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VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM—2009 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

HOMELAND SECURITY AND 

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

OF THE

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MARCH 11, 2009 

VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: AL-SHABAAB RECRUITMENT IN 

AMERICA 

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 

EIGHT YEARS AFTER 9/11: CONFRONTING THE TERRORIST THREAT TO 

THE HOMELAND 

Available via http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs 

( 


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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

AS OF MARCH 11, 2009 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK l. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

MICHAEL F. BENNET, Colorado 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS 

AS OF SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman 

CARL LEVIN, Michigan 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

MARK l. PRYOR, Arkansas 

MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana 

CLAIRE MCCASKILL, Missouri 

JON TESTER, Montana 

ROLAND W. BURRIS, Illinois 

PAUL G. KIRK JR., Massachusetts 

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

JOHN MCCAIN, Arizona 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah 

MICHAEL L. ALEXANDER, Staff Director 

TODD M. STEIN, Legislative Director, Office of Senator Lieberman 

GORDON N. LEDERMAN, Counsel 

CHRISTIAN J. BECKNER, Professional Staff Member 

SEAMUS A. HUGHES Professional Staff Member 

BRANDON L. MILHORN, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

IVY A. JOHNSON, Minority Senior Counsel 

JOHN K. GRANT, Minority Counsel 

TRINA DRIESSNACK TYRER, Chief Clerk 

PATRICIA R. HOGAN, Publications Clerk and GPO Detailee 

LAURA W. KILBRIDE, Hearing Clerk 


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C O N T E N T S 

Opening statements: Page 

Senator Lieberman ........................................................................................... 1, 51 

Senator Collins ................................................................................................. 3, 54 

Senator Bennet ................................................................................................. 15 

Senator Voinovich ............................................................................................. 15 

Senator Burris................................................................................................. 17, 68 

Senator Kirk ..................................................................................................... 51 

Senator Tester .................................................................................................. 71 

Senator Levin .................................................................................................... 75 

Prepared statements: 

Senator Burris .................................................................................................. 68 

Senator Lieberman ....................................................................................... 89, 138 

Senator Collins.............................................................................................. 92, 140 

Senator Bennet ................................................................................................. 143 

WITNESSES 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2009 

Andrew M. Liepman, Deputy Director of Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center, Office of the Director of National Intelligence ......................... 5 

J. Philip Mudd, Associate Executive Assistant Director, National Security 

Branch, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice ........... 8 

Ken Menkhaus, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Davidson College ............ 25 

Osman Ahmed, President, Riverside Plaza Tenants Association, Minneapolis, 

Minnesota ............................................................................................................. 31 

Abdirahman Mukhtar, Youth Program Manager, Brian Coyle Center, Pillsbury United Communities, Minneapolis, Minnesota ......................................... 35 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 

Hon. Janet A. Napolitano, Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security . 56 

Hon. Robert S. Mueller III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. 

Department of Justice ......................................................................................... 58 

Hon. Michael E. Leiter, Director, National Counterterrorism Center, Office 

of the Director of National Intelligence .............................................................. 60 

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

Ahmed, Osman: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 119 

Leiter, Hon. Michael E.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 60 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 165 

Liepman, Andrew M.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 93 

Menkhaus, Ken, Ph.D.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 105 

Mudd, J. Philip: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 100 

Mueller, Hon. Robert S. III: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 58 


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IV 

Mueller, Hon. Robert S. III—Continued 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 158 

Mukhtar, Abdirahman: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 35 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 125 

Napolitano, Hon. Janet A.: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 56 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 144 

APPENDIX 

Hon. Keith Ellison, a Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota, prepared statement ................................................................................. 133 

Omar Hurre, Executive Director, Abubakar As-Sadique Islamic Center, letter 

dated March 12, 2009 .......................................................................................... 135 

Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record from: 

Mr. Liepman ..................................................................................................... 171 

Mr. Mudd .......................................................................................................... 172 

Mr. Menkhaus ................................................................................................... 178 

Secretary Napolitano ........................................................................................ 179 

Mr. Mueller ....................................................................................................... 193 

Mr. Leiter .......................................................................................................... 198 


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VIOLENT ISLAMIST EXTREMISM: AL-SHABAAB 

RECRUITMENT IN AMERICA 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2009 

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Burris, Bennet, Collins, and 

Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good morning, and welcome to this morning’s hearing, which we have called ‘‘Violent Islamist Extremism: 

Al-Shabaab Recruitment in America.’’ 

This hearing falls, coincidentally, on an important date. This is 

the fifth anniversary of the Madrid, Spain, train bombings that 

killed 191 people and wounded another 1,800. The Madrid train 

bombings were a turning point in Islamist terrorism, turning from 

a centrally controlled movement to one that had also begun to act 

through autonomous cells, in some cases with direct links to alQaeda or other international terrorist groups, but in some others 

cases with no or very slight contact. This expanded the reach of 

violent Islamist ideology and made terrorism that much harder to 

detect and prevent. 

We have, for instance, seen the al-Qaeda franchise itself around 

the world, in the now effectively defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq—although there is some lingering elements still in a few of the cities— 

in al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operating in North Africa, and 

in al-Shabaab fighting and training terrorists in Somalia, which is 

in part the subject of the hearing today. But the turn toward more 

diffuse international terrorism is the reason why the radicalization 

and recruitment of individuals in the United States by Islamist terrorist organizations has been a major focus of this Homeland Security Committee’s work over the past 21⁄2 years. 

The Committee has held seven hearings to date, the most recent 

only last July that focused on Islamist ideology as the essential ingredient to Islamist terrorism. Last May, the Committee released 

a report titled ‘‘Violent Islamist Extremism: The Internet and the 

Homegrown Terrorist Threat’’ that described the influence of online 

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rorist groups on individuals like those who have now gone missing 

from the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

Today, we are going to focus on what appears to be the most significant case of homegrown American terrorism recruiting based on 

violent Islamist ideology. The facts, as we know them, tell us that 

over the last 2 years, individuals from the Somali-American community in the United States, including American citizens, have left 

for Somalia to support and in some cases fight on behalf of alShabaab, which, incidentally, was designated as a foreign terrorist 

organization by our government in February 2008. 

There are ideological, tactical, financial, and also personnel links 

between al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. Al-Shabaab was credited with 

sheltering some of those responsible for the embassy bombings in 

Kenya and Tanzania. Just last month, al-Qaeda released a video 

titled ‘‘From Kabul to Mogadishu’’ in which al-Qaeda’s second in 

command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, praises al-Shabaab and calls on 

Muslims throughout the world to join their fight in Somalia. 

Al-Shabaab, meanwhile, continues to release recruiting videos 

targeting Westerners, and those videos are surely being watched by 

some potential followers here in the United States. 

In the most graphic and deadly example of a direct connection 

between the Somali-American community and international terrorism, Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in the Minneapolis area, returned to Somalia within the last 2 years and 

killed himself and many others in a suicide bombing last October. 

According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert 

Mueller, Shirwa Ahmed, who was radicalized in Minnesota, is 

probably the first U.S. citizen to carry out a terrorist suicide bombing. 

One of the witnesses on our second panel, Abdi Mukhtar, who is 

the youth program manager at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis, which is a gathering place for young Somalis, was friends 

and attended Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis with Shirwa 

Ahmed. In his testimony, which I find very compelling and important, Abdi Mukhtar will explain how he and Shirwa Ahmed had 

similar internal identity conflicts about being Somali and American, but in the end resolved those conflicts in very different ways. 

Abdi Mukhtar chose America, and Shirwa Ahmed chose Islamist 

terrorism. 

This morning, we want to understand why, to the best of our 

ability, each made this choice and what we together can do to make 

sure that others, including succeeding generations of Somali-Americans and, more generally, Muslim-Americans make the right 

choice. 

I do want to say here that there is no evidence of radicalization 

of the Somali-American community generally. In fact, in my own 

vision of this, the Somali-American community are victims of a 

small group of extremists who are essentially terrorizing their own 

community, who are recruiting and radicalizing young people within that community. And, of course, our hope here this morning is 

to figure out how we can work together with the Somali-American 

community, with the Muslim-American community, and with law 

enforcement, as represented on our first panel, to protect young Somali-Americans and perhaps other Muslim-Americans—though we 


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have noted in our earlier hearings that the Muslim-American community, because it is more integrated seems to have been much 

less vulnerable than Muslim communities in Europe to recruitment 

and radicalization. Nonetheless, the hearing today and other evidence that this Committee has compiled shows that the problem, 

though it may be less severe here in America, is here. And that I 

think is what is jarring about the story that we are going to hear 

described today. 

There obviously are people here in the United States recruiting 

young Somali-Americans to go over to Somalia to be trained to 

fight and, of course, as we will hear from our witnesses and this 

Committee will ask, perhaps—worrisome particularly to us—being 

trained to return to the United States to carry out terrorist attacks 

here. 

The primary questions for this hearing, as I see them, are: Who 

influenced these young men, apparently at least 20 of them, maybe 

more, to return to Somalia and join al-Shabaab? Who financed 

their trips? What, if any, role did local mosque leadership play in 

recruiting the young men to join al-Shabaab? What role did the 

Internet play, both in the form of online content and e-mail communications from those who have already returned to Somalia, in 

recruiting and radicalizing the young men? What influence does 

Islamist ideology in Minneapolis play in creating a fertile ground 

for al-Shabaab recruiters? Will those who have disappeared use 

their American passports to return and then plan and execute terrorist attacks here in our homeland? And why does al-Shabaab 

want American and other recruits from the West, when there are 

presumably plenty of young men willing to fight in Somalia? 

Those are important questions. They go directly to the mandate 

that this Committee has had to protect the homeland security of 

the American people. I thank all the witnesses who have come before us, particularly those who have come from the Somali-American community in Minneapolis. It takes some courage to do so. I 

think it is both love of their own ethnic community and dedication 

to America that brings them here, and for all of that, we are grateful and look forward to hearing them. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The most effective border security system cannot protect our Nation from ‘‘homegrown terrorists,’’ individuals already living in our 

country who become radicalized and committed to a violent ideology. Three years ago, as the Chairman has mentioned, this Committee launched an investigation into homegrown terrorism and 

the process by which individuals within our country could become 

radicalized and commit terrorist attacks. 

Our investigation has examined radicalization among prison populations, the efforts by Federal, State, and local law enforcement 

to counter the homegrown threat, as well as the role of the Internet 

in the radicalization process. This past October, however, the 

threat of homegrown terrorism took another disturbing turn when 

a young man from Minnesota carried out a suicide bombing in Somalia. As the Chairman has noted, FBI Director Mueller believes 


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that this suicide bombing marked the first time that a U.S. citizen 

had carried out a terrorist suicide bombing. Although the bombing 

took place in Somalia, Director Mueller stated that it appears that 

the individual had been radicalized in his hometown of Minneapolis. Even more disturbing, this young man apparently was 

not the only American citizen to have traveled to Somalia to join 

the terrorist group known as al-Shabaab. 

The danger brought to light by these revelations is clear. 

Radicalized individuals, trained in terrorist tactics and in possession of American passports, can clearly pose a threat to the security of our country. 

Our discussion today is not just a consideration of the counterterrorism tactics and intelligence gathering needed to counter this 

growing threat, but also should serve to remind us that there is a 

personal side to this story. These young men left behind families 

who care deeply for them and who want to see them come home 

unharmed. They left behind a community which lived, worked, and 

worshipped with them and which now in some ways lives under a 

cloud of suspicion, worrying that perhaps tomorrow their own children might not come home. 

Two of our witnesses have traveled from Minneapolis to talk 

about this side of the story with us today. Like so many Somali immigrants, these are patriotic American citizens who have bravely 

come forward to tell their story and to help us find the answers to 

the questions that trouble all of us, the questions that the Chairman has so eloquently outlined. Let me add a few more questions. 

We need to better understand what drew these young men to 

adopt a violent extremist ideology with such fervor that they traveled thousands of miles to join a terrorist group. As the Chairman 

indicated, I am particularly interested in the question of why terrorist groups thousands of miles from our shores would recruit 

Americans when there are plenty of willing recruits in their own 

country. 

Is there an individual or a network operating within the United 

States facilitating recruitment or providing financial support for alShabaab? 

How can we better work with the Somali-American community— 

and with any other community where a violent extremist ideology 

might take root—to ensure that other young Americans do not 

stray down the same path? 

These are among the important questions that we will explore as 

our Committee continues to examine the threat of homegrown terrorism. 

Again, I want to thank the Chairman for his leadership in this 

area and our witnesses for appearing today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

In fact, this Committee’s investigation to answer the question of 

is there recruitment of Islamist terrorists and radicalization occurring in the United States began under Senator Collins’ chairmanship and leadership, and it has been my pleasure to continue this 

important work in partnership with her. 

Let’s go right to the first panel. We have Philip Mudd, Associate 

Executive Assistant Director, National Security Branch, Federal 


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1The prepared statement of Mr. Liepman appears in the Appendix on page 93. 

Bureau of Investigation with us. Mr. Mudd, thanks for being here 

again, and we welcome your testimony now. Or are you going to 

yield to Mr. Liepman? Based on age or—— 

Mr. MUDD. Looks. [Laughter.] 

Chairman LIEBERMAN [continuing]. Lack of hair? OK. On the top 

of his head, I meant. All right. Let me just introduce you. You can 

rebut if you would like, Mr. Liepman. 

Andrew Liepman is the Deputy Director of Intelligence of the 

National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). For those who do not 

know, the NCTC was created as part of the post-September 11, 

2001, reforms recommended by the 9/11 Commission. It is the central place, along with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, but this is really the place where all of America’s intelligence and intelligence-related agencies are working together 24/ 

7 to share information, to raise information, and to make sure that 

the dots are connected in a way that they were not before September 11, 2001, which meant we were not able to prevent that 

tragic event. 

So, with that, Mr. Liepman, thank you. 

TESTIMONY OF ANDREW M. LIEPMAN,1 DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF 

INTELLIGENCE, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, 

OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins. We welcome the opportunity to appear before you today 

to share our perspectives on the radicalization of Somali youth in 

America. And I do appreciate the opportunity to appear beside my 

longtime colleague Mr. Mudd from the Bureau. I will focus on what 

factors contribute to the radicalization and some of the particularly 

vulnerabilities of the Somali-American community. I will defer to 

Mr. Mudd to talk about the FBI activities. Let me start with a bit 

of context, a very brief history of events in Somalia. 

The turmoil and instability in Somalia dates back to the collapse 

of the government there in 1991, which resulted in a descent into 

factional fighting and anarchy. In 2006, following multiple failed 

attempts to bring stability, a loose coalition of clerics, local leaders, 

and militias known as the Council of Islamic Courts took power in 

much of Somalia. The Somali Transitional Federal Government 

joined with Ethiopian forces and routed the Islamic Court militias 

in a 2-week war. It is an important milestone. It also represents 

an important rallying point for Somalis, both in Somalia and in the 

diaspora. 

Since the end of 2006, al-Shabaab—the militant wing of the 

council—has led a collection of clan militias in a violent insurgency, 

using guerrilla warfare and terrorist tactics against the transitional government and the Ethiopian presence in the region. 

Just to give you some sense of the Somali-American diaspora, 

they began arriving in the United States in significant numbers in 

1992 following the U.S. intervention in Somalia’s humanitarian crisis. The Somali-American population is distributed in clusters 

throughout the United States, with the heaviest concentrations in 

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ety of estimates of the size of the Somali-American population. It 

is a fairly difficult number to give you with some precision. I think 

generally we accept the range from 70,000 to as many as 200,000. 

Despite significant efforts to facilitate their settlement into 

American communities, many Somali immigrants face isolation. 

The adjustment to American society has reinforced their greater 

insularity compared to other, more integrated recent immigrant 

communities and has aggravated the challenges of assimilation for 

their children. 

One of the main reasons that Mr. Mudd and I are here today, 

obviously, is the concern we have over the travel by some tens of 

Somali-American young men back to Somalia, some of whom have 

trained and fought with al-Shabaab. The involvement of this foreign terrorist organization, al-Shabaab, means we cannot simply 

categorize this as homegrown violence. We are concerned that if a 

few Somali-American youth can be motivated to engage in such activities overseas, fellow travelers could return to the United States 

and engage in terrorist activities here. 

Let me stress we do not have a body of reporting that indicates 

U.S. persons who have traveled to Somalia are planning to execute 

attacks in the United States. We do not have that credible reporting. But we do worry that there is a potential that these individuals could be indoctrinated by al-Qaeda while they are in Somalia 

and then return to the United States with the intention to conduct 

attacks. They would, in fact, provide al-Qaeda with trained extremists inside the United States. 

One of the main questions that we try and answer is: What 

causes the radicalization of a small but significant number of Somali-American youth? The answer is complex. It is the result of a 

number of factors that come together when a dynamic, influential, 

and extremist leader gains access to a despondent and disenfranchised group of young men. Sophisticated extremist recruiters 

target these individuals who lack structure and definition in their 

lives. The recruiters subject them to religiously inspired indoctrination to move them toward violent extremism. They target vulnerable young men—many of them refugees who came here as small 

children or who are the children of immigrants—torn between their 

parents’ traditional ethnic, tribal, and clan identities and the new 

cultures and traditions offered by American society. 

Among Somali-Americans, the refugee experience of fleeing a 

war-torn country, combined with isolation, perceived discrimination, marginalization, and frustrated expectations, as well as local 

criminal, familial, and clan dynamics, make some members of this 

community more susceptible to this sort of extremist influence. 

And let me stress, just as you said, Mr. Chairman, we are not 

witnessing a community-wide radicalization among Somali-Americans. When I speak of the Somali-American community, I do not 

mean to generalize; rather, I am describing a problem limited to a 

small fraction of the community, most of which came to America 

to get away from violence, not to commit it. The overwhelming majority of Somali-Americans are or want to be contributing members 

of American society, trying to raise their families here and desperately wishing for stability in their ancestral homeland. 


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But as I said, the Somali community is in some respects more 

susceptible to the influence of extremist elements. A number of factors that have mitigated radicalization among other ethnic religious American communities are less evident in the Somali community here. These include some level of faith in the American political system, access to resources to defense civil rights and civil liberties, and interaction with non-Muslims, and a greater focus on 

domestic rather than international events. 

You asked about the role that the Internet plays in radicalizing 

Somali youth. It is not an easy metric for us to measure. It is clear, 

though that access to the Internet and to such material on the 

Internet alone is rarely enough to cause an individual to become 

radical himself. It is also clear, though, that the Somali-American 

youth who have traveled abroad to join in fighting for al-Shabaab 

were exposed to al-Shabaab’s extremist ideology here in the United 

States, both in terms of face-to-face contact with extremist elements and on the Internet. And they tended to reinforce each 

other. The easy availability of extremist media on the Internet provides a range of themes that extremist recruiters can use to appeal 

to disenfranchise young men. As you mentioned, al-Qaeda senior 

leadership in recent months have weighed in with their own support for al-Shabaab, praising it and depicting Somalia as a local 

manifestation of the broader conflict between the West and Islam. 

I should note that this al-Qaeda stamp of approval does not guarantee either greater success or enhanced impact. In fact, it could 

backfire. Many potential ethnic Somali recruits would prefer to join 

a group that is focused explicitly on Somali issues rather than signing up for the global jihad and joining an al-Qaeda affiliate. 

Let me end with a couple of comments on NCTC’s role in this 

process and address your reference to this being a turning point, 

the fifth year of the anniversary of the Madrid attack. 

Indeed, it is a turning point in many respects. I think in 2004, 

if we remember back, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not yet exist. NCTC was in its infancy. It was then 

called the Terrorist Threat Integration Center. And I would like to 

think that the community has come a long way since then. In fact, 

Somalia represents a great example of the type of challenge that 

I think NCTC can assist in. It is the intersection between a foreign 

problem that parts of our community study in Somalia and a homegrown problem that our domestic organizations are focused on. And 

we, in NCTC, are trying to bridge those two communities and, I 

would like to think, helping in that effort. 

With that, what I would like to do is turn the floor over to Mr. 

Mudd for some comments on what the FBI is doing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Liepman. That was a good 

beginning. 

Now to Phil Mudd of the FBI. 


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1The prepared statement of Mr. Mudd appears in the Appendix on page 100. 

