United States: The Outer Fringes of the Jihadist Movement

Jun 08, 2005 1706 GMT

U.S. authorities arrested a father and son from Lodi, Calif., on June 4 for lying to federal agents about their alleged connection to al Qaeda. U.S. citizens Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, allegedly provided material support to al Qaeda and conspired to commit terrorist attacks in the United States.

Rather than indicating the existence of a serious al Qaeda threat in the United States, the arrests, which come on the heels of two other arrests on the East Coast, reveal only that there are people in the United States who sympathize with the jihadist movement.

The Hayats' trouble began May 29 when Hamid tried to return to the United States from Pakistan. It is unclear what he was doing in Pakistan, but his flight was diverted to Japan after his name appeared on the U.S. government "no-fly" list. After being interviewed by FBI agents in Japan, he was allowed to continue on to California, were he was questioned further June 4. According to an FBI affidavit, Hayat admitted to having attended training camps in Pakistan in 2003-2004. While at these camps, Hayat allegedly received training on explosives and other weapons, with the intent of returning to the United States to carry out attacks.

Hamid was arrested after allegedly admitting to taking part in terrorist training in Pakistan. Umer also was arrested for allegedly lying about his son's involvement in the camps, and for his own effort to contribute funds to an al Qaeda-sponsored organization in Pakistan.

Rather than being part of a full-fledged al Qaeda cell, the Hayats more likely are sympathizers to Osama bin Laden's jihadist movement. That does not mean these men posed no threat. Hamid allegedly acknowledged wanting to carry out attacks in the United States, his potential targets being hospitals or grocery stores. However, because attacking these types of targets would ill serve the jihadist movement's strategic goals -- and waste scarce resources -- the younger Hayat's alleged plans unlikely were part of an al Qaeda plot. Furthermore, any involvement by the two in a major al Qaeda plot likely would have been at a very low level. In fact, they could have been used as disposable operatives, a kind of red herring to throw off investigative efforts and protect sleeper cells.

An al Qaeda-sponsored attack in the West, especially the United States, would have to be spectacular -- on the scale of the Sept. 11 attacks or the March 2004 Madrid train bombings -- or the network would be perceived as slipping, doing it more harm than good. For such an operation, bin Laden likely would rely on operatives in the United States whose expertise and loyalty could not be validated. Rather, bin Laden likely would attempt to personally choose the operatives -- and the choice of targets -- as he did for the Sept. 11 attacks. However, with al Qaeda leaders increasingly on the run, it would be extremely difficult for them to cultivate a cell in the United States, leaving them to focus on regional targets in the Middle East or Africa.

The camps Hayat said he trained at would not necessarily have had to belong to al Qaeda. In fact, most known jihadist camps were shut down during the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and by the Pakistani army in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) in March and April 2004. Camps could still exist in Pakistan, but they would have to be small, possibly mobile, and located in Pakistan's remote, lawless frontier regions, such as Baluchistan and the NWFP.

After the Hayat arrests, federal authorities arrested Mohammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed, the former and current imams at the mosque next door to the Hayat house in Lodi. The imams likely were detained based on information obtained from interviews with the Hayats.

If the U.S. government's allegations are true, Hamid and his father most likely were on the far fringes of the jihadist/militant Islamist movement, and not directly linked to the decision-making and operational elements of al Qaeda. Other individuals and/or cells that are sympathetic to the jihadist movement likely exist in the United States, and could be capable of staging small, lone wolf-style attacks. The difficulties of operating in the United States in the post-Sept. 11 environment and the blows to al Qaeda since the invasion of Afghanistan, however, make it unlikely for bin Laden's network to be capable of conducting a major operation on U.S. soil

Source: Stratfor