Professional Terrorists Are Still the Greater Threat

Stratfor Worldview:

By Scott Stewart

VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor

Writing in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper on Nov. 1, Colin Clarke of RAND Corp. reflected on the Oct. 31 vehicular assault in New York that killed eight people and injured 11 others. He wrote:

"But in the United States, the greater threat emanates from people who are already in the country, sometimes referred to as homegrown violent extremists. Tuesday's attack in New York underscores this point."

At Stratfor, I have long argued that grassroots jihadists (which Clarke refers to as homegrown violent extremists) pose a persistent and deadly threat. Indeed, I have warned for many years of the vulnerability of soft targets to these terrorists armed with simple weapons. In the following excerpt from a Stratfor security column dated Nov. 4, 2009, I again raised the alarm after Nasir al-Wahayshi, leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), called for jihadists in the West to conduct attacks using readily available weapons:

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