|
AMP Report – December 10, 2009/Updated on December 21, 2009
American-Islamic group alerted FBI to missing students
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) played a key role in alerting U.S. authorities about five young Americans who were arrested in Pakistan on suspicion of attempting to join militant groups after going missing from the United States. The five lived in Northern Virginia.
One of the five men had left behind a video that appeared to be some kind of "farewell" statement which cited Quranic verses out of religiously orthodox contexts. CAIR got the family members in touch with the FBI and played the 11-minute English video for agents and Muslims leaders at a lawyer's office.
The five – Ramy Zamzam, 22; Ahmad Minni, 20; Umar Chaudhry, 24; Waqar Khan, 22; and Aman Hassan Yemer, 18 – were arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan on December 9.
The incident provoked deep concern in the Muslim community about the existence of homegrown extremism among Muslim American youth.
Shahed Amanallah, editor of altmuslim.com, says those Muslims who have found themselves immersed in radicalism have two primary traits in common: a strong aversion to U.S. policy in Muslim countries (which, it must be stressed, is in and of itself not extremist) combined with a profound "identity complex" with respect to what it means to be a Muslim American. The combination of the two creates susceptibility to extremist interpretations that both provide both an identity and a means (albeit violent) to push back.
He suggests that the best possible antidote then, to Muslims falling prey to extremist thought is to craft and propagate a compelling Muslim American narrative that instills pride and purpose among susceptible minds, and to connect them to mainstream efforts to address U.S. policy in Muslim countries. “Those Muslims exploring violent tactics need to be convinced that it is more effective, moral, and Islamic to defend Muslims overseas through lawful means, and this education needs to happen where they spend the most time searching for answers - namely, the Internet.”
The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has issued a paper on the issue which is titled: "Building Bridges to Strengthen America: Forging an Effective Counterterrorism Enterprise between Muslim Americans and Law Enforcement." The paper advocated intense grassroots engagement among police and U.S. Muslim neighborhood leaders to thwart the emergence of homegrown extremism.
"Unfortunately, in the current political climate, the actions of certain law enforcement agencies -- whether spying on peaceful activist groups and houses of worship without reasonable suspicion, or religious profiling -- have added to difficulties," the report said. Such a "heightened sense of fear and grievances also creates a greater pool of alienated people terrorists can tap into for recruitment," the report added.
Glenn Greenwald, author and columnist, sees a concerted effort by the Government to claim loudly that the threat posed by radicalized American Muslims is increasing. ”These claims are being made based exclusively on the basis of a handful of recent episodes involving American Muslims accused of having links to Al Qaeda and/or the Taliban. There is no data whatsoever offered to corroborate the claim of a "trend."”
According to Glenn Greenwald, US "counter-terrorism" campaign basically consists of three steps repeated endlessly: (1) Interfere in or otherwise act aggressively in the Muslim world. (2) Provoke increased anti-American sentiment and fuel terrorism as a result of Step 1. (3) Point to the increased anti-American sentiment and terrorism as a reason we need to escalate our interference and aggression in the Muslim world. The coordinated campaign to hype the alleged "growing domestic Muslim threat" at exactly the time we are escalating our conventional war in Afghanistan and our covert Predator war in Pakistan is a perfect illustration of this process.
Dr. James Zogby, President of Arab American Institute believes that the problem of the so-called radicalization should be seen in context and not blown out of proportion. Since “we are in engaged in a number of international conflicts, which have repercussions here at home either because they involve countries which are the lands of origin of individuals living here in the U.S., or because there are those, on both sides of these conflicts, who have sought to exploit them as a “clash of civilizations.”
As Dr. Zogby said this form of radicalization leading to antisocial behavior has long been a problem in our country. “We’ve seen it before. In recent decades we’ve witnessed recruitment into white supremacist and “Christian Nation” and militia organizations, the Black Panthers, the Jewish Defense League, the I.R.A, etc. The fact is that the allure of absolutist ideology and romanticized machismo, complete with weapons, training and acts of bravado does provide, for some of these men, a dangerous cure for the alienation and feeling of powerlessness they’ve experienced. And we are seeing it again, now with a different group of people.” The answers to this problem are, therefore: to keep it in context, to provide young people with alternatives to alienation, and to continue to develop close ties between affected communities and law enforcement to address problems as they occur, Dr. Zogby concluded.
Interestingly, the PEW Research Center in a report said recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings and the arrest of five Muslim American students in Pakistan have raised questions about the threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States. However, the Pew Research Center's comprehensive portrait of the Muslim American population suggests it is less likely to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism than Muslim minority communities in other countries. Violent ‘jihad’ is discordant with the values, outlook and attitudes of the vast majority of Muslim Americans, most of whom reject extremism.
|
