of Pakistan, in Yemen and in Somalia, andwith the emergence of radicalized Americans in- spired by the ideology of violent jihad. “The impact of the attempted
attacks during the past year sug- gests al-Qaeda, and its affiliates and allies, will attempt to con- duct smaller-scale attacks target-
Suit accuses Ga. pastor of sex with teens
FROM NEWS SERVICES Bishop Eddie Long, the pastor
of a megachurch in suburban Atlanta, is being sued by three male church members who allege that he coerced them into sexual relationships. The three,nowin their 20s, say
Long used jewelry, cars, cash and his authority as pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church to lure them into the relation- ships when they were 17 and 18. Long “adamantly denies” the
claims, saying they are “without merit,” his spokesman, Art Frank- lin, told CNN. Long has announced a news conference for Thursday. The plaintiffs — Anthony
Flagg, 21, Maurice Robinson, 20, and Jamal Parris, 23 — seek unspecified damages. They claim in their lawsuits,
filed Tuesday and Wednesday in DeKalb County, Ga., that Long “has a pattern and practice of singling out a select group of young male church members . . . to engage in sexual relation- ships.” Lance Robertson, who joined
NewBirth nearly twodecades ago and has coached youth basketball there, saidWednesday that mem- bers were hurting. “I support and will stand with
my bishop, but right now, in the court of public opinion, it does not look good,” Robertson told theAssociatedPress. “This affects too many people. As the bishop goes, New Birth goes. He built NewBirth.” When Long arrived at New
BirthMissionary in 1987, it had a congregation of 300 members. Today, it sits on 250 acres in Lithonia, east of Atlanta, and has more than 25,000 members, a $50 million, 10,000-seat cathe- dral and more than 40 ministries. In 2006, New Birth hosted the
funeral of civil rights leader Coretta Scott King. The Rev. Ber- nice King, a daughter of Coretta and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is a pastor at the church. Long has called for a national
ban on same-sex marriage. In 2004, he led amarchwith Bernice King to her father’s Atlanta grave to support a national constitu- tional amendment to protect marriage “between one man and one woman.”
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ing the homeland but with great- er frequency,” said Michael Leit- er, director of theNational Coun- terterrorism Center, pointing to plots against the subway system inNewYork, the attempt to down a commercial airliner approach- ing Detroit and the failed car bombing in Times Square. Leiter said in his testimony
compensate for the potentially decreased willingness of al-Qae- da in Pakistan — the deadliest supplier of such training and guidance — to accept and train new recruits.” Officials in the United States
that “al-Qaeda in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points organi- zationally,” but he noted that “regional affiliates and allies can
and Europe have expressed con- cern about some of their citizens and residents turning to the Taliban in Pakistan; al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; and al- Shabab, a militant group in So- malia, for inspiration and train-
ing. “The spike in homegrown vio-
lent extremist activity during the past year is indicative of a com- mon cause that rallies indepen- dent extremists to want to attack the homeland,” said Leiter. “Key to this trend has been the
development of a U.S.-specific narrative that motivates individ- uals to violence. This narrative— a blend of al-Qaeda inspiration, perceived victimization and glo- rification of past plotting — has
become increasingly accessible through the Internet, and Eng- lish-language Web sites are tai- lored to address the unique con- cerns of U.S.-based extremists.” FBI Director Robert S.Mueller
III said it is troubling, and a challenge for investigators, that homegrown extremists have in- creasingly diverse backgrounds. “During the past year, the
threat from radicalization has evolved,” he said. “A number of disruptions occurred involving
A9
Al-Qaeda likely to try small-scale attacks on U.S., officials say Napolitano, others
extremists from a diverse set of backgrounds, geographic loca- tions, life experiences and moti- vating factors that propelled them along their separate radi- calization pathways. “Beyond the sheer number of
disruptions and arrests that have come to light, homegrown ex- tremists are increasingly more savvy, harder to detect and able to connect with other extremists overseas.”
finnp@washpost.com
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