TESTIMONY OF J. PHILIP MUDD,1 ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY BRANCH, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

JUSTICE 

Mr. MUDD. Thank you for having me here. I think in the interest 

of full disclosure, it is a great pleasure to be sitting at the table 

with Mr. Liepman. He and I have known each other for almost a 

quarter century, so having him refer to me as ‘‘Mr. Mudd’’ is going 

to be the source of great amusement later today, and I must appreciate that. 

I do not really have an oral statement. Senator Collins talked 

about people telling stories. I wanted to tell a story of how this 

looks to someone who in the past has looked at terrorism overseas 

and who for the past 31⁄2 years has been posted at the Bureau, to 

tell you the story of a complicated picture and, if I succeed, make 

it coherent in 9 minutes and 23 seconds, so I will give it a try. 

Think of this as an example of globalization. If you wake up in 

the morning and want to know what is happening in the stock 

market, you look at the DAX in Germany, you look at what is happening in the European and Asian exchanges. This is an example 

of globalization on a different front. 

I will talk about a couple of intersecting trends: The first Mr. 

Liepman talked about, in 1991, the fall of the Siad Barre government; the rise of warlordism in the 1990s; and the rise of the Islamic Courts in the 1990s and into this century. So the first trend, 

if you will, is ‘‘ungoverned space,’’ as people refer to it, a place 

where somebody like al-Shabaab can develop training camps, a 

place that looks something like the tribal areas of Pakistan, for example, or the Sahel—Mali, Chad, and southern Algeria. So that is 

your first piece; places around the world that lack governance happen to correspond with places where you have problems. Yemen 

would be another example. 

The second trend I would point to is, if you look at Bosnia or 

Kashmir or Afghanistan from the 1980s after the Soviet invasion, 

you have magnets of activity for Islamic extremists. Somalia is a 

bit different. For example, Somali-Americans and Somalis in general did not flock to jihads elsewhere but, nonetheless, al-Shabaab 

has linkages to this global Islamist movement. Its leadership has 

linkages to al-Qaeda leadership. So I think the second trend I 

would point to, again, in the context of globalization, this is another example. After examples in places like Bosnia or Chechnya, 

of Islamist activity serving as a magnet for international jihadists, 

I would point out that not only are Americans showing up; we have 

Western Europeans, Brits—we had a Brit blow himself up recently 

in Somalia. We have Nigerians, Chadians, and Malians. 

And the third and perhaps the most significant—and I want to 

emphasize this because I think some will say, well, this is just another example of global jihad—is the nationalist aspect of this. We 

saw a change in the American community in 2006 when the Ethiopians invaded, and part of the draw for people in this country is 

to go fight for their country against a foreign invader. So global 

issues, issues in the Horn of Africa having an immediate impact, 


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a ripple effect on communities in Columbus, Ohio; in Cincinnati; in 

Seattle; in San Diego; and in Minnesota—it is a real example of 

what globalization means in the new information world. And I use 

the phrase ‘‘information world’’ advisedly. You have direct 

connectivity between Somalia and the United States. It does not 

have to be by the Internet. It can be Skype or e-mail, friends talking to each other. And this is a very tight community where that 

kind of information is getting around independent of any Internet 

websites. 

Let me overlay some more micro issues onto that sort of macro 

witch’s brew of these trends of ungoverned space and an Islamist 

magnet nationalism. You have a community that comes here, in 

contrast to some other immigrant stories—immigrant stories, for 

example, of Indian communities or Pakistani communities, communities with doctors and engineers. These are folks who come here 

because they are escaping great trauma in their home country. 

They are working here in meatpacking plants, poultry processing 

plants, there is often not a great command in the first generation 

of the English language among their parents. 

If you look at many of the people we are talking about, they are 

coming from single-family homes, in particular, homes that are led 

by sisters or grandmothers or mothers, where there is not a father 

figure. 

There are echoes of what we see overseas. Again, I want to emphasize that we are not alone in looking at this problem. I want 

to sign up to what Mr. Liepman said. This is not a community 

problem. In a sense, we do not have radicalized communities. We 

do have radicalized clusters of people, typically youths between, let 

us say, 17 and above, although we have seen efforts to radicalize 

kids as young as 12, 13, or 14 years old in this country. 

Like what you would see in Europe, it is not necessarily an alShabaab person in Somalia radicalizing a youth in the United 

States. These are issues within the community where people from 

these kinds of families might see an older brother or father figure 

who starts to spot-assess and recruit—as we say in the spy business—someone who might be vulnerable and eventually sets them 

on a path to take a plane ticket to Somalia or Ethiopia or someplace else that is an avenue to get into Somalia. 

This is important because this is the kind of thing you might see 

in Western Europe or Britain. And, in fact, in talking to my friends 

in even the Arabian Peninsula, we may think that we are much 

different from a place like Saudi Arabia, but you see that kind of 

cluster recruitment by friends, older brothers, or community figures 

elsewhere around the world. 

I think there is a popular conception from people in this country 

reading books or watching movies that there are terrorist cells with 

an established leader and somebody to provide finance and communication. In fact, whether it is this problem of al-Shabaab activity 

or extremism in the United States or other Sunni extremism in the 

United States, more often you have clusters of people who are talking to each other. They do not have assigned roles. They do not 

know what they are going to do. They may never do anything, but 

they are talking about committing acts of violence. They may 

radicalize off each other, as kids do in environments across the 


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United States. In schoolyards, when I was growing up, I went to 

throw rocks at cars because the kid next to me said let’s go do it. 

So you have clusters of youths who are talking to each other. 

There may be a center in the community of radicalization. There 

is not radicalization and then recruitment, typically. It is recruitment into this circle, and then kids are radicalized and spotted and 

maybe seen as someone who will go overseas. 

The last thing I would tell you to put this in context is we are 

talking about a particular aspect of this issue, which is the Somali 

diaspora. We are here to work with communities. We are here to 

work with our State and local partners. We get terrific support on 

our Joint Terrorism Task Forces from the Minneapolis police, the 

police in Columbus, from county officials in Minneapolis, for example, who are working within the communities. But we are not talking about radicalization among an entire community. 

We need help from the communities. We need them to talk to us. 

It is of concern to us that people like this are coming from areas 

where Federal authorities are suspicious people. We have to break 

that down. We are not here to look at a mosque. A mosque is a 

building, a church is a building, a synagogue is a building, and a 

temple is a building. We are here to look at people who might be 

thinking about or have committed acts of violence or are supporting 

those who do so. This is about individuals who are small segments 

of a community and who do not represent the beauty that this 

country brings to immigrants. 

I come from an Italian-Irish-Dutch-British family, and I see 

these folks in the same context that my family might have been in 

this country 100 years ago. 

And, last, context within the FBI. This is a priority for the FBI. 

It is one of a handful or more of priorities. We also have issues in 

this country about violent crime, expanding gang activity in this 

country—Mara Salvatrucha, for example, and other Latin American gangs. We have a major public corruption problem in this 

country. We have massive mortgage fraud we are looking at in this 

country. And we have other aspects of extremism—extremism that 

might be linked to one of our key concerns, that is, continued alQaeda core activity in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have fundraising for Palestinian groups. So I want to emphasize that we are 

not looking at a community. We are looking at individuals who are 

sending kids in the wrong direction. We want to work with families 

who are as concerned or more concerned than we are. And I want 

to put this in the context of a lot of priorities we have. This is not 

one of a couple. This is one of many. And we will continue to focus 

on it, but in the context of other priorities we have. 

Thanks again for having me here today, and I look forward to 

talking to you with my friend, Mr. Liepman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Mr. Mudd. 

Let me begin the round of questioning. We will do 7-minute 

rounds and keep going as long as Senators want to ask questions. 

I heard you say this is a priority. It is one of several priorities, 

obviously. That is what we understand, the priority being not just 

the Somali-American community, but the prospect of recruitment 

and radicalization of Islamist terrorists from America. Am I correct 

in that? 


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Mr. MUDD. That is right. I think if you look at one of the contrasts with the European experience, if you look at a country like 

Britain, for example—and people have drawn parallels—I think 

there are significant differences that make extremism a challenge 

in this country. 

If you look at Britain, you have pockets of people on the extremist side, first, second, and sometimes third-generation folks, very 

dense, interconnected in places like Birmingham or Manchester. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MUDD. In this country, we see more dispersed communities, 

more dispersed activity. Activity in Los Angeles might not have 

linkages or typically will not have linkages to what we see in New 

York, Arizona, Florida, or Georgia. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me pursue this, and I hear you. Am 

I correct in assuming that the FBI is on the ground, so to speak, 

in the Somali-American community, both in terms of outreach to 

the community, at which the Bureau has really done very well generally, but also investigating recruitment and radicalization? 

Mr. MUDD. That is correct. I would point to outreach, first. The 

second is we do have partnerships with the local police in Minneapolis and Columbus. And third is we have a substantial amount 

of investigative resources looking not only at recruitment but also 

the issue of fundraising in this country. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I take it there is no doubt that there have 

been some Somali-Americans recruited, radicalized here who have 

gone to Somalia. Correct? 

Mr. MUDD. That is correct. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And the number is a bit vague. I have 

heard some people say as many as 20, some people say maybe a 

lot more because families are hesitant to report people gone to Somalia for fear that they will not be able to come back. What is your 

best estimate of how significant this problem is? 

Mr. MUDD. I would talk in terms of tens of people, which sounds 

small, but it is significant because every terrorist is somebody who 

can potentially throw a grenade into a shopping mall. 

I would point out the reason this is fuzzy, as Mr. Liepman said, 

there are as many as a few hundred thousands just in this community of Somalis in the United States. There are thousands of people, thousands going to the Horn of Africa every month. You can 

go to Kenya to look at game parks, and it is hard for me to tell 

you somebody is going to a game park or going to al-Shabaab. 

So I am sure that there are people out there we are missing. It 

is a country with 300 million people, with a lot of travel to this 

area. But I would put it in the range of tens of people. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Tens, OK. So accepting that as a baseline 

for purposes of discussion, assuming that tens of Somali-Americans 

have gone to train and presumably fight with al-Shabaab in Somalia, I assume from what you both said that, therefore, we can assume that there are recruiters or leaders in the Somali-American 

community who are responsible, at least in part, for that movement 

of people. Is that right? 

Mr. MUDD. I think that is fair. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. So now let me go to the question both 

Senator Collins and I asked, which is: Why would an Islamist terVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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rorist organization like al-Shabaab want to recruit and radicalize 

Somalis in America when presumably they can and there are 

ample numbers to recruit and train for terrorism in Somalia? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I am not sure that it is to fill their ranks. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Really. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I do not think they are looking at America as a 

broad recruiting ground to collect hundreds or thousands of fighters that are the vanguard of their force. 

I think they are looking—first of all, it is a two-way street. I 

think they are accepting non-Somali fighters from all over Africa, 

from the United States, and from Europe. In a way, I think it adds 

to their credibility. It raises their profile. It is a public relations bonanza for them to have a multinational force fighting the Ethiopians, for example. It makes it appear that it is not just Somalia 

versus Ethiopia, but a broader conflict, particularly on the continent of Africa. 

And I do think that they are looking for small numbers, and it 

is not just the recruiters coming to America to try and bring people. They are reacting to a demand among the small fraction of the 

Somali community who have said they are interested in going. So 

there is a meeting of the minds there. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. From what we know about the way these 

groups operate, do you assume—I understand the difficulty of making a judgment about the motivation. Your answer is helpful to us. 

But seeing the recruitment that we see, do you assume that the 

local recruiting is being done at the request of al-Shabaab leadership in Somalia? Or is it self-generated here? 

Mr. MUDD. I would think of it—I think Mr. Liepman is right— 

as more push than pull at this point. A couple quick points. This 

is a global jihad. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MUDD. There are people from Chad, Mali, and Nigeria, and 

we should look at that in that context. But it is not like people in 

East Africa are saying, ‘‘I wish I had another five Americans.’’ 

The second point that is important, the first wave of people we 

saw from 2006 to 2007 roughly, were not Somali-Americans. The 

first wave of people we saw were Americans, people like Chris 

Paul—not in this circumstance, but somebody who was prosecuted 

earlier for fighting overseas. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Going to Somalia? 

Mr. MUDD. That is correct. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. For training? 

Mr. MUDD. That is correct, underscoring the point that this is a 

jihad issue that is not simply restricted to American Somalis. 

Third and final point, it is important, when we try to put this 

in the context of terrorism, to understand what these kids are 

doing out there: Ambushes, convoys, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MUDD. This is a paramilitary conflict and they are not necessarily getting training on how to develop a covert cell in Minneapolis. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So the final question from me in this 

round, obviously some of these Somali-Americans are traveling 


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with American passports or papers that would enable them more 

easily to get back into the United States. I understand, Mr. 

Liepman, you said we have no evidence now that any of this recruitment for training in Somalia is being done with the aim of 

sending them back here to carry out terrorist acts. But it would be 

easier for them to get back in, and my question is—and this really 

goes to the NCTC with all the cooperation among agencies you 

have: Are we putting up any special filters to watch out for the return of some of these Somali-Americans to America for fear of what 

they might be inclined to do here? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I would go back to something that Mr. Mudd said. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I think the most important tool for us is the outreach to the Somali-American community to know who is going to 

the Horn of Africa, and for what purposes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. And you are absolutely right. They are traveling 

under American passports, which enables them to travel rather 

freely. 

In terms of looking at travelers who appear to have gone to Somalia, for example, I think that there is an effort to make sure that 

that is being scrutinized fairly closely, to understand what it is 

they did there. And just to reinforce a point I made earlier, the intentions of Somali kids who are going to Somalia may be very different than what happens once they get there and they are trained 

with al-Shabaab. And that is, I think, what we worry about. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. My time is up. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Let me pick up where the Chairman left off. Mr. Liepman, we 

know that in 2007 poor information sharing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with the Department of Homeland Security prevented DHS from identifying an individual with drug-resistant TB who was traveling back and forth on international 

flights. And 2 weeks ago, ABC News reported that some of the individuals who had fought in Somalia had returned to the United 

States. 

Now, regardless of the validity of that particular report, it raises 

the question of whether information sharing is sufficient within the 

Federal Government to ensure that immigration authorities at the 

U.S. border handle any returning Somali-Americans in an appropriate way. And this is complicated by the fact that they are Americans with American passports. 

So what is being done to flag these individuals should they attempt to return if there is concern that they have been engaged in 

terrorist training overseas? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I would just make two quick points on that. The 

first is, Senator Collins, you are absolutely right, this is a problem 

that is complicated by our attention to civil liberties and our desire 

not to restrict the travel of Americans without pretty good reason. 

I do think that the information-sharing system that we are operating under now is far superior to that of 3 or 5 years ago. We are 

not perfect. But we are much better, and we are much better in 

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ample, understanding when we have a piece of information, that 

information is shared with the appropriate agencies. 

What I think we are most concerned about is what we do not 

know about those travelers who are going to the Horn of Africa, 

who visit Kenya, and who we do not know went into Somalia. That 

makes it much more difficult to control their ability to travel back 

and forth if we are not aware of what their activities were. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Mudd, when our Committee staff visited 

Minneapolis, the local police officials expressed concern that they 

were providing information to Federal officials but were getting little in return. Just yesterday, the Chairman and I were briefed by 

the Markle Foundation, which was particularly critical of information sharing across the levels of law enforcement, the FBI with 

State and local law enforcement in particular. 

Could you comment on information sharing in this case with 

State and local officials? Because obviously this is very critical. 

There is no one who is more tuned in to what is going on in the 

Somali community in Minneapolis than the local police force. And 

it seems to me that a greater understanding could result if there 

were more information sharing. 

Mr. MUDD. I think a couple things here. First, I want to thank 

again the police departments in places like Columbus and Minneapolis. They participate with task force officers who are on our 

Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs). They have visibility from 

these task force officers into our investigations against violent extremists in the United States. They should have visibility into 

every aspect of those investigations. We also have participation at 

fusion centers across the country. 

In terms of cooperation with State and local law enforcement, I 

would point out, the Somali community in Minneapolis is probably 

100,000 plus, and in many respects, in places like Hennepin County or Ramsey County, where you have Minneapolis-St. Paul, the 

police are going to have better insights into the community than 

we do—not just because they are looking at the extremist problem 

with us, but because you have gang and drug activity. There is 

more than a handful of Somali gangs in Minneapolis alone. 

So I think there is visibility on the task force. There is visibility 

from the JTTF executives in those cities. I could not tell you how 

strong that is across an entire large police force. We have relatively 

small offices in these cities. But they are participating full-time on 

our Joint Terrorism Task Forces, and this is a priority for those 

JTTFs. 

Senator COLLINS. Do you see Somali gangs as being a precursor 

to the kind of radicalization that we are talking about? 

Mr. MUDD. I do not see a one-to-one correlation between gang activity and terrorist recruitment and radicalization. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. In many cases, they are actually alternatives to 

each other. They will go down two different avenues. 

Senator COLLINS. One or the other. 

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has done a lot of 

work on domestic terrorism, homegrown radicalization, and, in general, the police department has found that individuals generally 

begin the radicalization process on their own. But in each case that 

NYPD examined, there was what the department called ‘‘a spirVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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itual sanctioner’’ that provided the justification for jihad that is essential to a suicide terrorist. It is essential to the progression of the 

radicalization process. 

Have you seen that in the case that we are discussing today, Mr. 

Liepman? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Senator Collins, I agree entirely with the New 

York study on radicalization. I think it was an excellent study, and 

we have actually worked very closely with NYPD with their perspective on the ground. And as I mentioned, it would be a mistake 

to look at either the Internet in a vacuum or at the influential 

leaders of the community in a vacuum. It is the interaction between the two. 

And I think we found both domestically and overseas as well— 

and it is the experience of most of our partners in the United Kingdom and Canada—that perhaps the most important element of the 

radicalization process is that charismatic leader who intervenes 

and who, as Mr. Mudd said, spots and recruits a vulnerable young 

man and gets to him at the right point with the right message. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Mudd. 

Mr. MUDD. This is really important to understand because the 

suggestion earlier, I think there is a popular misconception about 

terrorism among people who sort of watch movies or read books, 

and that is that there are these cells of people who operate clandestinely. I used a word that I learned from NYPD, and they have 

some extremely talented analysts up there. That word is ‘‘clusters’’—there are clusters of people who bounce off each other. 

Internet content, in my experience, might help feed an emotional 

sense in a kid who is already bouncing off individuals. This is a 

people business. So I would see the Internet often as a tool that 

helps someone along a path, but not the proximate cause that leads 

someone to get a ticket to go to Mogadishu. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

I appreciate that there are three other Senators here. We will 

call on them in order of arrival: Senator Bennet, Senator Voinovich, 

and Senator Burris. 

Senator Bennet, thank you. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BENNET 

Senator BENNET. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I apologize for being 

late. This is fascinating testimony, and I do not have any questions 

yet. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Bennet. Senator Voinovich. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH 

Senator VOINOVICH. I thank the witnesses for being here. Has 

there been any kind of a declaration by al-Shabaab as Osama bin 

Laden did in 1998 and declare war against the United States? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. No, Senator. And I will take the opportunity to 

just emphasize, al-Shabaab is a very different organization than alQaeda. It is really an alignment of a variety of different groups. 

The individual fighters on the ground in Mogadishu and the rest 

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ship. And the top leadership does have identified linkages to the 

leadership of al-Qaeda in Pakistan. But whether that trickles down 

to the average 17 or 20-year-old fighter on the streets of Somalia 

is really quite questionable. 

They are devoted to the fight in Somalia. They are not yet, most 

of them, devoted to Osama bin Laden’s global jihad. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So the fact is that, to your knowledge, there 

may be some indirect linkages but no formal linkages. And in 

terms of someone’s intent of having people come back from there 

and do something bad here in terms of some of the things that we 

are trying to defend against, terrorist attacks and so forth, is there 

any indication at all of anything like that? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Clearly, one of the reasons why we are looking so 

closely at this issue is the linkages between the al-Shabaab leadership with the al-Qaeda leadership and the possible influence on alShabaab agenda, which has to date been quite local, and then ultimately the trickle-down effect on the recruits that are being 

trained with al-Shabaab. 

But, no, as I said in my testimony, we do not have a credible 

body of reporting right now to lead us to believe that these American recruits are being trained and instructed to come back to the 

United States for terrorist acts. Yet obviously we remain concerned 

about that, and watchful for it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, one of my concerns—and this is tough 

because we are concerned about things and we are in a dilemma, 

and the dilemma is the more we talk about it, does it become a 

self-fulfilling prophecy? It is like neighbors that do not talk to each 

other, and before you know it, they do not like each other. And I 

think more than anything else, I would be interested in what we 

are doing to make sure that we do not have something like that 

radicalized era here in the United States. And what is the community trying to do in terms of making sure that this does not happen? That is the big issue here. 

