Home Front Holy War: al Qaeda Among Us

By Dale Hurd
CBN News Sr. Reporter

CBN.com – (CBN News) – On March 1st, 2003, near Karachi, Pakistan, authorities nabbed 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Under interrogation, Mohammed talks. But, according to the 9-11 Commission Report, there was one thing that the Sheikh refused to come clean about: a notebook he possessed that contained U.S zip codes. Mohammed fumbled a nonsensical excuse about their being for e-mail. But officials suspect the zip codes are the locations of al Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States.

Even though there has not been a major attack since 9-11, the experts we talked to say that does not mean the war on terror has been a success. It only means al Qaeda has not finished preparations for their next attack. There are still sleeper cells among us. And they are simply waiting for the order to strike.

CBN News asked counter-terrorism expert Harvey Kushner some questions about terrorism in America. He has said in a recent book, “Holy War on the Home Front,” that if you live in an American city, you live near a terrorist.

Kushner explains, "If you live inside the continental United States, chances are, at one time or another, you've walked by, you've talked to, you've not only had business with, but you've dealt with someone who is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer."

Kushner may be right. Residents in Florida were shocked to learn this week that their neighbor was one of two respected physicians who are under arrest for allegedly pledging allegiance to al Qaeda, and preparing to go to Saudi Arabia to treat wounded al Qaeda fighters and train members in martial arts.

A neighbor remarked: “We're very surprised. They were nice people, and he was, to me, a normal person.”

In his new book, he shares for the first time a hand-drawn map from the early 1980s. It predates 9-11 by 20 years, but it, along with other court documents, reveal a secret long-range plan to set up terror cells across America. And as recently as one month ago, before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted that his agency still lacks sufficient intelligence data to find the sleeper cells inside our borders.

So this begs the question, if we are winning the war on terror, why can't we find the sleeper cells? Authorities have uncovered cells in Lackawanna, New York, Detroit and in Oregon, but that is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg.

Kushner says there are as many as four different terrorist groups in each of the U.S. cities where we are listed, in the 1980s map of the original Islamic charter.

Former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino filed a whistleblower suit against the Justice Department last year, accusing it of gross mismanagement in the war on terror. He suggests claims that we are winning the war on terror are bogus.

Convertino says, "To me, the sense is that it's almost like a two-headed animal: it’s half-ostrich and half-peacock. I mean, we have one part of the game [the war on terror] that has its head buried in the sand, and the other is unfurling its feathers with statistics and accomplishments that ring hollow, quite honestly."

And Kushner says that to win the war on terror, we need to stop calling it the war on terror. He states, “We're not at war with terrorism. We're at war with militant Islam. And until we differentiate who it is our enemy is, we're going to have some serious problems. How can we prioritize, how we develop protocols to deal with the terrorist threat if, in fact, we're not saying what the exact threat is?”

Veteran Washington reporter Paul Sperry also attacks claims that we are winning the war on terror. He claims, "It's a lot of window dressing, It's a lot of eye wash. It's a lot of political bluster."

Sperry is author of the new book, “Infiltration.” He says that FBI field agents have been hamstrung by bureaucrats in Washington who are afraid of offending Muslims.

Sperry says, "They're frustrated because their hands have been tied. They can't go in. They want to infiltrate these hard-line mosques, these Wahabbi mosques, across the country more. They really feel these are sanctuaries of terror. These are the hubs of the terrorist support network, and they're not being allowed to go in like they want, and penetrate them."

Kushner observes, "Political correctness has driven our law enforcement agencies to the point where the people I talked to and I write about say they can't do their job."

Kushner documents how judges have probated suspected terrorists to sentences of community service, or simply released them back into the community. He says one jurisdiction trained its officers in counterterrorism with a manual that had been cleansed of any references to Middle Eastern males.

Kushner laments, "It's been so watered down that if you believe the points, what they're looking for, they're not looking for young Middle East men. They're looking for college students with new locks on their doors. We haven't been targeted by some amorphous, abstract, obtuse entity. There's an entity with a name and face."

The Fox TV show 24 is one of the few Hollywood productions to use Arab Muslims as the bad guys, in the form of a terrorist sleeper cell. The show also runs a disclaimer that Muslim Americans stand firmly against terrorism.

But there has been a suspicion that the loyalties of hard-line Muslims are divided. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, declined our request for an on-camera interview, but said it urges Muslims to report suspicious activity. And Kareem Shora of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee says Arab-Americans are loyal Americans, and have come forward to help in the war on terror.

Shora says, "What role did the Arab-American and Muslim communities play in, for example, the terrorism cell that was, in fact, discovered in upstate New York? Who told the authorities about them and cooperated? The Muslim American and Arab communities. As Americans, it's our duty to help our law enforcement officials in catching the bad guys, whoever they might be. They might be of Arab descent and they might not be of Arab descent."

But the ADC has also joined an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request to uncover government surveillance of Arab-Americans and Muslims.

CBN News asked Sperry whether he agreed with the notion that the Muslim or Arab community is doing all it can to find terrorist suspects.

Sperry responded, "Not according to the case agents I talked to. They've uncovered CDs within some of these mosques, including some of the biggest mosques in Washington, right here in the President's backyard, urging, basically encouraging the Muslim congregants in these mosques to never speak to the FBI. Never.”

Meanwhile, terrorists continue to use all manner of legal loopholes and techniques to enter the country. A tunnel under the U.S.-Mexico border was recently discovered, complete with surveillance cameras. Tunnels like these are intended to ferry not only drugs, but human cargo, such as Al Qaeda.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Virginia resident accused of plotting to kill the President, reportedly told Saudi interrogators that al Qaeda leaders offered him two choices: join a suicide operation against President Bush or establish a sleeper cell in the United States, assimilate into the community and marry a Christian wife.

There is much preparation for a future chemical, biological, or nuclear attack. But the terror experts we talked to think there will be another hijacking. When Flight 93 was brought down in Pennsylvania, it was headed for the Capitol, and never completed its mission. Eight years after the first World Trade Center attack, al Qaeda attacked it again. That would seem to make an attack on the Capitol likely. The consensus among terror experts is that three and a half years without an attack does not mean that we are safe.

Kushner says, “They're going to hit us when they're good and ready. Not when we're good and ready."

Counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke comments, "I think we've been lulled, over the past three years, into believing that there will not be any more attacks in the U.S. I think it's just when you get that attitude that the second wave of attack comes."

Sperry says, “Because they're here, and we're not doing enough to ferret them out. "

Kushner comments, “Those who want to target us, they lay in wait. And they'll strike again.”

Translate Page