Our counterterrorism blind spot: stopping American terrorists

By Chris Carter and Shawn Moore

US citizen Majid Khan went to Pakistan to meet Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (photo). The sheikh is believed to have masterminded the 9/11 attacks; he is currently awaiting trial. This photo was an exhibit in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui who was convicted on terrorism charges and is currently serving a life sentence. (Photo, US Government)This week the Department of Justice announced that our intelligence community foiled an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. While our counterterrorism strategy is successful at preventing terrorist plots from foreign sources, it fails to stop the flow of American citizens committing terrorist attacks abroad.

Since 9/11 the United States has prevented or disrupted 39 known terrorist plots – 40 counting the foiled Iranian plot. We have also curtailed the transfer of material support to foreign terrorist groups.

But the flow of potential U.S. terrorists is much harder to monitor and regulate. Increased airport security, increased law enforcement, intelligence liaisons abroad, and heightened citizen awareness of suspicious behaviors have been unsuccessful at stopping U.S. citizens from engaging in terrorist acts abroad.

On Oct. 29, 2008, 26-year-old Shirwa Ahmed drove his Toyota Land Cruiser through the streets of Hargesa, Somalia. Arriving at his target, Ahmed detonated his suicide truck bomb, killing 29. The naturalized U.S. citizen from Minneapolis became America’s first known suicide bomber.

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Have we forgotten we're at war?

T. Boone Pickens was interviewed by 60 Minutes, and when I visited the website to watch that video, another caught my eye. The video dated Oct. 22, 2000 featured an interview with Richard Clarke, President Bill Clinton’s national coordinator for counterterrorism. Watch the video and you’ll begin to see exactly how vulnerable we were. And part of the problem was media’s resistance to understanding exactly what we were facing. Clinton’s Lewinsky situation was media’s obsession at the time. Note the incredulous sometimes skeptical look on the interviewer’s face about some of the warnings Clarke mentioned. There's a big difference in approaches. And the murder of a 13-year-old girl reported by Amnesty International has much in common with our own vulnerability.

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