It has, I think, more to do with it than intelligence to handle 

this, and we will be hearing from another panel, but I would be interested in your observations about where are we right now and 

what can we do to make sure that we have a better situation, including maybe improving our relationships with the Somalis overseas. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I think you have that exactly right. We really cannot solve the problem simply through outreach to the American Somali community. It is an essential ingredient of the solution. I 

think this is essentially a Horn of Africa problem, and without attention to that decades-long crisis, we cannot attend one or the 

other end of this. It is really both. 

Mr. MUDD. I think that is right. From the Bureau’s perspective, 

there are a lot of issues here that are well beyond our control, 

issues overseas that have to do with the motivation of these individuals. For example, what is the impact of the Ethiopian withdrawal on a community in the United States? I think the impact 

is probably substantial because a lot of these kids are going over— 

as I said, there are intersecting themes, not only for an international jihadist movement but also for nationalist purposes, to 

fight the Ethiopians. 


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Domestically, there are issues here I talked about that put us in 

common with people and places like Europe, and that is, when you 

have families—this is a very traditional clan-based culture, a patrilineal culture, where there is no father figure there, and where 

somebody comes in and plays the father figure, where the mother 

does not speak English very well, where you are working at a 

meatpacking plant or have to work a couple jobs as a taxi driver. 

I mean, this is a classic immigrant experience in some ways, and 

it is a difficult social environment for these folks. 

And so we can talk about looking at people after it is too late, 

those who are going overseas—but the underlying cause is motivations from the Ethiopian invasion or motivations from the environment of people who are escaping violence and difficult economic 

conditions. Those are things obviously that are well beyond our 

control. 

Senator VOINOVICH. So a lot of it has basically to do with some 

concerns about people that have come here that are concerned 

about what is going on over there. It is like a lot of other nationality groups. The Armenians still want to do something about—go 

back to what the Turks did, and the Kosovars and the Serbs—we 

have a lot of ethnic groups in Ohio. You can try to deal with them, 

but there are still things that are really ringing bells in those communities, and people are upset about them. Where does that level 

go to some other kind of activity? 

Mr. MUDD. That is right, and I should be blunt, there are other 

concerns about dealing with Federal officials, for example, in a 

community where many people have immigration problems. So we 

are trying to build bridges through outreach and working with police departments, for example, and having people like our Special 

Agent in Charge in Minneapolis meeting with community leaders. 

I was just talking to one of the leaders behind me about traveling 

to Minneapolis soon, although I would like to wait until after the 

snow melts, as a native Floridian. But the issue has to do with, as 

I say, things within the community—it is a very closed community—and their concerns as well about dealing with us because 

they are worried about whether we are going to collar a kid if they 

come and tell us or whether there are other Federal issues like immigration fraud that might come up. And, again, we have to work 

through that with our partners in places like DHS. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Voinovich. Senator 

Burris, good morning. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS 

Senator BURRIS. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to welcome you to the Committee. This is a very 

complicated subject, and I want to commend you all for the work 

that you are doing. My questions may seem a little naive because 

of the difficulty of the subject, but generally what I am concerned 

about is we are talking about two separate situations, are we not? 

The Somalis that voluntarily or forcibly go back to get trained and, 

second, whether or not we are talking about normal American disgruntled citizens that are volunteering to go over there? Is that 

what we are looking at? 


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Mr. LIEPMAN. To my knowledge, we are not aware of a situation 

where someone has been forcibly repatriated to Somalia. These are 

volunteers. And I do think there are two things going on. One is 

that you have a generational struggle in Somalia; and, on the other 

hand, you have an American Somali community that is in many 

ways different than other ethnic communities in the United States 

in that they tend to be a bit more isolated and more attached to 

their homeland than many others. 

So the combination of isolation and a difficult process of integration into the United States and this linkage back to their homeland 

has resulted in a tendency to be more willing to volunteer to go 

back than in many other communities. But they are not being 

forced to return, as far as I can tell. 

Mr. MUDD. It might interest you to know some of the experiences 

they are having when they get there to give you a sense of what 

they think going over. 

First, some get there and believe this is a place where Sharia 

law—that is, the law of Islam—is being practiced and it is a great 

place to live. And some of these folks will never come back. 

Some get there and become cannon fodder. We talked about the 

difference between terrorism and insurgency/counterinsurgency. 

These folks are not going over there to become part of terrorist 

cells. A lot of them are being put on the front line, and some of 

them from the United States. I think, have been killed on the front 

line. 

And, last, some are going over there saying, ‘‘Whoa, this is a serious war, there is serious lead flying,’’ and they sort of lie, cheat, 

and steal their way to get back because they are in an environment 

where they say, ‘‘I cannot take this.’’ So they are coming home saying, ‘‘That is not what I signed up for.’’ 

So there is a range of responses when these kids actually get out 

there. 

Senator BURRIS. So this question may have been asked, but you 

are saying that they are over there either for the war or to defend 

their homeland. What is the danger then of some of those really 

coming back here, having been trained or given indoctrination to 

come back and try to do some of the jihad or September 11, 2001, 

activities in America? And can we detect that type of person coming back or if he was not a part of it, how do you distinguish that 

Somali as a person who wants to come back and repatriate himself 

with America and not then be classified as a terrorist who would 

do danger to our homeland? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. It is a tough problem. To set the groundwork, 

though, going to Somalia to fight with al-Shabaab, al-Shabaab is a 

designated terrorist organization. So the distinction between alShabaab and al-Qaeda is an important one, but those who volunteer to fight with al-Shabaab are also materially contributing to a 

terrorist organization. 

That evolution from volunteering to fight against the Ethiopians 

in Somalia to embracing the global jihad and the al-Qaeda message 

that espouses attacking the West, that is a difficult thing to detect. 

It happens inside their heads, and it is very difficult for us to know 

unless they tell someone, and I think reinforces the importance of 

outreach and interaction with the community and with the families 


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who likely will be the first people to detect this transition from Somali defense to the global jihad. 

Mr. MUDD. I think this story will have a ways to play out. I had 

an interesting conversation last week with an acquaintance of mine 

who is a psychologist in Saudi Arabia who deals with their 

deradicalization program. And he made a distinction between disengagement—in other words, for example, somebody coming back 

here disengaged from al-Shabaab—and deradicalization. His view, 

from working with many people—in this case, in Saudi Arabia— 

was if you want long-term stability with people like this, you cannot have that stability if you do not deradicalize. 

So what I am saying is if someone disengages from the fight but 

does not deradicalize, long term you have to think how psychologically is that going to play out in a year or 2 years. What if they 

find when they get back that the job environment is closed to 

them? What if there is another Ethiopian invasion? And as a security service, we cannot only be concerned about someone who has 

committed a Federal violation. If someone has gone overseas to 

fight and comes back in this month, seems like he has disengaged, 

should we assume that person is deradicalized after he has already 

committed an overt act to go fight a foreign enemy? Boy, that is 

a tough one long term. So I expect that we will have some echoes 

of this for a while. 

Senator BURRIS. And another area in terms of the Somali community, which my briefing tells me that it is primarily in Minneapolis, Minnesota, there is a major community there, and that is 

where a lot of recruiting is going on. Has the community really 

stepped up to come forward from the Somali community to give information and say, look, we know that we have to work in conjunction with all the U.S. forces to try to prevent something of this 

magnitude, even the young person going over there? 

Mr. MUDD. We have made progress, but we have a ways to go. 

The progress says you have communities with parents and grandparents and siblings who are concerned. We have FBI officers and 

people from police and our task forces who are watching people 

shed tears in our offices when they find out their kids have gone. 

Communities are concerned about recruitment from within, and I 

think that will become even greater with the Ethiopian withdrawal, because you cannot now say, ‘‘I am going to fight the foreign invader.’’ You are going to fight more in clan fighting. Especially in the past few weeks or months, there have been some very 

positive political developments in Somalia that I would think would 

make it a bit harder to recruit. 

That said, we have a ways to go. Again, you have communities 

that, first, for I think very defensible reasons, are concerned about 

interacting with Federal authorities. They are concerned about 

what we will do with their children. There is a lot of disinformation 

out there, and I should put this on the record. I hope some of the 

community folks in Minneapolis are watching. There are people out 

there saying that we will take their kids and put them in orange 

jumpsuits and send them to Guantanamo. This kind of propaganda 

from people who want to corrupt kids is hurting us. 

So there are community concerns in additional areas, as I said 

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lems as part of this. So we have made progress. We have great relations with some of the community folks that you will see later 

today—a really great and heartening immigrant story—but we still 

need more community help to understand what is going on within 

communities. This is not simply a law enforcement or intelligence 

problem. This is a problem about integration of a community over 

decades. 

Senator BURRIS. Mr. Chairman, my time is up, and if there is a 

second round, I might have some more questions. But I would like 

to thank the witnesses for their candid and forthright statements. 

I think we really have something we have got to deal with here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Burris. 

I want to ask just one or two additional questions. If any other 

members wants to, we will do that in a quick second round, because I want to get to the next panel. 

I do want to make clear first, Mr. Liepman, I think you answered 

a specific question from Senator Burris, and it may appear inconsistent, though I do not believe it is, when you said these young 

people are volunteering, that they are not being coerced. But this 

is not purely volunteering because, as both of you have said, they 

are being recruited, they are being affected by a spiritual sanctioner or leader. Right? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. That is right, and I did not mean to suggest that— 

what I wanted to say was they were not being tied up and bundled 

into a plane. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Exactly. Understood. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. But it is a process of mental coercion. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right, it was not a thought that they just 

had on their own to say, ‘‘I want to go over and fight with alShabaab.’’ 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Right. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Either they got it over the Internet or 

usually a combination of Internet and a spiritual sanctioner. 

By total coincidence, yesterday the Senate Armed Services Committee had its annual hearing with the Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, and with the Director of the Defense 

Intelligence Agency (DIA), General Michael Maples. Senator Collins and I, both members of that Committee, were there. 

General Maples actually testified that from information that he 

has received, DIA has received, he believes a formal merger between al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab is forthcoming soon. We have obviously seen an increasing connection between these two terrorist organizations over the last year, particularly in online content; the 

statement made by Ayman al-Zawahiri just a month ago in a video 

embracing al-Shabaab. 

So here is my concern: If there is a former merger between alShabaab and al-Qaeda, doesn’t that raise our concern about the potential that the recruiting going on of Somali-Americans here will 

result in people being sent back here—or perhaps to other countries—because people are traveling with American passports? 

In other words, if we accept the premise that al-Qaeda has made 

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cern that if al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab merged, this is really a game 

changer, and that the possibility of these recruits from America 

being sent back here for purposes of attacking gets higher? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. The conversations between al-Shabaab and alQaeda have been occurring now for quite some time. We have 

heard rumors of an imminent merger, and it has been imminent 

for a while. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. It could happen very soon. It could happen sometime down the road. 

We have several precedents of organizations that have merged 

with al-Qaeda, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is the most 

recent example. It is a couple years old. 

Two years ago, when they merged, I think we had the same concerns as you have just stated, that group would suddenly look beyond Algeria and North Africa, and start targeting Europe and the 

United States. And it has been much slower to happen than I think 

we feared. 

I think that a merger certainly increases that danger, and as the 

global jihadist philosophy evolved into the organization, they will 

be mindful of additional targets outside Somalia. We see alShabaab really focused right now on the fight in the Horn of Africa. 

And I think it would take some time to develop the capabilities and 

really to change that mind-set. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Mudd 

Mr. MUDD. Yes, I keep wanting to contradict Mr. Liepman, and 

I am looking for an opportunity to do so. But I think he is right 

here. I think the word ‘‘merger’’ can be a bit misleading because, 

I agree, I am not sure this will happen. But merger does not necessarily mean operational linkage to al-Qaeda. I think people who 

look at al-Qaeda through the lens of it being just a terrorist organization are mistaken. This is a revolutionary movement, and having 

someone on a beachhead of the Horn of Africa who, regardless of 

operational linkages, raises their hand and says, ‘‘I am part of the 

movement,’’ as they have done in al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, 

al-Qaeda of the Two Rivers of Sudan, and al-Qaeda in Iraq. These 

are representative of an effort by al-Qaeda to push out the movement, not necessarily always representative of direct operational 

linkages that might represent a clear increase in threats to the 

United States, although as Mr. Liepman says, we have got to 

watch out for this. This is long term. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. A final point, if I may, to you, Mr. Mudd, 

and then a question. I want to report to you that my staff, which 

has spent some time in Minneapolis on the ground in preparation 

for the hearing, has found some concern among the Minneapolis 

Police Department that they are not adequately involved in the 

FBI work there, and that they have more than they can bring to 

the table with regard to their own longer-term interactions in a 

positive way with the Somali community in Minneapolis. I know 

you are on the Joint Terrorism Task Force with them, but they feel 

that they can contribute more. 

The second is just to wrap this part of the hearing up, in a sense, 

in a way of reassurance, because we may have said some things to 

alarm people here, but that the FBI is involved in an investigation 


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which is aimed at—we understand you are involved in outreach, as 

I said, to the community. But you are involved in an investigation 

which may result in the arrest of some individuals who are involved in the recruiting and radicalization. Is that correct? 

Mr. MUDD. There are ongoing investigations, and I think I will 

sort of defer any further comment on them. But it is a significant 

concern to us. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good enough. Thank you. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Mudd, it is expensive to take someone 

from Minneapolis to Somalia. It is complicated to get a person 

there. The evidence we have is that the plane ticket for the young 

man in question cost around $2,000. That is money he clearly did 

not have personally. 

Where is the money coming from? 

Mr. MUDD. I do not think that the people who are going over 

there are all supplying all their own cash. I think it is worth understanding that, like other diaspora communities, there are informal ways—you are probably familiar with the hawala method, for 

example, which exists in this community to pass money that is 

very difficult to follow. The vast majority of this money is going for 

remittances, the same thing you would see, for example, in a Sri 

Lankan or a Bangladeshi community. 

Some small portion of that money, I think, is probably going to 

help fund these folks going over. I am not sure I would buy your 

suggestion that this is really expensive. If you are talking about 

tens of people who are going over in pretty difficult environments 

over there, not for high-end terrorist training but to become in 

some cases cannon fodder, you have a ticket, you have somebody 

at the other end who will be a facilitator, and then somebody who 

is in a general training camp with other folks. 

Given the extensive amount of money raised in large diaspora 

communities here, I personally would not think it would be that 

hard to skim off a little bit of that in various places and fund some 

plane tickets for tens of people. Terrorism is cheap. 

Senator COLLINS. Well, I guess what I meant is compared to the 

income of the young men in question, it is not as if they have this 

funding. 

Mr. MUDD. I am agreeing that I do not think they are self-funding all this. 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. MUDD. This is part of the apparatus that we are talking 

about here. 

Senator COLLINS. That is my point. 

I want to end my questions on this round by going back to a fundamental question: Why recruit Americans? As Mr. Liepman said, 

it is not to fill up the ranks. There are plenty of people in-country 

who would perform this role. 

It also does involve expenditures that would not otherwise be incurred. It is difficult. There is a risk of being caught. And that is 

why I am wondering if part of the reason is to sow seeds of fear 

within the Somali diaspora. I wonder if part of the reason is to create the kind of dissension within the community that we have seen 

in Minneapolis. I wonder if it is in part the terrorists wanting to 


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cast a cloud of suspicion over the Somali-American community that 

might lead to further alienation of some of the young people. 

Could you comment on this issue further? 

Mr. MUDD. Sure. I think it is pretty straightforward. This is a 

push, not a pull. It is a pull in the sense that you have a jihadist 

environment where people from Somalia in this country, a few people, might say, ‘‘I want to go fight,’’ as others from other communities might have said, ‘‘I want to fight in Afghanistan’’ in the 

1980s. But by push, I mean people here who are saying, ‘‘I want 

to do this’’—maybe because this is an example of a place where we 

have a foreign invader, or an example of a place where we can live 

in a country that is ruled by Sharia law. You mentioned recruitment. I do not see people out there saying, ‘‘Can we have another 

10 Americans?’’ 

So I think it is a simple story of people saying, ‘‘I either want 

to fight for my country’’ or ‘‘I want to go live in a different social 

kind of religious environment,’’—and it is relatively inexpensive to 

get there—not people at the other end saying, ‘‘I wish I had more 

Americans.’’ In fact, in some cases the Americans can be a security 

risk for them. Who are these folks who are traveling from outside, 

traveling from roots that might be vulnerable to exploitation? So it 

is not always a plus for the guys on the other end. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Liepman. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. I agree with that, and I think that is the case not 

just with Americans but the British recruits. There are communities around the world of Somalis who feel very attached to their 

homeland, some of whom have expressed a desire to go back and 

fight. And I think that desire is being facilitated. 

Senator COLLINS. But that is the key to me. I agree with you 

that, based on our investigation, individuals generally begin the 

radicalization process on their own. But based on our intensive 

study, there is almost always a catalyst, a person, the ‘‘spiritual 

sanctioner,’’ in the words of the NYPD; the operational leader in 

cases where the plot becomes operational. 

Mr. MUDD. I see where you are going. If I could take another 

shot at this, sometimes we think of these organizations, whether it 

is al-Shabaab or al-Qaeda, as hierarchical, sort of pyramid-like, 

which is classic American concept. You might want to think of this 

as hub and spoke. These are first-generation folks, whether they 

are the small sliver who are involved in extremism or just people 

sending remittances back. All of them in independent communities 

across the United States have linkages back home. So they all 

would have an independent way to call somebody and say, ‘‘I am 

going to send a few folks over. Can you facilitate them when they 

get there, get to the right camp?’’ It is close linkages back home, 

close clan linkages, and those linkages have persisted since we 

have had the diaspora community starting probably in the early 

1990s. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Just to reinforce, I said before that it would be a 

mistake to correlate al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab too closely. They are 

very different kinds of organizations. Al-Shabaab is more of a 

movement of young people with a wide variety of goals and clan affiliations. So as Mr. Mudd said, you can make connections with alVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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Shabaab much easier than you can with the leaders of al-Qaeda in 

Pakistan. 

Senator COLLINS. But don’t you think that there is also a public 

relations angle, for lack of a better word, to this, that if al-Shabaab 

can say, ‘‘See, we have Americans. America pretends it is the best 

country in the world, and yet we have Americans coming here to 

join in jihad?’’ Isn’t that a play here, too? 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Sure, I think that is a factor. And it would be easier for the folks back in Somalia to respond to the desire to come 

by saying, ‘‘You are actually more of a burden than you are a help 

in our fight.’’ But they do, they welcome them, not just Americans 

but Brits, South Africans, and Nigerians. 

So I do think there is an element of broadening the base of that 

opposition, first, to the invasion by the Ethiopians, and now to the 

Transitional Federal Government in Somalia. I do think they are 

doing propagandizing. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. MUDD. If I could flip your optic, I would think of it instead, 

if you look at statements by people like Ayman al-Zawahiri, the 

second in charge of al-Qaeda, as an organization—and I talked 

about it as a revolutionary movement, saying if you want to join 

the movement, if you are Nigerian or Malian, whoever you are, one 

of the forefronts is Somalia. And some of that echo effect, ripple effect, reaches people in the United States who might be predisposed 

to join the movement already. 

So their perception is al-Zawahiri in a sense might see himself 

as a statesman. He is the statesman responsible for the revolutionary message of al-Qaeda, and that message is there are beachheads in Pakistan, which is a difficult place to be as a foreign fighter now; Iraq, which, as you said, Senator Lieberman, a difficult 

place. There is another beachhead. So whether you are American, 

British, Danish, Nigerian, come on down, we have got a place for 

you. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. 

Senator Voinovich, do you have any further questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would just follow up on the same thing. In 

other words, the recruitment or the encouragement is coming to Somalis all over the world. So it is not just concentrating on the 

United States. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. That is right. 

Senator VOINOVICH. This is come on in and help your country 

out, and incidental thereto may be that you are going to be helping 

al-Qaeda. But you said earlier that there was not, to your knowledge, any formal links between them but there may be some informal relationships there. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. There is a formal link between the top leaders of 

al-Shabaab and the leaders of al-Qaeda, but not organizationally 

yet, no. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In terms of al-Shabaab doing what al-Qaeda 

would like to do or something of that sort. 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Right. We do not see that at this point. 

