Najibullah Zazi, an Aurora resident and Afghanistan native, was arrested last week along with his father and another man in New York on charges of willfully and knowingly making false statements to the FBI in an ongoing terror investigation.
The investigation relates to a plot to detonate improvised explosive devices in the United States. The troubling question is: Are there sleeper cells in the U.S. similar to those suspected to exist in several countries around the world?
We must assume there are. Even though the U.S. has been spared terrorist attacks since 9/11 while they have occurred in so many places abroad, the concern cannot be dismissed.
Loosely organized “sleeper cells” consist of groups of terrorists who have blended into communities, perhaps through legitimate employment, and thus are already in place and prepared to act. For example, terrorists were already in place four or five years before the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 9/11 hijackers were in the U.S. for more than four years before they attacked. Terrorists plan, plot and patiently wait until they are ordered to strike. As former CIA director George Tenet writes in his recent book, “At the Center of the Storm,” “I do know one thing in my gut. Al-Qaeda is here and waiting.”
Since the tragic events of 9/11, the United States has taken the terrorist threat seriously, by streamlining and enhancing intelligence activities and establishing the Department of Homeland Security. At the United Nations and through regional organizations such as the European Union and the Organization of American States, concerted efforts have been underway to combat terrorism.
Because of these efforts, al-Qaeda has lost many of its top leaders and the organization has suffered many setbacks. But it continues to attract a very loyal following to its network. As Sir Ian Blair, London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said after the 2005 London bombings, al-Qaeda should be seen as “a way of working” and not as a formal organization. It indeed is an idea that attracts disaffected Muslims around the world with its extremist ideology of creating a new Islamic caliphate and defeating what it perceives to be a conspiracy led by the U.S. to destroy Islam.
Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, have often warned the U.S. that it will strike the country with greater ferocity than 9/11. Although they have announced that they would spare Muslim countries, suicide bombings in Pakistan and attacks on its cities belie those promises. Because of such killings and the atrocities in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Muslim countries, the terrorists have faced some backlash.
The Zazi matter has once again drawn our attention to the menace of terrorism. It is clearly understood that we cannot afford to be complacent, for it is foolhardy to think that extremism has run its course. But it is equally clear that we cannot get rid of this problem by the use of force alone. Terrorism flourishes in failed states such as Somalia and those where governments are corrupt, good governance is absent, and people are alienated. Combined with these conditions is the distorted notion of religion that extremists exploit.
Consequently, the “war on terrorism” will be a long, drawn-out process. It will require the use of force on occasion and we must remain vigilant. Perhaps even more important, it has to be fought in the realm of ideas. Winning hearts and minds has become a cliche, but it has substance and meaning. It is essential that moderate voices in Islam speak clearly and loudly against this threat, and the U.S. and Western powers must ensure that their policies and actions do not give ammunition to extremists.
Ved Nanda (vnanda@law.du.edu) is Thompson G. Marsh Professor of Law and Director of the International Legal Studies at the University of Denver.
