Report Finds Radical American Muslims Are Not Such A Big Threat
In 2011 there was a “relatively low level of radicalization among Muslim-Americans” and that number has been continuously decreasing over the last couple of years, according to a report by a professor at the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Professor Charles Kurzman of the UNC’s Department of Sociology released his annual report Wednesday on domestic terrorism by Muslim-Americans, and found that there were only 20 indictments for violent terrorist plots in 2011, compared to 26 in 2010. Since September 11, there have been a total of 193, an average of just under 20 each year.
“This number is not negligible — small numbers of Muslim-Americans continue to radicalize each year and plot violence,” Kurzman writes. “However, the rate of radicalization is far less than many feared in the aftermath of 9/11.”
For example, Kurzman quotes FBI Director Robert Mueller, who in 2003 told Congress that “FBI investigations have revealed militant Islamics [sic] in the US. We strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to al-Qaeda.”
“Fortunately, we have not seen violence on this scale,” the report says.