Senator VOINOVICH. And that the young people that are leaving 

here, the motivation for them is that they see a cause of some sort, 


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1The prepared statement of Mr. Menkhaus appears in the Appendix on page 105. 

and to your knowledge, there is not some big organized effort here 

to go out and find as many people and send them over to Somalia, 

but that it is kind of a spontaneous—coming from groups of people 

around that have different little tribes or it is that they have 

moved here to the United States, and some are more involved than 

others. 

I remember after the declaration of the Bosnian War that we had 

certain ethnic groups here in the United States that got involved, 

and they were not really trying to do anything to us. They were 

just trying to do something to the other people that were here in 

this country. 

So I would like that to be very clear because I do not want anybody to think that somehow the Somalis—that it is an organized 

effort, they are sending them over here, they are sending them 

back here, and look out because they are going to get involved in 

some terrorist type of activity. And that is where it is at right now, 

and as I mentioned earlier, our goal right now is to look at some 

of the reasons why some of them maybe pop up and say, ‘‘I have 

to get out of here, and I have to go overseas and see if that can 

be responded to.’’ And probably that has to be done right in the 

community among their own people to say, ‘‘Here is the deal.’’ 

Mr. LIEPMAN. Senator, I think you described it well. They are 

going to Somalia to fight for their homeland, not to join al-Qaeda’s 

jihad against the United States—so far. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Senator Burris, do you have any further 

questions? 

Senator BURRIS. Not this round. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. Mr. Liepman and Mr. Mudd, 

thank you for your testimony. I am sure we will see you again before long. Or we will subpoena you if you will not come back voluntarily. [Laughter.] 

We will call the second panel now: Ken Menkhaus, Professor of 

Political Science at Davidson College; Osman Ahmed, President of 

the Riverside Plaza Tenants Association; and Abdi Mukhtar, Youth 

Program Manager at the Brian Coyle Center. 

Thanks very much, gentlemen, for your willingness to be here. 

Dr. Menkhaus, we would like to begin with you. We appreciate 

it. You have spent some time, probably more than most, in developing expertise, doing research, and doing some writing in the general subject matter area that we are covering here today. We are 

grateful that you could come, and we welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF KEN MENKHAUS, PH.D.,1 PROFESSOR OF 

POLITICAL SCIENCE, DAVIDSON COLLEGE 

Mr. MENKHAUS. Senator Lieberman, Senator Collins, I thank you 

both for the opportunity to speak here today. I would like to offer 

a few observations about the current Somali crisis, the role of the 

diaspora in Somalia, and the question of recruitment of diaspora 

youth into the extremist group al-Shabaab. 

Somalia has been beset by one of the longest and most destructive crises in the post-Cold War era. The Somali people have enVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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dured 19 years of complete state collapse, civil war, chronic insecurity, and recurring humanitarian crises. An estimated 1 million Somalis are today refugees scattered across the globe. This has been 

an exceptionally traumatic period for the Somali people. 

Over the course of this long period of statelessness, Islamic institutions—charities, schools, sharia courts, and political movements—have helped to fill the vacuum left by the collapsed state. 

Somalis increasingly look to Islam as an answer to their plight. 

The ascendance of political Islam is an enduring trend in Somalia, 

and in general terms, this need not be viewed as a problem for or 

a threat to the United States. 

The period since 2006 has been especially violent and destructive. In 2006, an Islamic administration briefly arose in Mogadishu 

and for 6 months provided very impressive levels of public order. 

The Islamic Courts Union (ICU), was very popular with Somalis as 

a result. Ultimately, hard-liners in the ICU, including political figures commanding a small committed militia, known as al-Shabaab, 

marginalized political moderates in the Islamic movement and took 

actions which threatened the security of neighboring Ethiopia. 

With U.S. support, Ethiopia launched an offensive in December 

2006, routing the ICU and militarily occupying the Somali capital, 

Mogadishu. 

Predictably, Somalis of all political persuasions deeply resented 

the Ethiopian occupation, and within weeks an armed insurgency 

arose. The counterinsurgency by Ethiopian forces and the Somali 

Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was very heavy-handed, 

and within months Mogadishu was the site of a catastrophe. Seven 

hundred thousand residents of the city were displaced by the violence. Much of the capital was damaged. Thousands died, and an 

epidemic of assassinations and assaults by all sides gripped the 

city. By 2008, the violence spread throughout the countryside. 

Three million Somalis are now in need of humanitarian aid, 

prompting the U.N. to declare Somalia the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

For our purposes, two important developments arose from this 

catastrophe. First, it generated an enormous amount of anger 

among Somalis, both at home and abroad. This has manifested 

itself in high levels of anti-Ethiopian, anti-American, anti-Western, 

and anti-U.N. sentiment. Second, one group—the hardline Islamist 

militia, al-Shabaab—emerged as the main source of armed resistance to the TFG and the Ethiopian occupation. Al-Shabaab successful conflated its radical Islamist ideology with Somali nationalism. 

In the eyes of most Somalis, al-Shabaab was a legitimate national 

resistance to a foreign occupation. Al-Shabaab was seen by many 

Somalis as freedom fighters, not terrorists, even by Somalis who 

found their radical policies appalling and their rumored links to alQaeda very worrisome. 

In March 2008, the United States declared al-Shabaab a terrorist 

group. The many Somalis who had provided indirect or direct support to al-Shabaab were thereby immediately criminalized. In May 

2008, the United States launched a Tomahawk missile attack 

which killed the top al-Shabaab leader, Aden Hashi Ayro. Thereafter, al-Shabaab announced an intent to attack U.S., Western, and 

U.N. targets, both inside and outside Somalia. Its principal focus 


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remains the national struggle, but we are now formally a target of 

them as well. 

Al-Shabaab is today the strongest single armed group in the 

country, controlling territory from the Kenyan border to the outskirts of Mogadishu. It has links to al-Qaeda. But recent developments are working against al-Shabaab. Ethiopia withdrew its 

forces in Somalia in December 2008. The unpopular TFG President, Abdullahi Yusuf, resigned in December 2008. A new U.S. Administration has taken office and is reviewing its policies on Somalia. And a peace accord, known as the Djibouti Process, has forged 

a new governing alliance of moderates from the TFG and Islamist 

opposition, now led by President Sheikh Sharif. 

Al-Shabaab has been deprived from its main raison d’etre and 

now faces growing resistance from Somali militias allied with the 

new unity government. Al-Shabaab also faces internal divisions, including tensions between hard-core members and those who joined 

the cause mainly to rid their country of a foreign occupation. 

Put another way, not all al-Shabaab members are committed 

jihadists, making it problematic to label the entire group ‘‘terrorists.’’ Somalis who were willing to support al-Shabaab when it represented the main source of resistance to Ethiopian occupation appear uninterested in supporting al-Shabaab in its bid to grab power 

and impose its extremist policies on Somalia. Al-Shabaab may well 

have hit its high watermark in 2008 and now faces declining support and possible defections. If so, this is good news. It would mean 

that the threat of al-Shabaab recruitment among the diaspora will 

be less of a threat in the future. 

An assessment of the threat of terrorist recruitment among the 

Somali diaspora must start with an understanding of the diaspora’s 

role in Somalia today. The principal role the diaspora has played 

over the past 20 years has been an economic lifeline to Somalia. 

Its remittances are by far and away the most important source of 

income in Somalia, estimated at $1 billion remitted to Somalia 

each year. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Is that just from the U.S. or worldwide? 

Mr. MENKHAUS. Worldwide. It is fair to say that the diaspora 

keeps much of Somalia alive. The diaspora is also pressured to contribute to communal fundraising, some of which is used for good 

causes like community projects. In other cases, the fundraising can 

support militias or even extremist groups like al-Shabaab. The diaspora does not always control how their money is used. 

Somali business, political, and civic life is increasingly dominated 

by the diaspora. An estimated 70 percent of the new TFG cabinet, 

for instance, holds citizenship abroad, and the new Prime Minister 

himself is a Canadian Somali, who has resided for years in Virginia. 

In sum, Somalia has become a diasporized nation. Many Somalis 

with citizenship abroad return to Somalia often to visit family, 

check on business investments, manage nonprofits, or pursue political ambitions. This makes it increasingly difficult to draw meaningful distinctions between the Somalis and the Somali diaspora. 

Virtually every Somali enterprise, whether the shareholder group 

of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Mogadishu, which is still working, or the new TFG administration, or al-Shabaab itself, is likely 


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to have a significant diaspora component. Extensive travel to Somalia and financial and other interactions by Somali-Americans 

with their home country should not constitute, therefore, a highrisk profile. 

The Minneapolis case of Shirwa Ahmed and other youth who 

have been recruited into al-Shabaab raises a basic question that 

you have both asked this morning. Why would al-Shabaab actively 

recruit diaspora members? What can a diaspora recruit do that a 

local militia fighter cannot? 

First, it is clear that the diaspora are not much value as rankand-file militia for al-Shabaab or any other fighting force in Somalia. Somalia is already saturated with experienced teenage gunmen 

and has no need to import more. In fact, evidence from the ICU 

in 2006 suggests the Somali diaspora as well as foreign fighters 

were as much a liability as an asset. They were unfamiliar with 

the countryside, often spoke the Somali language poorly, were more 

likely to become sick, and required a fair amount of oversight. 

But the diaspora are useful to other al-Shabaab and other armed 

groups in Somalia in other ways. Their familiarity with computers 

and the Internet is a valuable communications skill, and to come 

to the point of our hearing, a young diaspora recruit is, upon arrival in Somalia, entirely cut off socially and, therefore, in theory, 

easier to isolate, indoctrinate, and control for the purpose of executing suicide bombings. Were this not the case, it would be much 

less risky and expensive for al-Shabaab to simply recruit locals. 

From this perspective, a young diaspora member who heeds the 

call by a recruiter to ‘‘join the cause’’ of fighting to protect his nation and religion is not so much a terrorist as a pawn, exploited 

by the real terrorists, those who are unwilling themselves to die for 

their cause but who are happy to manipulate a vulnerable and isolated youth to blow himself up. 

In my assessment, a Somali diaspora member groomed to be a 

terrorist is of most utility to al-Shabaab for suicide operation either 

inside Somalia or in the region of the Horn of Africa—Kenya, 

Djibouti, and especially now Ethiopia. The reason for this is that 

these recruits would need ‘‘handlers’’ both to help them navigate 

through unfamiliar situations and to ensure that they go through 

with the attack. I am much less convinced that al-Shabaab would 

be willing to risk sending a trained and indoctrinated diaspora 

member back to the United States as a ‘‘sleeper’’ for a future terrorist attack in the United States. The risks to al-Shabaab would 

be enormous. They would not be in a position to easily manage and 

control their recruit. The recruit could even defect and provide 

damaging information on al-Shabaab to U.S. law enforcement. And 

even if al-Shabaab managed to send totally committed recruits 

back to the United States, a al-Shabaab-directed terrorist attack 

inside the United States would almost certainly have disastrous 

consequences for al-Shabaab, not only in terms of the U.S. response, but from Somali society as well. Recall that remittances 

from the diaspora are the economic lifeline of Somalia. Anything 

that jeopardizes the status of Somalis living abroad imperils the 

entire country, and al-Shabaab would face enormous blowback from 

within the Somali community. 


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In sum, my sense is that the threat of an American of Somali descent joining al-Shabaab and then returning as a sleeper to the 

United States is quite low. The threat still requires careful law enforcement attention, but should not be overblown. There is one exception to this assessment. A Somali-American who joins alShabaab and who has then proceeded to Pakistan or Afghanistan 

and who becomes an al-Qaeda operative is of much greater concern. 

The reasoning for this is straightforward. Al-Shabaab’s agenda is 

still essentially a nationalist one, while al-Qaeda’s is global. AlQaeda would not weigh the costs of a terrorist attack in the United 

States on the Somali economy and the Somali diaspora, whereas alShabaab would. A Somali-American acting through the ideological 

prism of al-Qaeda would be more willing to serve as a sleeper than 

would a al-Shabaab member. 

I would like to conclude with just a few thoughts on the Somali 

experience with and response to law enforcement authorities, much 

of which has already been alluded to this morning. 

First, Somalis have a long and unhappy experience with the 

state and the police back in their country of origin. As a result, not 

all Somalis view the State, law enforcement, and the law as a 

source of protection and order; some view law enforcement with 

fear, as something to avoid. Behavior which appears to be evasive 

or untruthful can often be traced back to this generic fear of law 

enforcement and should not be misinterpreted. Sustained police 

programs to socialize Somali-American communities and reshape 

their perception of the state and the law are essential if this is to 

be overcome. They need to appreciate the difference between ‘‘rule 

of law’’ and ‘‘rule by law’’ and feel confident that the U.S. law enforcement system reflects the former and not the latter. 

Some Somali households are likely to be nervous about any attention from law enforcement not because of links to terrorism, but 

because of the risk that U.S. law enforcement will in the process 

uncover other ‘‘irregularities,’’ including illegal immigration, putting the community’s interests at risk. 

All communities have their ‘‘dominant narratives’’ and Somalis 

are no exception. Their dominant narrative is a story of victimization and persecution both at home and abroad. It is very easy for 

some in the Somali-American community to interpret current U.S. 

law enforcement attention as yet another instance of witch hunting 

and persecution, reflecting a combination of anti-immigrant, antiMuslim, anti-African sentiments. Some flatly deny there is a problem with al-Shabaab recruitment at all. The only way to produce 

better cooperation with this community is through routinized communication that builds trust with local law enforcement and which 

gives Somalis a clearer sense not only of their legal and social obligations as citizens but also of their legal rights. 

The U.S. Government needs to provide much clearer guidelines 

to Somalis about what constitutes legal and illegal behavior with 

regard to political engagement in their country of origin. If not, we 

run the risk of criminalizing routine diaspora engagement in Somalia. The fact that al-Shabaab was not designated a terrorist organization before March 2008 but then was so designated is an example 

of the legal confusion facing Somalis. Something that was legal in 

February 2008 is now aiding and abetting terrorism. As you know, 


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this is a question of relevance to many other immigrant communities in the United States whose country of origin is embroiled in 

war or whose charities have come under suspicion of serving as terrorist fronts. The U.S. Government cannot ask its citizens to abide 

by the law if the laws themselves are too opaque to be understood, 

and this is especially the case if legal charges can be made retroactively for affiliations with groups which were acceptable in the 

past but then designated terrorist. 

Finally, it goes without saying that the main responsibility for 

policing Somali youth to ensure they do not become members of 

criminal gangs or terrorist groups falls squarely on the shoulders 

of Somali parents and community leaders. To the extent that Somali communities need additional outside support to provide for a 

safe and controlled environment for their children to grow up, we 

should try to provide it. Most importantly, we need to ensure that 

first-generation Somali-Americans are growing up with a strong 

sense of being American citizens with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. A Somali diaspora population that feels it belongs neither here nor in Somalia will be much more susceptible 

to radical movements promising their own sense of identity and belonging. 

I hope these brief observations are of help as you exercise oversight on a topic with both important implications for national security and civil liberties. Like many U.S. citizens, I was greatly 

moved by President Obama’s promise in his inaugural speech: ‘‘We 

reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.’’ I am 

confident that we can address the security concerns raised by Somali-American recruitment into al-Shabaab without violating their 

civil rights and those of the community. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I agree. That was very helpful. I will have questions for you in the question and answer period, but let me just as a baseline ask you to give the Committee 

a sense of the size of the global Somali diaspora as compared to the 

population in Somalia. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. Our estimates of the global Somali population 

are about 1 million out of a total Somali population—Somalis citizens, not the 4 million who are Ethiopian Somalis and 400,000 who 

are Kenyan Somalis—of about 9 to 10 million. So roughly one in 

10 or more are abroad now. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. Thanks very much. 

The next witness has come to us from Minneapolis. We again 

thank you, as I did in my opening statement, for being here to 

make this personal, to help us to understand what is happening 

within the community. Obviously, as I said at the outset, we consider you our allies, our fellow Americans, and in a very direct 

sense the victims of those who are recruiting from among your families. 

First, we are going to hear from Osman Ahmed, who is the President of the Riverside Plaza Tenants Association in Minneapolis. 

Thank you very much for being here. 


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1The prepared statement of Mr. Ahmed appears in the Appendix on page 119. 

TESTIMONY OF OSMAN AHMED,1 PRESIDENT, RIVERSIDE 

PLAZA TENANTS ASSOCIATION, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 

Mr. AHMED. Senators Lieberman and Collins, I would like to 

thank you on behalf of the family members of the children who 

were recruited to Somalia, members of the Somali community, and 

on my own behalf for inviting us to the congressional hearing committee. I would like to also thank Omar Jamal, who is the Director 

of Somali Justice Advocacy Center, who helped us, and worked a 

lot of time. 

We would also like to thank the senatorial officials who came all 

the way to Minneapolis on February 28, 2009, to meet with the 

family members and the community. Also, I want to acknowledge 

the FBI office in Minneapolis and its agents who work day and 

night to locate our children. We do indeed feel grateful of their extreme efforts. 

The first time we became suspicious was when we received a 

message from Roosevelt High School saying that our kid, Burhan, 

missed all school classes on November 4, 2008. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Excuse me, Mr. Ahmed. Say his name 

again so we get it clear. 

Mr. AHMED. Burhan Hussan. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Was he a relative of yours? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes, he was my nephew. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. 

Mr. AHMED. It was November 4, 2008. That to us sounded 

strange and we were stunned. We roamed around the metropolitan 

area and even beyond, nationwide. We went to Abubakar AsSaddique Mosque and Dawa Mosque, called our building security, 

called Hennepin County Medical Center, hospital emergency rooms, 

and the airport. After that, his mother looked into his room and 

found that his travel luggage was missing, his clothes were not 

there, and his passport was missing also. We immediately notified 

respective law enforcement agencies. We immediately contacted the 

local police office and the FBI office in Minneapolis. 

We have been up on our heels since we have realized that one 

of our children was mentally and physically kidnapped on November 4, 2008, on Election Day. 

Understanding challenges the Somali community in Minneapolis 

faces today—there are many challenges that the Somali community 

in Minnesota faces like other first-generation immigrants. These 

include limited language proficiency, limited skills, and the cultural 

barrier, as well as the Minnesota weather. Most of these SomaliAmerican families are headed by single mothers. 

The system is an alternative approach, but understanding it is 

also a barrier. The neighborhood, particularly the West Bank/ 

Cedar/Riverside area, has limited resources that could be of value 

to the community members. 

Perspective of family members of the recruited kids—the missing 

Somali-American children created anguish and fear to the immediate family members and in the general communities. No one can 

imagine the destruction this issue has caused for these mothers 

and grandmothers. They are going through the worst time in their 


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lives. Imagine how these parents feel when their children are returned back to the country were they originally fled from the chaos, 

genocide, gang rape, and lawlessness. 

There are five children among the many that were sent to Somalia: Burhan Hassan, 17 years old, senior at Roosevelt High School; 

Mohamud Hassan, 18 years old, studying engineering at the University of Minnesota; Abdisalam Ali, 19 years old, studying health 

at the University of Minnesota; Jamal Aweys, 19 years old, studying engineering at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, 

and later at Normandale College here in Minnesota; as well as 

Mustafa Ali, who is 18 years old, studying at Harding High School 

in St. Paul. 

These Somali-American kids were not troubled kids or in gangs. 

They were the hope of the Somali-American community. They were 

the doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and leaders of the future 

of our strong and prosperous nation. For instance, Burhan Hassan 

was a brilliant student with straight A’s and on top of his class. 

He was taking college courses—calculus, advanced chemistry—as 

he was about to graduate from high school. These classes were 

sponsored by the University of Minnesota. He was an ambitious 

kid with the hope to go to Harvard University to study medicine 

or law and become a medical doctor or a lawyer. 

All these youth shared common things. They all left Somalia in 

their infancy like my nephew, Burhan Hassan. He was 8 months 

old when they arrived in Kenya. He was less than 4 years old when 

he arrived in the United States, February 12, 1996. Like his peers, 

Burhan Hassan was never interested in Somali politics or understood Somali clan issues. Burhan grew up in a single-parent household. His immediate family members, including his mother and siblings, are educated. He studied Islam at a nearby Abubakar AsSaddique Mosque like the rest of the kids since 1998. Abubakar AsSaddique was opened a couple of years ago. Before then, it used to 

be called Shafi’e Mosque in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood area 

when Burhan started. He attended its youth group. These kids 

have no perception of Somalia except the one that was formed in 

their mind by their teachers at the Abubakar Center. We believe 

that these children did not travel to Somalia by themselves. There 

must be others who made them understand that going to Somalia 

and participating in the fighting is the right thing to do. To address the issue from a factual perspective, it is the dream of every 

Somali parent to have their children go to the mosque, but none 

of them expected to have their children’s mind programmed in a 

manner that is in line with the extremist’s ideologies. In the case 

of Burhan, he spent more than 10 years going to the mosque. This 

is evidenced by others who also attended the mosque. 

