FBI Chief: Al-Qaida 'Unwavering' in Efforts to Attack US
VOA News 22 September 2010
The head of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation says al-Qaida's efforts to carry out high-profile attacks on the United States since September 11, 2001, have been "unwavering."
In testimony Wednesday before a U.S. congressional committee, FBI chief Robert Mueller says plots in recent years suggest al-Qaida is trying harder to find recruits from the West to play key roles in such attacks.
U.S. Homeland Security Director Janet Napolitano told the committee that "homegrown" terrorists remain a new and changing facet of the terror threat to the U.S.
Another senior U.S. counterterrorism official testified that al-Qaida's affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa are posing an increasing terrorist threat to the United States.
The head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, said the range of al-Qaida-linked groups plotting against the U.S. in the past year suggests the threat against the West has become more "complex."
Mueller singled out a failed al-Qaida plot led by an Afghan immigrant, Najibullah Zazi, to attack the New York City subway system in 2009. Mueller said the fact that Zazi and his associates had access to the U.S. demonstrates how al-Qaida can leverage Americans.
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