One thing for sure is that the methods of indoctrination are highly sophisticated. The plan of al-Shabaab is basically to destroy the 

world peace, and they will turn every leaf to achieve that. Their 

mission is not isolated into Somalia but has far-reaching goals. 

The Somali-American youth were isolated because they have 

been told that if they share their views with others, including their 

family members, they will not be understood and might as well be 

turned over to the infidel’s hands. These children are victims on 

every side. They have been lied to. They were told that they will 


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be shown the Islamic utopia that has been hidden from them by 

the infidels and the brainwashed parents. Our children had no clue 

they were being recruited to join al-Shabaab. We are getting a lot 

of information back home from Somalia. We also heard that when 

kids arrive, they are immediately shocked at what utopia is, and 

all their documents and belongings are confiscated. They are 

whisked to hidden military camps for trainings. They are also told 

if they flee and return home that they will end up in Guantanamo 

Bay. They do not know anyone in Somalia. 

Why is al-Shabaab interested in American and Western kids? We 

believe the reason al-Shabaab is interested in American and Western kids is that these kids do not have any relatives in Somalia. 

They cannot go back to their countries for they will be reported to 

the authorities by local al-Shabaab recruiters. They are also very 

valuable in interpreting for al-Shabaab trainers of American and 

Western descent. 

They could be used for anything they want. They could be 

trained or forced to become suicide bombers in Somalia, and they 

can do it out of desperation. For many of them, Burhan, for example, have no idea where to go for help in Somalia. This is the first 

time he has been to Somalia in his life. These are basically the 

main reasons why al-Shabaab is recruiting from the Western countries. 

Another issue of paramount importance is the fact that we are 

the first family members who informed the law enforcement about 

the missing of these youth. Family members whose children sent 

to Somalia were scared to even talk to the law enforcement. We 

have been painted as bad people within the Somali community by 

the mosque management. We have been threatened for just speaking out. Some members of Abubakar As-Saddique Mosque told us 

that if we talk about the issue, the Muslim center will be destroyed, and Islamic communities will be wiped out. They tell parents that if they report their missing kid to the FBI, the FBI will 

send the parents to Guantanamo jail. And this message has been 

a very effective tool to silence parents and the community. 

They do have a lot of cash to use for propaganda machine. They 

strike fear on a daily basis, here in Minneapolis, among Somalispeaking community in order to stop the community to cooperate 

with the law enforcement agencies. Public threats were issued to 

us at Abubakar As-Saddique Mosque for simply speaking with 

CNN, Newsweek, and other media. The other mystery is that they 

say one thing on Somali TVs and at their congregations, they say 

something contrary to that in English while speaking to the mainstream media or community. 

They also told us not to talk to the media because that will also 

endanger the Muslim leaders. We have been projected as pariah 

within the community by these mosque leaders. We are tormented 

by the fact that our children are missing and imperiled. These 

members are scaring us so that we stop talking to law enforcement. 

Perspective on al-Shabaab to attract young people to their 

cause—The most important factor on how al-Shabaab attracts the 

young Somali-Americans is the indoctrination of the children. They 

are programmed to understand that it is their duty to confront the 

infidels. There are youth programs that in some instances have 


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some hidden agendas. These agendas include that whatever issues 

that might come across in life is twisted as being the work of the 

infidels. They have been told to understand that the Ethiopian 

troops in Somalia are an act of aggression against the Islamic religion. Al-Shabaab is not only interested in recruiting Somali-American youth but others in other Western countries, such as the 

United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and Australia. The main reason for al-Shabaab to recruit from these countries is that these 

youth have different views than a typical Somali in Somalia. They 

do not know much about Somali clan and have no political affiliation whatsoever. 

There are some radical groups who were a minority in their 

thinking. However, when the Ethiopian troops came to Somalia, 

some Somali-American professors clearly declared the war against 

Ethiopian troops. This has been a scapegoat for their extremist political views. It encouraged radical Islamic groups in the United 

States who previously were not active in the political activities here 

and in Somalia. 

In conclusion, we the families of the missing kids have been conducting an outreach campaign to reach out to those families that 

have not come forward. We believe this is the tip of the iceberg. 

In our outreach, we have been very successful to help some families 

to come forward and trust the law enforcement like we did. 

Recommendations for preventing recruitment in the future: Educate members of the Somali community on the importance of cooperation between law enforcement and the community. 

Empower the families of the missing kids to continue the outreach to those families who did not come forward. 

Bring to justice those who are responsible. 

Create special task forces to combat the al-Shabaab recruitment 

in Minnesota, Ohio, Seattle, Washington, and Boston. 

Scrutinize the funding of suspicious nonprofit agencies that undertake youth activities possibly related to radical views. 

Investigate if taxpayers’ money was involved in the brainwashing 

of our kids because Abubakar Center is a nonprofit that might 

have been getting taxpayers’ money for youth programs. 

The mosque controls a large amount of money, which is raised 

in these mosques, quarterly or sometimes yearly fundraising which 

lacks transparency—huge amounts of cash—and portions of that 

money could have gone to al-Shabaab groups. Second, we are requesting more connection between our community and the FBI, so 

the FBI has to do more outreaching programs to the community. 

We need a protection for our children so that they can escape 

enemy hands. 

We need our U.S. Government to forgive these youth to enable 

us to find ways and means to bring them back to their homes. And 

this will give confidence to many more families to come out of darkness. 

Warning: Al-Shabaab recruiters have the agility and ability to 

change form. They usually are well represented not only in certain 

mosques but wherever Somali children and young adults are concentrated, such as community centers, charter schools operated by 

Somalis. They could sometimes pose as Somali community leaders 

and advise politicians and other agencies that are outreaching to 


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1The prepared statement of Mr. Mukhtar appears in the Appendix on page 125. 

the Somali community. Al-shabaab recruiters can be active and target the youth at where ever Somalis are. Definitely, we don’t know 

who is exactly behind this crazy venture. Nonetheless, we need to 

be vigilant at all times. Again, I want to thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Ahmed, I want to thank you for your 

courage in standing up in a dangerous situation, including against 

some in the community, and the U.S. Government really owes you 

exactly the kind of support and outreach that you ask for. I will 

say this—I will have questions for you, but the picture you paint 

is clearly not a situation—the word ‘‘volunteer’’ was used before, 

and I know the witness on a previous panel said he meant to say 

that they were not coerced. But you are describing a situation—and 

we will get back to it—where these were not just young people who 

stood up, woke up, and after a period of time talking to their families and said, ‘‘I want to go back to Somalia.’’ They were clearly, 

by your telling, radicalized, recruited, and then if I heard you correctly, in the case of your nephew, Burhan Hassan, he just disappeared. He did not tell anybody he was going, correct? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. He did not tell anybody. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. We will come back to that. 

Our final witness today is Abdi Mukhtar, Youth Program Manager from the Brian Coyle Community Center, which I gather is a 

community center at which a lot of young Somali-Americans in 

Minneapolis congregate. Thanks for being here, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF ABDIRAHMAN MUKHTAR,1 YOUTH PROGRAM 

MANAGER, BRIAN COYLE CENTER, PILLSBURY UNITED COMMUNITIES, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Chairman Lieberman, Ranking Member Collins, 

and Members of the Committee, thank you. Before I start my statement, also as a parent who has children, I emphasize, and I send 

my sympathy with the family members who are missing their kids, 

and the majority of the Somali-American community, sends their 

sympathy for the families. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before 

you today. The Somali youth issue is very important for me personally and professionally, and I am honored to have a chance to share 

my experience and expertise about this issue as a Somali youth 

issue expert. 

My name is Abdirahman Mukhtar. I was born in Somalia. I fled 

Mogadishu, the capital city of Somalia, when the civil war started 

early January 1991. I went to a refugee camp in Liboa, Kenya. I 

stayed 7 years in refugee camps and the capital city of Nairobi in 

Kenya. I moved to the United States in August 1998. After moving 

to the United States, I attended and graduated from Roosevelt 

High School in Minneapolis, and I went on to pursue higher education from the University of Minnesota with a degree in kinesiology. I am planning to go back to graduate school for doctorate of 

physical therapy in the near future. 

I have been working with youth for over 8 years—first with the 

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federation of Somali Community in Minnesota as a Youth Diversion Coordinator, and currently as the Youth Program Manager at 

the Brian Coyle Center. 

The Brian Coyle Center serves as a central hub for resettlement 

assistance, social services, adult education, employment counseling, 

youth programming, recreation, and civic engagement for the Somali community in the Minneapolis metropolitan area. The center 

includes a gymnasium, community room, commercial kitchen, numerous classrooms, a food shelf, and a computer lab. Along with 

Pillsbury United Communities, the organization that I work for, 

there are other organizations that have their offices in the building, 

which includes the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota; the Oromo Community, which is an ethnic Serbian community; Emerge Community Development (EMERGE); Somali Youth 

Network Council; Cedar Riverside Neighborhood Revitalization 

Program; the West Bank Community Coalition; Somali Education 

and Social Advocacy Services; East African Economic Development 

Center; Haboon Magazine; and the Somalia Family Advocacy 

Group. All are nonprofit organizations. 

Assimilation to the Minneapolis Community—The main difficulty 

I had assimilating to the mainstream community was the language 

barrier, because I did not speak in English and at times people had 

difficulty understanding me. Second, I experienced racial and cultural misunderstandings; many people in the American society 

were not well educated and did not know about my culture, religion, and other differences. Many of the Somali youth and their 

parents have similar experiences such as limited formal education 

caused by the Somali civil war and settlement in different refugee 

camps. Somali students like me were enrolled into classrooms in 

the United States based on age rather than academic level, making 

it very difficult to succeed. When classes are challenging beyond a 

person’s current capability, it often leads to students skipping 

school and dropping out. 

Since parents have to support their families and provide food and 

shelter, but can only get lower-wage jobs—such as assembly work, 

cleaning, temporary jobs, and some of them struggle with small 

businesses that barely make a sustainable income—they do not 

have the time to be involved in their children’s academic and recreational activities. Not only are families working hard to meet the 

basic needs to support their children in the United States, they 

also are responsible for sending money to extended families back 

in Africa. The expectation of the school system on parents for parent involvement adds to the challenges for Somali families and students. Somali parents and the Somali community value education. 

When I started high school, I was fortunate enough to have bilingual teachers to assist me in my education and adaptation to the 

education system in America. Now, due to the cutbacks and policies, Somali students don’t have culturally appropriate programs 

and the support of bilingual teachers in their schools. 

It was not easy for me to attend high school because my family 

back home expected me to support them, even though I was in my 

teens. I was encouraged to get a GED instead of finishing high 

school, so I could get a full-time job. Instead, I started working 20 


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hours a week at the Mall of America and continued to work towards my high school diploma. 

During the summer, I worked full time while also attending summer school to pass the basic standards tests in math and English. 

In my senior year, I took a commanding English class at the University of Minnesota in order to improve and be ready for college. 

I was able to take this class through the post-secondary options 

program. Because of my GPA, leadership, and extracurricular activities, I was accepted to attend the General College of the University of Minnesota, which no longer exists. 

Somali youth today experience the same barriers I faced as a 

new immigrant in the United States; however, they do so with even 

fewer resources than what was available for me. Language is still 

a barrier as young Somalis try to achieve success. Identity crisis 

and cultural conflict are a reality for Somali youth—for example, 

Somali culture at home versus American culture at school. Parents 

expect you to keep your culture, while the American education system and way of life forces you to assimilate. Many have difficulties 

adjusting to the new way of life while facing cultural barriers that 

seem hard to overcome. As a result of identity crisis and frequent 

challenges, many youth lose hope and start making poor choices. 

The current economic situation also adds to the problem since jobs 

are not available for youth. They become truant, getting involved 

in gangs and using drugs like their peers. However, there are 

many successful Somali youths who overcame these obstacles. 

Somali families tend to be large, mostly with single parents who 

are working to make ends meet. Many Somali parents also provide 

for relatives, thus reducing their income status and livelihood. 

Even though parents care deeply for their children, this continues 

to be a strain on the support provided to Somali youth. 

Somali families for the most part live in high-density housing in 

the lowest-income neighborhoods in the city. The Cedar Riverside 

neighborhood where I live and work has a median household income of just $14,367 a year. Let me say that again. It is a median 

household income which is $14,367 a year. The unemployment rate 

is 17 percent—that is according to the 2000 census—so it is much 

worse, especially in the economic crisis we are facing now. Across 

the street from the Brian Coyle Center, in one apartment complex 

there are 3,500 residents, of which 92 percent are immigrants and 

1,190 are under the age of 18. 

This is the highest concentration of low-income children in Minnesota, some people say in the Midwest, and most of them are Somalis. Many opportunities and resources are not available in neighborhoods that Somalis reside compared to other areas in the city. 

Services are often inaccessible due to lack of appropriate local, city, 

and State agencies offering culturally competent services to Somalis. We operate our programs in a city-owned building for which the 

park department doesn’t even cover the expenses they are required 

to by contract, so we manage with minimal resources. 

When youth don’t have access to healthy options to fill their free 

time, they fall into the typical trappings associated with youth culture, for example, the Internet—peer pressure and cyber predators. 

Many Somali youth are nowadays involved with drug use and gang 

violence. This seems to be the biggest distraction because resources 


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and many important opportunities are not available for these 

youth. 

People without college degrees are limited with regard to employment. They are reduced to manual labor and factory work. Moreover, racism and employment discrimination still exist in many 

blue-collar establishments. This leads to problems such as high divorce rates and child neglect because they are unable to provide for 

their families and other family members. 

Somali youth report a high level of discrimination across the 

board. This includes schools, colleges, the media, in the community. 

and by law enforcement. Discrimination is based on ethnicity, culture, and religion. When I asked a group of youth ranging in ages 

10 to 20 what were their greatest challenges, 50 percent answered 

harassment by the police. Because of how young Somali-Americans 

dress, even some of their own community members stereotype 

them. 

Second-generation immigrants are different than first-generation. 

Like many immigrant communities, there is a stark difference between first and second-generation Somali immigrants. Parents 

maintain a lifestyle that essentially is like living from a suitcase; 

they hope to return. They experience language barriers and have 

difficulty interacting with the larger society. Second-generation Somalis are more settled and hope to build their lives here; they are 

more immersed in American culture and they are fully engaged. 

Somali immigrants experience frustration with the education system, and new sets of barriers occur for second-generation immigrants. Institutions often are not empowering, for example, keeping 

students in English language learner (ELL) even if they don’t need 

such courses. Second-generation Somali youth often speak English 

well, but are stereotyped and wrongly assigned to low-level classes. 

Inner city schools still have a graduation rate for Somali students 

well below their white American peers. Second-generation Somalis 

consider themselves Somali-Americans, but they experience stereotyping by the broader society who sees only their ethnicity and religious affiliation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mr. Mukhtar, excuse me for interrupting. 

You are considerably over the time we normally allow the witnesses. I do not want to cut you off. Let me suggestion two things. 

First, you are getting to the Shirwa Ahmed story. I would like 

to ask you to tell us that story. We will then print your entire 

statement in the record, and then we will draw out some of your 

recommendations for solutions in the questions and answers. So 

why don’t you proceed and see if you can tell us about Shirwa 

Ahmed. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Shirwa Ahmed and I went to Roosevelt High 

School together, and we are both from Somalia. Recently, it was reported, as we said earlier today, that Shirwa was the first American citizen known to be a suicide bomber. 

The Somali community is not a monolithic community; it is highly diverse. As a first-generation immigrant, I faced many challenges in my life, and I had many responsibilities with regard to 

supporting my life. I made decisions that reflect my history and experiences. It is difficult to map out the lives of people. Many of my 

classmates took different paths in life and ended up in different 


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roles. Some are highly trained professionals, some are in jail, some 

are in the workforce earning low wages, and some are in the U.S. 

Army. 

When learning about Shirwa’s role as a suicide bomber, people 

were shocked and angry because it goes against the Somali culture 

and it is also inherently anti-Islamic. Many Somalis are not convinced that it happened because the idea seems too far out of people’s comprehension. Throughout Somalia’s history, particularly in 

times of war, suicide bombings never occurred, and this is this 

case. 

I have been asked, ‘‘Do Somali youth talk about Shirwa?’’ Somali 

youth talk more about March Madness, Kobe Bryant, the NFL 

draft, and basic things. They face different local challenges than 

what the topic of this hearing is today. 

I will just stop there so I can answer the questions since I went 

over my time. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, and we will include your full statement and those of the other witnesses in the 

record. 

Let me begin my questioning, and let me begin it with you, Mr. 

Mukhtar. So you knew Shirwa Ahmed. He was your classmate, I 

gather, at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, correct? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Actually, he graduated a year ahead of me, but 

we went to the same high school. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. And I gather a good student, serious student? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. He was a very quiet guy, good student, but as I 

told you, he was a class ahead of me. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. So am I correct, as in the case of 

Mr. Ahmed’s nephew, that this was a surprise when he left for Somalia? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. I only heard from the media about his suicide, 

and when the FBI Director mentioned it was the first American 

suicide bomber. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK, I understand. So your contact with 

him was not close. Based on your interaction with Somali-American 

youth in Minneapolis, how do you explain what happened to Mr. 

Ahmed? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. You mean what happened to Shirwa Ahmed? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, Shirwa Ahmed. Yes, how did he end 

up going to Somalia? I mean, you assume he was recruited by 

somebody? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. No. That is why I made my own personal choice, 

and there are a lot of my classmates who also are in jails or in 

gangs. So I don’t know how he ended up in that situation. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me go now to Osman Ahmed, because 

in your testimony—let me ask about Mr. Hassan first, your nephew. Am I correct that he has called at times now from Somalia to 

talk to his family to tell him he is there? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And I thought your testimony was very 

interesting. I think I have it right—well, here is what it said to me: 

That when they get there, basically their identity is taken away, 

their papers are taken away. So in some sense, they are trapped, 


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and that may be one reason why the recruiting of Americans goes 

on because they are left with no way to get out, so they are much 

more controlled by al-Shabaab. 

Mr. AHMED. Yes, that is the main reason they are recruited, because the local Somalis, if they desired to flee from their terrorist 

group, they have a place to return. They have a family, and also 

they have a protection. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right 

Mr. AHMED. But these kids, they don’t have a protection, they 

don’t have their clan, they don’t have any family members back 

home. So they have nowhere to go. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. Mr. Ahmed, in your testimony, you 

used the word ‘‘they’’ several times, ‘‘they’’ when describing those 

who recruited and radicalized both your nephew and other young 

men in the Somali community in Minneapolis. And I wanted to ask 

you if you could say a little bit more about who you think ‘‘they’’ 

are? 

Mr. AHMED. There are different minority groups who are spreading this ideology of extremism. And before, they never came up and 

shared their views to the community until the Ethiopian troops entered Somalia. So at that time, they got excused. 

After 2006, those minority groups, they started spreading to two 

mosques in Minneapolis—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Mostly through the mosques. 

Mr. AHMED. Two mosques, even though we also suspect at some 

other mosques around the United States. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. AHMED. They changed the management of those two 

mosques to have influence to the community, and that is how we 

believe after 2006 they started recruiting the kids, and also spreading their ideology of extremist. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So you are convinced that it is people 

within the mosque who are having this effect on some of the young 

men in the Somali community in Minneapolis. 

Mr. AHMED. Of course, let me give you an example. These kids, 

especially my nephew, he was well connected to the mosque. He 

does not have any friends outside. He used to go to school, home, 

and the mosque. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. AHMED. And there is no way he could get that ideology from 

the school or home. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, and that is a very important point. 

So his family does not believe in this Islamist extremist ideology. 

Mr. AHMED. No way. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Obviously, he was not getting it in school. 

Mr. AHMED. Nothing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Also, again, to point this out—and it 

seems to be a pattern as you described some of the young men who 

had gone, these were, generally speaking, young men who were 

doing pretty well at school, correct? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. All of them, they were A students. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. And were all of them regular 

attenders at one or more of the mosques? 

Mr. AHMED. As far as we heard from their families, yes. 


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Chairman LIEBERMAN. You also advocated in your testimony for 

more transparency with regard to the funding for the Abubakar 

mosque because, as you suggest, you are worried that some of the 

money may have been sent to al-Shabaab. Why do you think that 

that is so? 

Mr. AHMED. Actually, that money, it is not only for the Abubakar 

Mosque. There is another mosque which is Da’wan, in St. Paul. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In St. Paul? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. They are collecting quarterly, sometimes 

monthly, sometimes yearly, and they are telling the community 

that they are spending the money for expenses of the mosque and 

the salaries. But the community have questions about where that 

money really is going. And there is no transparency at all. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. So your concern, obviously, is that 

some of the money being contributed to the mosque is going to alShabaab. 

Mr. AHMED. Actually, we are cautious about that, because, one, 

there is no transparency. They can use that money wherever they 

want to use it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. I have a feeling Senator Collins is 

going to ask this question, so I will begin it. But as we trace this 

rather remarkable path that we believe from people who have followed it that Burhan Hassan, your nephew, took, he went with a 

group of other young men. They split up. Some went to Boston. 

Some went to Chicago. They had many stops along the way before 

they got to Somalia. And the estimate is that this was being coordinated as a way to perhaps deceive people who would be following 

them, but also it cost a fair amount of money, an estimated at least 

$2,000. 

Is it fair to say that you would be surprised if Burhan Hassan himself had $2,000 to spend on the trip? 

Mr. AHMED. No way, no way he could get it. He never worked, 

so definitely there is a group who are going to organize these kids, 

funding, arranging even the travel stuff. Even some of them, they 

cannot call the travel agents and get tickets because of their age. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. I am now going to yield to 

Senator Collins. You have been very helpful to the Committee. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mukhtar, let me pick up where the Chairman left off. You 

gave us some very compelling statistical information about the low 

level of income of the Somali households in your region. So would 

you agree that it is very unlikely that these young men were able 

to finance their own trips? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Actually, allow me to say that Abdisalam, who is 

one of the kids that left, I know him very well. He was in my youth 

program when I used to work at Elliott Park. So Abdisalam used 

to work. He had a job while he was a full-time student at the university of Minnesota. Some of the older youth, according to community members, had jobs. But I am not sure who—I don’t exactly 

know who paid their trip and why, because I deal with the challenges that face the young people every day. And the mosques, the 

issue of the mosques, the mosques are the essential life of Muslims—not only the Somali community. Every Muslim, their essential life is the mosque because we pray five times a day. 


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My kid goes to the mosque to learn his Islamic roots. So what 

happens is that these mosques, they are community built, not individuals. So we cannot blame the mosques. We can blame individuals. You can create friends and foes, as it happened on September 

11, 2001. 

So, please, I am encouraging you—I personally want to know 

who is recruiting these kids because every day that is what I do. 

I want to make sure that these young people make the right decisions and want these young people to be productive citizens. So I 

have the right to know who is recruiting them. 

Senator COLLINS. You do believe that they are being recruited, 

though. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. There are rumors within the community. The only 

recruitment that I know, I know gangs who are recruiting these 

kids. 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. And that is the local challenge that I face as a 

youth manager. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Ahmed, you made a really important point 

in your testimony that was different from the previous panel whom 

we heard earlier. You make the point that for these young people, 

America is their homeland, that your nephew was 8 months old 

when he came to America. 

Mr. AHMED. Yes 

Senator COLLINS. That he had never been to Somalia. Is that correct? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. 

Senator COLLINS. So, in your judgment, this was not a case, as 

far as you know, of his feeling this connection to Somalia that 

would lead him to volunteer to go fight for his homeland, because 

America is his homeland. Is that correct? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. 

Senator COLLINS. I think that is a very important point here, because it leads to your conclusion that there is indoctrination or 

radicalization going on. And I am not trying to put words in your 

mouth, but is that correct? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes, that is correct. 

Senator COLLINS. Obviously, the events of the last several 

months have clearly heightened the awareness of the Somali community in Minneapolis of the dangers of radicalization and the risk 

to the young people, your relatives, your friends, your family members. 

A key to combating that radicalization is for individuals and communities, youth leaders, and local mosque leaders to be aware of 

the dangers before this radicalization process occurs. To your 

knowledge—I am going to ask both of you this question—was that 

awareness in existence prior to the disappearance of these young 

people? Mr. Mukhtar. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. In this case, there was not much awareness, no, 

because we were focusing on the local violence issues. In the last 

year, while the Minneapolis mainstream violence went down by six 

points, the Somali youth violence went up six points. It is totally 

the opposite. We had six Somali young men who were killed by Somalis, gangs or other ways, last year alone. I personally lost a volVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00046 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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unteer who was a work/study I recruited, Ahmed Nur Ahmed Ali, 

on his first day of his job in front of Brian Coyle Center. 

So I focused on the local issues, but, on the other hand, we control our computer lab because Internet plays a role in this issue, 

as this Committee reported in May in your report. So we control 

our computer lab—you cannot go to YouTube. You cannot watch 

anything. We don’t allow MySpace or other social things. 

So we are aware youth are very vulnerable when it comes to the 

Internet, but as to this issue, I focus on the local issues which actually the community talked more about before this happened. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Ahmed, in your judgment, was there an 

awareness of this risk to the Somali youth in Minneapolis prior to 

the disappearance of these young men? 

Mr. AHMED. Before I answer that question, I want to clarify. 

Senator COLLINS. Yes. 

Mr. AHMED. We are not blaming the mosque. 

Senator COLLINS. Right. 

Mr. AHMED. Mosques are our places we worship. What we are 

blaming is the management. The mosque itself cannot indoctrinate 

for the kids. 

Senator COLLINS. That is an important distinction. 

Mr. AHMED. Yes. The answer to this question is we do not have 

to mix it, the gang activities going on in Minnesota and the missing 

kids. It is two separate issues. These kids, they can harm us in 

United States and our security. But the gangs, they can only harm 

us with the gang stuff. So we don’t have to always mix it for those 

two issues, those kids who are traveling back home and the kids 

who are in gangs. 

When it comes to the Internet, I do not believe that the Internet 

played a big percentage. First time we believe they get indoctrinated might be the end when they get brainwashed 10 percent or 

15 percent a day, they could get somebody from the Internet. That 

is what we believe. 

Senator COLLINS. When your nephew has called back home from 

Somalia, has he given any indication of why he left or what he is 

doing or whether he plans to return? 

Mr. AHMED. He looks like somebody who was being instructed by 

another person who is in there. His mom tried to ask him a couple 

of questions, and he just keep returning, ‘‘Mom, I am safe. I am 

in Mogadishu, Somalia. I will call you back.’’ So couple of times he 

has called his mom, she tried to ask couple of questions, and somebody maybe was instructing him what to say. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. Senator Burris. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Menkhaus, I want to thank you for your insightful information about that whole situation. It was really educational and informative. My questions probably will be directed at the other witnesses. 

Either one of you, do you know if any adult Somalis have volunteered to go back for the war? 


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Mr. AHMED. There is no way that somebody who has the best 

hospitals, best schools, and lives with best society, can go back and 

join a terrorist group. 

Senator BURRIS. Do I understand, you do not know of any of 

your—— 

Mr. AHMED. There is no way a person who is in the United 

States that has the best schools in the world, best hospitals, live 

with best society in the world, can go back and join a terrorist 

group. There is no way. 

Senator BURRIS. OK. Because at times you will see this has happened in America where the various ethnic groups are here as 

Americans, and they have gone back to their homeland voluntarily 

sometimes to assist. So you said you know of no Somali adults that 

have gone back to say that we now want to try to defend our homeland or join the services. Is that what you are saying? 

Mr. AHMED. Yes, even though some people justify going back for 

fighting with Ethiopian troops. Let me give you example. Last year, 

October 29, 2008, there were two explosions in Somalia, and that 

area, it is a peace area; there is no Ethiopian troops. So what are 

they justifying those who are saying we want to go back and fight 

the Ethiopian troops? There is no Ethiopian troops in Somalia 

there. 

Senator BURRIS. Do you two gentlemen feel any danger as a result of your coming here and testifying? You mentioned gangs 

and—— 

Mr. MUKHTAR. No, I personally—as a Somali community member 

and a Somali-American, I have the responsibility, and we all care 

about the safety of America. Let me be clear about that. The Somali community is very peaceful, and we care about—and that is 

why I decided to come for the sake of the American country and 

the Somali-American community who have been victimized because 

we have an issue of guilt by association, not only the people that 

left, but in Minnesota and everywhere, Somalis are being considered as homegrown terrorists. But that is not who we are. There 

are people like us, there are people like Osman, who are here to 

testify about this issue. 

Senator BURRIS. That is admirable on your part. That is what we 

do as Americans, and the Somalis have adopted this as their country, and I see that you are saying that this is your country now, 

and you are going to speak up for your country of America. Is that 

what you are saying? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Not only me but the whole Somali community. 

Senator BURRIS. Terrific. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. Yes, and that is why maybe this small number of 

people that have different ideas, but the majority of the SomaliAmericans and the Muslim community is very safe, and they consider this their homeland, and that is why some of them are even 

in the army, to protect this country. 

Senator BURRIS. And that is what we call America, and I am so 

proud of the Somalis who are here and who have adopted this 

country because I am a descendant not of Somalia but somewhere 

out of Africa, which I do not even know where. And for you all to 

come to the country voluntarily and adopt this country as your own 

and to say you are going to make America even greater and make 


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your family greater, that is what it is all about. I do not want to 

seem like I am lecturing to you, but you bring tears to my eyes 

when I see you are committed in that fashion. 

So you do not feel any danger, and you are seeking to try to stop 

these young people from being recruited. Do you know who is really 

doing the recruiting to get them over there? If it is the managers 

of the mosque or somebody has been taking them out, who is doing 

it? 

Mr. AHMED. First of all, I am comfortable coming here and testifying even though I was getting big pressure from the minority 

group who are leading some of the mosques. But I am not really 

in danger at all. 

The other question, which is who is recruiting, it is definitely 

clear. These kids, they were American mainstream kids. They did 

not come up with their own idea to go back to Somalia and have 

a ticket. Definitely, there is a minority group who are working, recruiting, financing. And I hope the law enforcement agencies will 

bring them to justice soon. 

Senator BURRIS. So you are saying that there are investigations 

going on as to who—— 

Mr. AHMED. That is what we believe, of course, yes. 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, gentlemen. No more questions, Mr. 

Chairman. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Burris. First, I want to 

say Senator Burris really was speaking for all of us. You are an 

inspiration. Each one of us is from ethnic communities that immigrated here, and I was raised in a family that said that in America, 

you did not have to be like everybody else to be a good American. 

Part of the strength of America was to be yourself, that from that 

diversity—cultural, religious, whatever—that you made America 

stronger. And the Somali-American community is contributed to 

that. 

Incidentally, may I say to the two of you that you are setting a 

great role model for the young people coming up in the community 

after you. I appreciate what you said about the mosques, and just 

to clarify, from the Committee’s point of view, the problem here is 

not the mosques. The problem is that, from what you have said, 

there may be some people—one or two or however many—inside 

the mosque who are using the mosque to recruit, essentially to take 

away some of your children. I mean, obviously, one of the great 

things about America is the First Amendment right to freedom of 

religion, and that is what the mosques are all about. So we approach the mosques with respect. If we have any concerns, it is 

about the people who are operating within them. 

First off, we have good reason to believe that there is law enforcement work going on and that it is aimed at some of the people 

who are causing this problem and who obviously are a minority 

and do not reflect the interests or the opinions of the Somali-American community. 

But, generally speaking, tell us what the community is doing to 

try to combat this—I will call it ‘‘an evil influence’’ aimed at your 

children and what, if anything, local or State government is doing 

to help you and what can anyone do to help you bring your children to the right path. 


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Mr. AHMED. The reality, it is not an easy task to find out really 

those who are involved. But as a parents, we tried every angle that 

we can get information and working with the law enforcement 

agencies. We even contacted people back home in Somalia to get 

some information. And still we are working to the law enforcement 

agencies. We are trying to speak to families that do not come forward and explain they are not in danger and explain if they come 

forward and talk to the law enforcement agencies and register their 

kids, in the future, they may get protection from the American 

Government. 

So it is not really an easy task, but we are trying to work and 

knock on every door. And I hope one day we will succeed that idea. 

We did not get that much help from the authorities back home 

in Minnesota, what I am talking, from mayor or other officers. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. AHMED. We only have contact with the FBI and some of the 

local law enforcement agencies. And I hope we will try to go everywhere that you can get help. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, if there is a way we can help, I hope 

you will let us know. It is a remarkable story because we found 

that in previous hearings—you would not expect it, but the agency 

of the Federal Government that has the most outreach and, I 

would say, positive outreach to the Muslim-American community— 

in this case, the Somali-American community—is the FBI, surprisingly. 

I want to ask you, Mr. Mukhtar, a final question. From the work 

you are doing at the community center, what is your judgment 

about the extent to which radical websites, Islamist websites, extremist websites are having some effect on children? Are the kids 

going to use them a lot? 

Mr. MUKHTAR. I mean, kids are tech savvy nowadays, and they 

would rather use the Internet than listen to radio or watch TV. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. So the only thing I would say is also in my statement under the recommendations. But I would say is that extreme—you should be able, this Committee, the FBI, or the law enforcement should be able to control the Internet use. Last year 

alone in America, 6,000 cyber predators have been reported by families. So you can imagine that is the only people that are reporting 

that they know they cannot report this to the law enforcement. 

My community, my parents, they do not speak English, so there 

is no way they can report such things like that. They do not know 

anything about computers. So it is very important that we protect 

our kids from the Internet, whether it is the Islamic extremists or 

other issues. But it is very important that we do that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Very good. Incidentally, this Committee 

made some protests about YouTube—which is now owned by 

Google—and they created a process where, when we and any of you 

who want, you can do it through us, can identify a website, they 

will check it. And if they believe it is encouraging violence, they 

will take it down. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. It is not only YouTube, but it is also local media. 

Each ethnic group has their own media that influence. So you can 

also add to that. You can filter that, too. 


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Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is a good point. 

Dr. Menkhaus, thank you for being here. Your testimony was 

very helpful. I want to clarify, because you have described a changing picture on the ground in Somalia, with al-Shabaab somewhat 

in—I would not say ‘‘retreat,’’ but waning somewhat because of 

changes, and particularly because the Ethiopians are not there 

anymore. 

Is al-Shabaab effectively in control of some parts of Somalia now 

still? 

Mr. MENKHAUS. Absolutely. It controls, again, all the territory 

from the Kenyan border down to the outskirts of Mogadishu. It has 

some strongholds inside Mogadishu as well. There were fears that 

when the Ethiopians withdrew in December that al-Shabaab might 

overrun the capital. That has not happened. What we have seen is 

that there has been pushback, by clan militias affiliated with this 

new emerging unity government. And we suspect that is because 

Somali political, social, and business leaders in the country understand full well the severe consequences of an al-Shabaab takeover. 

They were willing to see al-Shabaab used to fight the Ethiopians, 

but are not interested in seeing them come into power. 

It is going to take some time to deal with al-Shabaab. There is 

a process of both negotiation, to co-opt some of the members of alShabaab, and then marginalize the rest. But we do have some reason to believe that they are not as strong as they were and they 

are likely to get weaker. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So let me suggest this to you. As I listened to you and think about what we heard, somewhat on the first 

panel, but particularly from General Maples, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who coincidentally testified for the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday. He testified about all the 

trouble spots in the world, but this idea that al-Qaeda and alShabaab have been growing closer together and there may well be 

an actual ‘‘merger,’’ insofar as that is an accurate term—that is the 

term he used yesterday, I believe. 

Having heard that from him yesterday and putting it in the context of what you have told us today makes me wonder whether this 

is essentially a marriage of convenience, not only ideology, and to 

the extent that these both have jihadist or revolutionary world elements in them, but that you have one group, al-Shabaab, which is 

now in some difficulty in Somalia, but still in control of part of the 

country. You have al-Qaeda now perhaps looking for a foothold, a 

sanctuary somewhere. It obviously does not have it anymore in Afghanistan, nor in Iraq. They are coming under great pressure in 

Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), but still 

they are there. And I wonder whether they are thinking that this 

may be, to the great detriment to the people of Somalia, a kind of 

sanctuary for them. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. I don’t think that they will attempt to use Somalia as a base and a major safe haven. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Interesting. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. They tried that earlier. In 1993–94, there was 

an attempt by the East African al-Qaeda cell to penetrate Somaliinhabited areas of the Eastern Horn, and it went badly for them, 

actually. It turned out to be as non-permissive an environment for 


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them as it is for those of us who work in relief agencies and embassies. 

As for al-Qaeda, I think you are exactly right. This is a marriage 

of convenience. This is a low-cost, high-yield region of the world in 

which to cause mischief for the United States. There are a lot of 

soft targets in places like Nairobi, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, that we 

have to worry about because of al-Qaeda’s involvement there. But 

they have not demonstrated to date a level of commitment to, for 

instance, making Somalia into an equivalent part of Afghanistan or 

Pakistan. And I don’t think they would want to. I think that there 

are other roles that Somalia can play for them—as a transshipment point, as a temporary base for a handful of operatives— 

but not a major base. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. For al-Shabaab, I think it makes sense that they 

would be looking to al-Qaeda now because their strength has always been their ability to project themselves as the Somalis fighting the foreigners—the Ethiopians, the West, whoever. And so for 

them, globalizing their struggle is really the only currency that 

they have got left. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. For instance, I worry now, as their fortunes decline inside Somalia, that they are going to be spending more time 

fighting in Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia, because there they 

can portray it as the Somalis versus the Christian highlander Ethiopian imperialists, etc. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes, it frankly makes it all the more 

heartbreaking said in that context, the story of these young SomaliAmericans, good kids, good students, religious, getting swept up in 

this, ending up somewhere where they are basically trapped, and 

they become pawns in a game much larger than themselves, but 

in which their lives are either ruined or endangered, unless we can 

somehow get them out. Thank you. 

Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses today for deepening our understanding and for your willingness to come forward, and I am 

going to ask just one final question of each of you, and that is, if 

you had one recommendation to Federal, State, or local law enforcement how they could best work with the Somali-American 

community to combat this terrible problem that is robbing the community of some of its most promising young people, what would 

that recommendation be? Professor, we will start with you. 

Mr. MENKHAUS. I will go back to a recommendation that I made 

at the conclusion of my written remarks, and that is, if we can provide clarity to the Somali community as to what is legal and what 

is illegal behavior, that would go a long way toward helping them 

understand how they can be constructively engaged in their home 

country and not risk crossing a line when they do not know where 

the line is. Somalis used al-Barakat, a remittance company, for 

years to remit money. And then in late 2001, we froze its assets 

and declared that it was an organization that was linked to alQaeda. That was an example of the problem: ‘‘Who do I work with 

in terms of remitting money?’’ Al-Shabaab poses the same problem 


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for them. There is an enormous amount of confusion as to just 

what they can and cannot do. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Ahmed. 

Mr. AHMED. All right. I think unless we involve the Somali community, the law enforcement agencies alone cannot achieve the 

goal. So what I would like to say is now we have a place to start. 

We have the parents that will come forward, those whose kids have 

been already exploited and are gone, recruited by a minority group. 

So I would say if we empower the parents, those who already have 

experiences, it is the truth that you can reach the community and 

also to work with the law enforcement agencies. Unless the community comes up and works with the law enforcement agencies, 

only the law enforcement agencies cannot reach these goals. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Mr. MUKHTAR. I also made those recommendations in my statement, but the first recommendation is the law enforcement itself to 

work together, whether it is local, Federal, that itself helps. And 

in terms of the Somali community, the Somali community has the 

experts and the capacity to work with the law enforcement and a 

Committee like you guys. 

And, last, I will say Somali communities should be educated 

about their rights and responsibilities. And what we really need is 

a true partnership with a Committee like this and the law enforcement. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks very much, Senator Collins. I 

thank all of you for being here. I appreciate what you have said. 

We extend our hand to you in the partnership that you have suggested. We want you to keep in touch with our staff. We will keep 

in touch with you. 

Bottom line, there is a problem here, and it is a problem that not 

only threatens American security, but it threatens something more 

fundamental, which is the American dream, the reality of the 

American dream for all the children who grow up here, including, 

of course, Somali-American children or Muslim-American children 

generally. 

So this, as I say, is the most graphic and clear evidence that we 

have had thus far of a systematic campaign of recruitment of 

American youth, and in some ways, the most promising of American youth, to leave the country to go fight a war that really will 

bring them to no good, and potentially could threaten us here at 

home as well, but certainly will bring them to no good. 

So we have learned a lot. We thank you for your courage. We 

thank you for your testimony. In the normal course of what we do 

here, we leave the Committee record open for 15 days if you want 

to add anything to what you said. Some Members of the Committee, either those who were here or those who were not here, 

may ask you questions in writing. We will ask you to respond to 

those. But I really thank you all for what you have contributed to 

our effort to protect the security and the freedom of the American 

people. 

Thank you very much. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 


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(51) 

EIGHT YEARS AFTER 9/11: CONFRONTING THE 

TERRORIST THREAT TO THE HOMELAND 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 

SD–342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Joseph I. Lieberman, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Lieberman, Levin, Pryor, Tester, Burris, Kirk, 

Collins, and McCain. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN LIEBERMAN 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. The hearing will come to order. Good 

morning to everyone. 

Secretary Napolitano, if you can believe this, is stuck in traffic. 

[Laughter.] 

This is probably not a major threat to our homeland security. 

She is totally plugged into all communication networks. She will be 

here in a couple of minutes. But I thought in the interest of time 

we will proceed and she will understand. 

Before I give my opening statement, I want to welcome to this 

Committee the newest Member of the U.S. Senate, Senator Paul 

Kirk of Massachusetts. I have had the privilege of knowing Senator 

Kirk for a long time. He is an extraordinary, able, honorable individual with a great skill set. Obviously, he comes to the Senate for 

reasons that are sad for all of us, most particularly for him because 

he was such a dear, long-time friend, and confidant of Senator Ted 

Kennedy. But I do not think anybody would be happier or prouder 

than Teddy to know that Paul Kirk is here. 

I just joked with him that Teddy is probably up there in heaven 

sort of laughing and saying, ‘‘OK, Kirk. Now let me see what you 

can do in the Senate.’’ [Laughter.] 

So, Senator Kirk, it is a great honor to welcome you here to this 

Committee. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KIRK 

Senator KIRK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is really 

my honor as well to be part of a body that is so important to our 

democracy and which Senator Kennedy obviously loved as an institution. And as you say, the circumstances of my being here provide 

me with an incredible honor as part of my own life, and I hope to 

be able to work closely with you and Senator Collins. 


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I know this Committee enjoys a great record and has an important mission as we look out for our security here at home and protect our troops abroad. And if I can contribute in any way to what 

we are doing here as an important body of the Senate, I will be delighted. 

So I thank you for your kind comments and look forward to 

working with you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Kirk. I am sure you will 

contribute substantially, and I am delighted that you have chosen 

to be on this Committee. 

Today’s hearing, which is titled ‘‘Eight Years After 9/11: Confronting the Terrorist Threat to the Homeland,’’ was scheduled and 

planned more than a month ago as part of our Committee’s responsibility to monitor the terrorist threat to our homeland and to oversee our government’s defense of us from that threat. 

In fact, for the last 3 years, our Committee, under Senator Collins’ leadership and then mine, has had a particular focus on the 

threat of homegrown Islamist terrorism, that is, the threat of attacks planned against America by people living in our country, as 

opposed to the attackers of September 11, 2001, who, obviously, 

came from outside. 

Then, quickly, in the last 2 weeks, we have had arrests in very 

serious cases of homegrown terrorism: Two lone wolves—Michael 

Curtis Finton and Hosam Maher Smadi—and one more ominous 

cell led by Najibullah Zazi. 

These are certainly not the first such plots against our country 

that have been broken since September 11, 2001. In fact, we have 

been a Nation regularly under attack in this unconventional war 

with terrorists. Just in the last few months, going back to May, a 

group was arrested who were quartered around Newburgh, New 

York, who had planned to launch an attack against an Air National 

Guard base there, and then was caught in the act, they thought, 

of planting a bomb at a synagogue in the Riverdale section of the 

Bronx. 

In June, another homegrown terrorist, who, in fact, had gone to 

Yemen for training, walked into a U.S. Army recruiting station 

center in Little Rock, Arkansas, shot and killed an Army recruiter, 

and wounded another. 

And in July, there was an arrest of seven people in North Carolina who were planning an attack on our base at Quantico. 

So in a way that is dispersed and, therefore, I think often not 

seen by the public, we have regularly been under attack since September 11, 2001. But these three cases in the last several days 

were significant and in some senses different and bring a sense of 

real-time urgency to our hearing today. 

Mr. Finton, who is the gentleman from Illinois, was about to detonate a bomb against the Federal building in Springfield, Illinois, 

and Mr. Smadi was in the process of what was thought to be an 

attack with explosives against the Wells Fargo Motor Bank in Dallas, Texas. 

These three cases realize both our worst fears about homegrown 

Islamist terrorist attacks against America and, I add, our best 

hopes for our government’s capacity to defend us from them. 


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The Zazi case is the scenario that many of us have worried about 

and watched out for: A legal permanent resident of America, free, 

therefore, to travel in and out of our country, going to Pakistan, 

connecting with al-Qaeda there, receiving training and perhaps directions, and returning to America to join with others here in an 

attack on New York City. 

When Senator Collins and I were first briefed on the Zazi case, 

we each had the same reaction, which was a sense of gratitude that 

all the things that have been done by Congress, the Bush and 

Obama Administrations, and hundreds of thousands of U.S. Government employees since September 11, 2001, worked in the Zazi 

case. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Counterterrorism Center 

(NCTC), and a lot of others, such as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National 

Security Agency (NSA) and many others, worked smoothly with 

each other and, where relevant, with State and local law enforcement to stop Zazi and his cell before they could attack. Those working for us in the government brought a wide range of resources— 

technical and human—brilliantly to bear on this group of attackers 

and literally connected the dots in a way that I do not think they 

would have been connected before September 11, 2001, and in a 

way that led them from New York to al-Qaeda in South Asia and 

then back to New York. 

The Finton and Smadi cases are less complicated but, from a law 

enforcement point of view and in the contemplation of our Committee that has been focused on homegrown terrorism, also quite 

daunting because they involve individuals operating, incidentally, 

outside of the major metropolitan areas that we have assumed 

were the priority targets for terrorists, such as New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, and Chicago—individuals operating alone 

who we call ‘‘lone wolves’’ because they apparently did act alone in 

these two cases and were, therefore, less likely to turn up on the 

many technological and human walls we have built since September 11, 2001, to protect our homeland and our people. 

And yet their lonely terrorist plots were discovered by the people 

in the Federal Government working for us, and they were stopped. 

So as we convene this hearing, I hope these three cases will lead 

us to two conclusions. 

The first is obvious, which is that, although we have won significant victories over al-Qaeda around the world since they attacked 

us on September 11, 2001, and we thereafter declared war against 

them, al-Qaeda is still out there, and, in fact, they are in here, and 

they maintain a patient and hateful desire to attack the people of 

the United States as well as every other segment of humanity that 

does not share their fanatical and violent theology, ideology, and 

ambition for conquests and suppression of freedom. This war, and 

its attendant threats to our homeland, is not over and will not be 

for a long time. 

I think the second conclusion that we should take from these recent cases is that we have together made enormous progress in our 

ability to protect our people from terrorism. For this, I particularly, 

this morning want to thank the three leaders who are before us as 


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witnesses and their organizations, those who preceded them, and 

all those who work with them, including the men and women of 

our intelligence community who necessarily are unseen. 

In this war, however, in which our enemy requires only a small 

number of fanatics who do not care about their lives or, obviously, 

the lives of others, we require enormous numbers of people to defend our free and open country against those terrorists, we are only 

as good as our ability to have stopped the last terrorist plot against 

us. 

Eternal and extensive vigilance is, in this war, truly the price of 

our liberty. So the work of homeland security goes on 365 days a 

year, but this morning, I want to pause as we begin this hearing 

to say thank you to Secretary Napolitano, Director Mueller, and Director Leiter, and all who work with you for all you do every day 

to protect the American people. 

I look forward to your testimony and to hearing your evaluation 

of the current state of the terrorist threat to our country and what 

we are doing about it and ultimately what Congress can do to help 

you do your jobs for us. Thank you. 

Senator Collins. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLLINS 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have given an 

excellent overview of why we are here today. Let me start by welcoming our new colleague to the Committee. This Committee likes 

to have a minimum number of New Englanders on it. [Laughter.] 

And with the addition of Senator Kirk, we have finally met the 

minimum allotment. 

And I will now begin my formal remarks. 

Deter, detect, disrupt, and defend—these four simple words form 

the core of our Nation’s mission to prevent terrorist attacks. 

Their simplicity, however, belies the complexity of the challenge. 

They fail to capture the dedication and perseverance that the men 

and women of our military, intelligence, law enforcement, and 

homeland security agencies must demonstrate constantly to stay 

ahead of the evolving terrorist threat. 

Eight years removed from the attacks of September 11, 2001, our 

Nation must remain vigilant against the Islamist terrorist threat 

we face. Recent cases drive home the reality of this threat. Four 

separate terrorist plots have been uncovered in the past month 

alone. 

The allegations against Mr. Zazi raise particular concerns because his level of planning reportedly was quite sophisticated. According to the FBI, Zazi received training in an al-Qaeda camp in 

Pakistan and had purchased bomb-making components. In his car, 

a computer that the FBI recovered contained images of handwritten notes that contained instructions for manufacturing explosives. 

Investigations in Springfield, Illinois, and Dallas, Texas, have 

not only resulted in arrests, but may have prevented horrific casualties. 

Details of a new plot in an ongoing case also came to light last 

week. Prosecutors filed a new indictment in the case against Daniel 


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Boyd and Hysen Sherifi, alleging that they conspired to murder 

Marines at Quantico. 

While these and other cases are cause for alarm, as the Chairman has pointed out, recent successes demonstrate that our vigilance, our strategies, and our hard work to date have paid off. Authorities identified suspects who intended to commit terrorist acts, 

they initiated sting operations, and they prevented the attacks. 

Our antiterrorism work must be relentless. It requires effective 

coordination across the Federal Government and with our State 

and local partners. As the Chairman has noted, these recent successes demonstrate the considerable progress that we have made 

since 2001. By creating the Department of Homeland Security, the 

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and in some ways 

most important of all, the National Counterterrorism Center, we 

have encouraged information sharing and collaboration across the 

Federal Government to ensure that the dots will indeed be connected. We have also strengthened the relationship with our partners in State and local governments. These successes represent significant strides in what will be a long war against terrorism. 

Despite these successes, however, some of these recent domestic 

plots demonstrate that coordination among Federal agencies and 

State and local law enforcement may have been uneven. 

For example, the perpetrator of the shootings that the Chairman 

mentioned at a military recruiting center in Little Rock was under 

investigation by the FBI. But it is less clear whether State and 

local law enforcement, who responded to the shooting, knew of this 

investigation. 

We need to examine how we can build on the improved information sharing with State and local officials, including whether technology gaps hinder current efforts. 

We must ask what further resources are necessary to allow us 

to be better prepared to respond to threats. And we must always 

remember that while our Nation has been hard at work realigning 

our defenses and strengthening our response systems, the terrorists have been busy, too. 

Disturbingly, the perpetrators in these recent cases are mostly 

homegrown terrorists. We must work to better understand the path 

that leads to violent radicalization in this country and increase our 

efforts to interrupt this deadly cycle. Our intelligence and law enforcement officials must carefully analyze how the next generation 

of terrorists is being funded, trained, and supplied. 

Outreach to communities affected by violent radicalization will 

have to continue to be a priority. These outreach efforts were evident when the Committee examined how more than 20 young Somali-American men from Minneapolis were recruited to travel to 

Somalia to join the militant Islamist group. 

The FBI and State, and local law enforcement have engaged in 

outreach to the Somali community in this country, and recent 

events underscore the critical importance of such efforts. As we 

meet, the FBI is investigating reports that a Somali-American from 

Seattle carried out a suicide bombing in Mogadishu just a few 

weeks ago. Last October, a Somali-American from Minneapolis allegedly participated in a similar attack. And, of course, the fear is 


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1The prepared statement of Secretary Napolitano appears in the Appendix on page 144. 

that if these Americans are traveling overseas for training, they 

may use this training to come back and attack our homeland. 

For this reason, we must strengthen our efforts to work with 

community leaders to understand what factors caused these young 

men to travel halfway around the world to participate in terrorist 

attacks. Understanding is necessary to our hopes of breaking the 

cycle of violent radicalization. 

Mr. Chairman, I share your pride in what has been accomplished. I had the same reaction that you did in the briefing. The 

kind of coordination that we heard in the Zazi case, the sharing of 

information, the connecting of the dots, simply did not occur 8 

years ago. But I am also concerned that complacency, that our very 

success in thwarting these attacks, could cause us to back off on 

the effort. The absence of large-scale attacks in the United States 

and our success in thwarting terrorist plots should not lull us into 

a false sense of security. 

We must not return to a pre-September 11, 2001, mentality. 

I look forward to discussing these critical issues with our witnesses today, and I thank you for your leadership. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Collins, 

for that statement. 

Secretary Napolitano, good morning. Thanks for being here, and 

we welcome your statement now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JANET A. NAPOLITANO,1 SECRETARY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator 

Collins, and Members of the Committee, for this opportunity to testify on the Department of Homeland Security and our actions to 

address these threats to our homeland. 

As Senator Collins just said, the threat of terrorism is always 

with us, but recent weeks have reminded us of the importance of 

our continuing work—the New York plot, Colorado plot, the Illinois 

plot, the Texas plot, by way of example. And I would like to compliment not only my colleagues here, but also the many men and 

women, in the Federal, State, and local governments, who have 

been working tirelessly on these and other efforts. 

These episodes have shown that the threat of terrorism can come 

from people in many different areas of the country with a broad 

range of backgrounds. And within this threat environment, the Department’s role is to build up our overall national capacity to 

counter any threat that may arise. 

Security from terrorism is a shared responsibility, and DHS is 

designed to strengthen our many layers of defense to address terrorism, to participate in and support Federal law enforcement action, but also to help build up the capacity of State, local, and tribal governments, particularly through information sharing. And, 

also, government cannot do it alone. We must engage communities. 

We must engage our international partners. We must have outreach as well as intelligence gathering in these efforts. 

Now, in terms of Federal law enforcement, the law enforcement 

components engage in a number of aspects of counterterrorism. 


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These include the Secret Service, Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Coast 

Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the 

Federal Air Marshals Service. They are our boots on the ground in 

terms of securing the aviation and marine sectors and also in terms 

of collecting data that can be shared with our law enforcement 

partners. 

We also are part of integrated Federal law enforcement approaches. For example, we participate in the Joint Terrorism Task 

Forces (JTTF) that are led by the FBI. 

Now, in terms of strengthening State and local law enforcement, 

we do this in a number of ways, but information sharing is particularly important in bridging the gap between the intelligence community here and law enforcement nationwide, helping law enforcement make sense of what they may see on the beat, and helping 

secure their communities against terrorist threats. 

We are in the process of realigning our own intelligence and 

analysis function to focus on meeting the needs of State and local 

partners and to strengthen our role in Fusion Centers, where Federal, State, local, and tribal law enforcement can meet and share 

threat-related information. 

We now have a Joint Fusion Center Program Management Office 

to help coordinate those efforts. And instead of keeping all of our 

intelligence and analysis function here in Washington, DC, we have 

deployed 70 analysts already to Fusion Centers. And all 72 Fusion 

Centers will have access to the Homeland Security Data Network 

by the end of fiscal year 2010. 

We have just announced a partnership for select Fusion Center 

personnel to access classified terrorism-related information from 

the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Secret Internet Protocol Router 

Network (SIPRNet) program, and my goal is for all Fusion Centers 

to be centers of analytic excellence, focused on law enforcement 

needs throughout the country. 

Now, in terms of working with communities and individuals, as 

I mentioned, communities share a responsibility to ensure that our 

country is not a place where violent extremism can take root. We 

have now a Violent Extremism Working Group to coordinate 

throughout the Department our actions on this issue, and particularly through our Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Section, we do 

important outreach work with communities such as Arab-Americans, Somali-Americans, and Muslim leaders. Within these communities, we are working to help preempt the alienation that many 

believe is the necessary precursor to violent extremism. 

We have engagement teams now active in eight metropolitan 

areas, and we also are working to help improve our cultural awareness and competency throughout the Department. 

Our Citizenship and Immigration Services Department is also 

providing assistance to organizations that aid immigrants. This is 

also part of increasing the capacity, the potential to reduce the 

alienation that so often can lead to violent extremism. And our 

Science and Technology Directorate is conducting research on that 

violent radicalization and informing partnerships with other countries in this regard. Indeed, I have had meetings with my colVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Mueller appears in the Appendix on page 158. 

leagues and many of our European allies who have also suffered 

from this same extremism. 

So as you can see, our Department’s actions are focused on building up all of the Nation’s rings of defense against any terror threat 

that arises. 

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I will be happy, 

of course, to answer any questions that you have. I have a more 

complete statement that I ask be included in the record of this 

hearing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Secretary Napolitano. Your statement and all the other witnesses’ statements will be included in 

the record in full. 

I just want to note in passing my appreciation for what you have 

done to strengthen and deepen the ties, the working relationship 

between your Department, the Federal Government, and State and 

local law enforcement. From September 11, 2001, we have all felt 

that we had a resource out there, hundreds of thousands of boots 

on the ground, if we brought them in and worked with them. And 

I think through the Fusion Centers and the deployment of your 

now 70 personnel from your intelligence unit, you have taken some 

very significant steps forward in that regard, so I thank you for 

that. 

Director Mueller, before I call on you, it is very rare that reading 

an indictment of someone makes me smile. But you probably saw 

this part, but I just want to mention it for the record. In the indictment of Mr. Finton, who is the individual, the lone wolf, who was 

planning to blow up the bombs near the Federal building in 

Springfield, Illinois, there are statements recorded by him where 

he is telling his co-conspirator, who turns out to be an undercover 

agent, all his anger toward America and this bomb that he is going 

to set off will not be, as he says, ‘‘as big as those on 9/11, but will 

be up there with 9/11.’’ 

And then in Section 57 of the document, he says, ‘‘Finton said 

that he had wondered at first whether this was all a set-up, but 

he knew it was not because law enforcement authorities in America 

were not that smart.’’ 

You had the last laugh on our behalf. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Director Mueller. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. ROBERT S. MUELLER III,1 DIRECTOR, 

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT 

OF JUSTICE 

Mr. MUELLER. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, and thank you, 

Ranking Member Collins and Members of the Committee, for having me here today. I am happy to be here with my colleagues Janet 

Napolitano and Mike Leiter to discuss the current terrorist threats 

to the homeland and our efforts to protect the United States from 

future terrorist attacks. 

The 8 years since September 11, 2001, have seen significant 

changes at the Bureau. While we remain committed to the criminal 

programs, including violent crimes, gangs, and white-collar crime, 


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we have shifted our priorities with national security at the forefront of our mission. Today, the FBI is a stronger organization combining greater capabilities with a longstanding commitment to the 

security of the United States while upholding the Constitution and 

protecting civil liberties. 

The nature of the terrorist threat facing the United States has 

also changed in the last 8 years. We still face threats from alQaeda and many of its affiliated groups and receive credible reports that they remain committed to attacking the United States 

and U.S. interests abroad. And while several factors have combined 

to diminish al-Qaeda’s core operational capabilities, we and our 

partners continue to monitor, collect intelligence, and investigate 

their reach into the United States. 

As both of you have pointed out, threats also come from self-directed groups not part of al-Qaeda’s formal structure which have 

ties to terrorist organizations through money or training. An example is the case that was in the news last week where individuals 

in Denver and New York were plotting to undertake an attack, and 

one of the individuals, as has been pointed out in that indictment, 

apparently received training in Pakistan and brought that skill set 

back to the United States. 

Since 2001, we also face a challenge in dealing with homegrown 

extremists in the United States. These individuals are not formally 

part of a terrorist organization, but they accept the ideology and 

wish to harm the United States. Often, that ideology is a result of 

their interest in what they see on the Internet. 

While the intent and capability of homegrown extremists varies 

widely, several FBI terrorism subjects with no known nexus to 

overseas extremist networks or groups have taken steps to move 

from violent rhetoric to action. An example already pointed out is 

the May 2009 arrest of four individuals for plotting to detonate explosive near a Jewish community center and synagogue in New 

York. And as Senator Lieberman has pointed out, they also 

planned to attack military planes at the Stewart Air National 

Guard Base, also in New York. 

And just last week, we arrested two individuals at various stages 

of planning activities to do harm within the United States, as you 

both pointed out, and a Dallas, Texas, individual was charged with 

attempting to bomb an office tower. A coordinated undercover law 

enforcement action thwarted this effort and ensured that no one 

was harmed. 

And, separately, a 29-year-old Illinois man targeting a Federal 

building was charged after attempting to detonate a vehicle bomb 

without knowing it contained inactive explosives. 

These cases illustrate not only the threats but the challenges 

presented by the self-radicalized homegrown extremists. They lack 

formal ties to recognized groups, making them particularly difficult 

to detect. 

Our mission at the Bureau is not only to disrupt plots but to dismantle networks so that they no longer pose a threat. And targeted 

intelligence gathering takes time, requires patience, precision, and 

dedication. It is a labor-intensive process that often does not provide a complete picture quickly, but it is the core of understanding 

the threats to the homeland, and it is a picture that was put toVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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1The prepared statement of Mr. Leiter appears in the Appendix on page 165. 

gether not only by us but with our Federal counterparts and without a doubt our State and local counterparts as well. 

Indeed, our partnerships are critical to protecting our Nation and 

its citizens here at home through our Joint Terrorism Task Forces 

and abroad with our legal attaches and international partners. We 

share real-time intelligence to fight terrorists and their supporters. 

We use eGuardian, a threat-tracking system, for State, local, and 

tribal law enforcement agencies which provides a central location 

for law enforcement suspicious activity reporting in an unclassified 

environment. Our local community outreach program, along with 

the DHS outreach program, enhances our efforts. And working 

closely with DHS, whether it be through the Fusion Centers, working closely with NCTC, and working closely with other intelligence 

community partners, we are engaging communities to address concerns and to develop trust in the Federal law enforcement intelligence agencies and our efforts to protect the homeland. 

In closing, the Bureau has long recognized that it is a national 

security service responsible not only for collecting, analyzing, and 

disseminating intelligence, but for taking timely action to neutralize threats within the homeland to prevent another terrorist attack. 

In so doing, however, we also recognize that we must properly 

balance civil liberties with public safety in our efforts, and we will 

continually strive to do so. 

Mr. Chairman, Senator Collins, Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today, and I also look 

forward to answering your questions. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Director Mueller. 

Our final witness is Michael Leiter who is the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. This is probably the least well 

known of the three organizations before us. Everybody knows about 

the FBI. Most people today probably know about the Department 

of Homeland Security. The National Counterterrorism Center is 

less well known, but plays a critically important role. It is a postSeptember 11, 2001, creation recommended by the 9/11 Commission and created by legislative enactment that I am proud to say 

came out of this Committee. It is really the place ultimately where 

the dots are connected. 

Interestingly, just for the record and for those who are here and 

listening and watching, NCTC reports to the Director of National 

Intelligence in its intelligence analytical work but, in its role as a 

strategic counterterrorist operational planner, reports directly to 

the President of the United States. 

Mr. Leiter, thanks for your work, and we will welcome your testimony now. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. MICHAEL E. LEITER,1 DIRECTOR, NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE 

Mr. LEITER. Thank you, Chairman Lieberman, Senator Collins, 

and Members of the Committee. Thank you for those very kind 

words about NCTC, and although I know that will do a great deal 


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to continue to bolster our already high morale, I will say none of 

us are ready to pat ourselves on the back for a job done. The job 

has, I think so far, been relatively well done with our very close 

partners, Janet Napolitano and Bob Mueller. But there is much 

work that remains. 

From our perspective, al-Qaeda is under more pressure today 

and is facing more challenges and is more vulnerable than at any 

time since September 11, 2001. But that being said, they remain 

a robust enemy, and although I believe we have done much to 

deter attacks and defend against attacks, attacks in the United 

States remain quite possible. Most importantly, al-Qaeda’s safe 

haven in Pakistan is shrinking and becoming less secure, complicating their ability to train and recruit people and move them within Pakistan. 

Al-Qaeda and its allies have suffered significant leadership losses 

over the last 18 months, interrupting training and plotting and potentially disrupting plots. But again, despite that progress, alQaeda and its allies remain intent on attacking U.S. interests at 

home and abroad. 

We assess that the al-Qaeda core is actively engaged in operational plotting and continues recruiting, training, and transporting operatives to include individuals from Western Europe and 

the United States. 

Three years ago, the British, with U.S. help, disrupted a plot in 

the late stages that could have killed thousands of people flying 

across the Atlantic. Two years ago the United States, working with 

the Germans, helped disrupt a plot that was also near execution. 

And I think, as has already been made clear by your statements 

and the statements of Director Mueller and Secretary Napolitano, 

the case of Najibullah Zazi again highlights the threat that we continue to face. 

Now, beyond what I refer to as ‘‘core al-Qaeda,’’ the group’s affiliates continue to develop and evolve, and many of these have now 

begun to pose an increased threat to the homeland. The affiliates 

have proven capable of attacking Western targets in their regions, 

and they aspire to expand operations further. 

In Yemen, we have witnessed the reemergence of al-Qaeda in the 

Arabian Peninsula and the possibility that it will become a base of 

operations for al-Qaeda. 

In Somalia, as has been mentioned previously, the leaders of the 

Somalia-based insurgent and terrorist group al-Shabaab are working with a limited number of East Africa al-Qaeda operatives. AlShabaab has obviously engaged in terrorist attacks against Somali 

Government and its supporters, including troops from the African 

Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). And although al-Shabaab’s 

rank-and-file fighters remain focused on removing the current government of Somalia by pursuing al-Qaeda’s agenda, we are particularly concerned with training programs run by al-Shabaab that 

have attracted violent extremists from throughout the globe, including the United States. 

In North Africa, al-Qaeda has expanded its operational presence 

beyond Algeria and has conducted more than a dozen attacks 

against Western interests in the region. 


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And in Iraq, although we assessed that al-Qaeda’s ability to attack beyond its borders has been substantially diminished, it continues to pose a force in the region. And although we have focused 

on al-Qaeda today, I think it is worth noting that in Pakistan, 

Lashkar-e-Taiba, an al-Qaeda ally, continues to pose a threat to a 

variety of interests in South Asia. The group’s attacks in Mumbai 

last year resulted in U.S. and Western casualties, and the group 

continues to plan attacks in India that could have major geopolitical consequences for the U.S. fight against terrorism. 

Again, as has been noted, here in the United States, homegrown 

extremists have sought to strike within the homeland since September 11, 2001, and although they have lacked the necessary 

tradecraft and capability to effect significant attacks, the recent 

events, again, point to the very real danger that they pose. 

It is this threat environment and the future threats that we discern that, as the Chairman noted, NCTC seeks to counter through 

our coordination responsibilities to the President. Our responsibility to all elements of national power, including diplomatic, financial, military, intelligence, homeland security, and law enforcement 

activities, goes to that responsibility to make sure that we have a 

synchronized effort against all of these threats. 

Now, there is a baseline strategy which covers four basic areas: 

Protecting and defending the homeland, attacking terrorist capabilities overseas, undermining the spread of violent extremism, and 

preventing the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). 

But rather than going through that plan, I would simply like to 

briefly highlight a few of the more focused efforts that we have undertaken, again, working with partners such as DHS and the FBI, 

to ensure these efforts are synchronized. 

In July 2007, at the White House’s request, NCTC, with our 

partners, created an interagency task force that looks at current 

threats and ensures that current defensive measures, domestically 

and overseas, are well synchronized. At the same time, this interagency group, including members of DHS and the FBI, looks at 

threats as they come into the center and determines whether or not 

new elevated measures are required. 

In response to last year’s attack in Mumbai, again, working with 

DHS and the FBI, NCTC formulated and facilitated exercises for 

State and local officials to respond to evolving terrorist tactics to 

ensure that they could, in fact, respond if a similar event occurred 

in their locality. 

On the front of combating violent extremism, we have attempted 

to coordinate efforts both domestically and abroad. In particular, in 

dealing with Somali-Americans, we have worked closely with DHS 

and the FBI to help take best practices from throughout the country and export those to other communities. 

And, finally, near and dear to budgetary hearts, we work closely 

with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure that 

programs, current programs and future programs are well aligned 

to these threats. 

In conclusion, and as I had opened, although I think the past 

months and years and the fantastic work of the FBI and DHS show 

that we have indeed, made progress, many of these efforts must 

continue and accelerate. 


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I do very much thank both you, Senator Collins and Chairman 

Lieberman, who we know affectionately as ‘‘the parents of NCTC,’’ 

for all you have done to enable some of the progress that we have 

made. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Director Leiter. I appreciate that 

very much. We will start the questioning and have 7-minute 

rounds. 

I want to ask a few questions coming off of the Zazi case. I understand that there is a limit to how much you can say about an 

ongoing investigation. Perhaps I should ask that question first. Is 

the Zazi case, Director Mueller, an ongoing investigation at this 

time? 

Mr. MUELLER. It is. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. And just to clarify, there has 

been some discussion in the media as to whether there remains an 

imminent threat related to the Zazi plot. 

Mr. MUELLER. We do not believe there is an imminent threat. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. And, Secretary Napolitano, I 

think it would be interesting if you take a moment to just tell us, 

to the extent you can, about the role or roles that various components of the Department of Homeland Security played in the investigation of the Zazi case. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, again, it is an ongoing investigation, and my comments will be limited by that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. But different components of the Department did play different roles. 

For example, CBP and TSA, now because they are in the same 

Department, are able to facilitate checking things like travel 

records, immigration records, and the names that are developed 

during the course of any investigation, and those names spill out 

to us, and we are able to very quickly pursue those names at that 

level. 

One of the most important roles was to provide State and local 

law enforcement, particularly through the Fusion Centers, with 

contextual information about even an ongoing investigation, and so 

I think we have now delivered or sent out at least 11 different 

products related to the Zazi investigation, to State and local law 

enforcement. 

The whole goal, of course, is creating this web between State, 

local, and Federal law enforcement, not just for this investigation 

but for other matters involving any type of terrorist activity. 

So those give you some sense of the dimension of DHS’s involvement, and literally dozens of our employees were involved. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I appreciate that. 

Director Mueller, I have tremendous regard for the FBI and the 

New York Police Department (NYPD). There were some news 

media reports about some disagreements between the FBI and the 

NYPD in the investigation of Zazi. I have had the occasion to talk 

to both you and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly about these, and 

I wanted, to the extent you are comfortable, just to ask you to respond briefly for the public record on that. How are your relations 

with the New York Police Department? 


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Mr. MUELLER. I believe our relations are exceptionally good, as 

good as they have been in a long time. I do believe the news media 

exaggerates issues that come up in any investigation. We talk ourselves, through our New York office, with NYPD. It is not just 

daily, but because we are embedded in each other’s shops, we are 

working closely together day in and day out. 

The New York Police Department has done a remarkable job in 

understanding the domain and allocating resources to address 

threats. And the relationship, I think, is as good as it has ever 

been at this juncture, and the exchange of information through the 

Joint Terrorism Task Force has been fulsome and enabled us to 

take the steps that we have taken to disrupt this latest threat. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I appreciate hearing that. As I said to you 

when we talked about this, I had occasion to be with Commissioner 

Ray Kelly of the New York Police Department. I asked him the 

same question, and he gave exactly the same answer. You are just 

two national treasures in terms of law enforcement and counterterrorism, and I am reassured to hear that you are working well together. 

Following the investigation and arrest of Zazi, the FBI and the 

Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin warning transit systems and railroads to be on the lookout for improvised explosive devices. That bulletin included recommendations such as increasing random sweeps and patrols for heightening security measures. 

I wonder, Director Mueller and Secretary Napolitano, how you at 

this moment today would assess the current threat to transit agencies, either specifically in New York or more generally around the 

country. 

Mr. MUELLER. I will speak with regard to the timing of this bulletin going out and say that there was no direct threat information 

in the course of this investigation as to a particular threat, or to 

the transit systems, in general. 

However, when you have an investigation and an activity that 

has gone as far as this, I believed it important that we identify 

vulnerabilities, and I will turn it over to the Secretary to follow up 

on that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is right. Because we did not have 

specifics about location, time, or target of any potential attack, 

what we were doing was providing a situational awareness, to use 

the Senator’s term, on an area that we know has been from other 

intelligence raised as a possibility for attack. And so it is all about 

leaning forward. It is all about thinking ahead. It is all about using 

the hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears we have out there in 

law enforcement, particularly in an environment such as this one 

where we did not have specifics. 

Mr. MUELLER. Could I add one other thing, Senator? 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Mr. MUELLER. And it goes to a certain extent, in the course of 

the investigation, you identify certain explosives, and as you identify those explosives and see how those explosives may have been 

used in the past on a subway system, that raises a red flag in 

terms of the possible use of the explosives that were being develVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00068 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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oped in this particular case, which then results in the generation 

of that warning. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Obviously, we have seen some evidence of a trend which is of al-Qaeda, and perhaps other international terrorist groups, attempting to recruit Westerners or people who live in Western countries, not just Zazi but the arrest and 

indictment 2 months ago of Bryant Neal Vinas from Long Island 

who traveled to Pakistan also and trained in an al-Qaeda camp and 

participated in an attack against the U.S. military in Afghanistan 

before his capture. 

I want to ask you, how concerned are you, any or all of the three 

of you, with this dimension of the al-Qaeda threat? And what, if 

anything, can we do to try to disrupt their use of Westerners to 

carry out attacks? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think it fair to say that all of us are concerned 

by it. For the last several years, we have picked up intelligence 

that al-Qaeda has made a concerted effort to recruit Europeans and 

Westerners, understanding that they can fly under the radar in 

terms of passing through border controls. And, on the other hand, 

the Internet, as I alluded to, is also a recruiting tool that initiates 

persons not contacted by anybody in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, 

but radicalizes people to the point where they reach out to get the 

training and fall into exactly what core al-Qaeda wants, which is 

additional operatives. 

Mr. LEITER. Mr. Chairman, I would say, over the past several 

years, travel of Westerners, particularly U.S. citizens, to either 

Pakistan or Somalia has been our single biggest concern. They obviously bring with them an understanding of our society which enables them to operate more easily here. They obviously do not have 

to go through the border controls that non-Westerners and nonU.S. citizens have to go through. And, clearly, simply the ability to 

go and travel provides them with a potential level of sophistication 

of training that they might not otherwise be able to obtain. So it 

is the issue at which we look closest. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you. Senator Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Leiter, let me start with you. Our Committee has focused a 

great deal recently on the threat of a terrorist group obtaining access to a biological agent that could be used in an attack, and we 

have introduced a bill to tighten the regulation of labs that may 

contain such pathogens as the Ebola virus, smallpox, or anthrax. 

The Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction has projected 

that it is more likely than not that somewhere in this world within 

the next 5 years we will experience a biological attack. 

What is your assessment of that threat? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I think the threat is very real, although, 

frankly, I am loathe to assign some sort of percentage as to the 

likelihood. 

I think with the spread of biological technology for good, it can 

also be used for nefarious means, and the sophistication of biological understanding is increasing exponentially across the world. So 

I think some of the elements of your bill, in fact, provide some very 

valuable measures to protect against some of those risks domestically. I think now that the Director of National Intelligence is proVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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viding some support with that bill, some technical assistance, and 

I think that is quite valuable. 

We have yet to see a sophisticated effort beyond core al-Qaeda 

on most of these biological weapons, and, happily, since September 

11, 2001, some of the work that has gone on in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan we believe has disrupted some of their most advanced efforts. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Director Mueller, in assessing the threat of homegrown terrorists 

in this country, we have always taken comfort in our tradition of 

integrating new populations—new immigrants—into our broader 

population. And we have contrasted the American experience with 

that in Western Europe, where immigrant groups tend to be more 

isolated and not assimilated. 

Two years ago, the NYPD testified before this Committee that 

this longstanding tradition of absorbing the diaspora population of 

other countries has protected the United States and retarded the 

radicalization process at home. 

Do we need to rethink that theory in light of what we have seen 

in the Somali community in Minnesota and perhaps in Seattle as 

well? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think much of what is said in terms of the fact 

that we are a Nation of immigrants, we are a part of the diaspora, 

puts us in a different place than, say, the United Kingdom and 

some other countries where there are more insular communities 

than you have in the United States. 

That being said, we do have some communities—you pointed out 

the Somali community that has been perhaps more insular than 

some others—that warrant greater outreach, efforts at assimilation, understanding, and education. But, for the most part, I think 

we do stand somewhat differently than other countries. But, again, 

we cannot be complacent, as you pointed out at the outset. 

I will also say that some 2 or 3 years ago—I think it was 2006— 

where in Canada they arrested approximately 15 or 16 individuals 

who were going to undertake an attack against the parliament, and 

that plot was well along. And so the extent that one thinks that 

it is individuals from insular communities that can undertake such 

attacks, that is not altogether true, believing that Canada is much 

like us, is a Nation of immigrants with the same type of combination of immigrant groups that generally seek to assimilate. 

So that was a warning that you cannot be complacent and rely 

on the fact that we have very few, I would say, groups that are insulated. 

Senator COLLINS. Some of the cases that we have referred to this 

morning involve individuals who appear to have been radicalized in 

prison, and the very first hearing that we did to look at homegrown 

terrorism examined violent radicalization within the prison communities. 

What is the FBI doing to try to identify radicalized prisoners and 

to prevent radicalization within prison? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, we work very closely in the Federal prison 

system to identify pockets of radicalization. The Federal prison system has a fairly substantial intelligence operation in the sense that 

it is not just radicalization but gang violence and the like. And so 


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utilizing those same capabilities to identify gang members and potential places of violence, we work with the Federal system, and 

then each of our Joint Terrorism Task Forces has as one of its responsibilities outreach to the State and local places of incarceration 

and to develop liaison and to keep track and to alert and educate 

those who are responsible for the State and local prison systems to 

be alert to this possibility and to let us know when there is that 

eventuality. 

Senator COLLINS. Let me switch to a different issue. We want to 

make sure that the FBI has the tools that it needs to be effective. 

In 2007, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG) revealed that there were problems in how the FBI had 

used one of its intelligence-gathering tools, the one known as National Security Letters (NSLs). And the IG found that in some 

cases the FBI agents did not understand or follow the required 

legal procedures when using the NSLs. 

What steps have you taken to ensure that there is better compliance? This is so important because, otherwise, Congress is likely to 

act to restrict the use of what may be an invaluable tool. 

Mr. MUELLER. As was pointed out in previous IG reports, we did 

not have a management system in place to assure that we were following the law or our own internal protocols—reports that began, 

I believe, in 2006. 

There is another class of NSL called an ‘‘exigent letter’’ that I 

will talk about in a second, but generally, in handling NSLs, what 

we have done is put in a completely different software package that 

leads agents through the process to assure that all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. 

Every one of our NSLs, as they are prepared in the field offices, 

are reviewed by the division counsel. Most importantly for us, we 

established a compliance department office. It would have been 

something recommended by outside attorneys to corporations that 

get into problems, but it was one that we needed where we identify 

those vulnerabilities in other areas and move to fix them before 

they are found by somebody else. And so those are three of the 

steps we have taken. 

There is still a report to come out which addresses the issue of 

exigent letters. The statute allowed us back then—still does—in an 

emergency to request from a communications carrier specific information. We, at that time, had issued those letters indicating that 

either a grand jury subpoena or other paper would follow. It did 

not follow our protocol. 

We have put an end to those letters as of 2006, but my expectation is there is another report that will say that particular individuals who are involved in this were not following appropriate management procedures. I will tell you it is my responsibility to put 

into place those procedures, and those procedures have been put 

into place. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. 

In this Committee, we call Members in order of their arrival 

without regard to seniority. By this calculus, Senator Kirk would 

be next, but he has asked to go last among the Senators. And I 


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would simply say that this respect for seniority will carry you far 

rapidly here in the Senate. [Laughter.] 

So we go to Senator Burris, then to Senator Tester, and then to 

Senator Kirk. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS 

Senator BURRIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, I did have an opening statement. I would like 

unanimous consent that it be submitted for the record and then go 

into my questions. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Burris follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR BURRIS 

Thank you Chairman Lieberman and Ranking Member Collins. 

Violent extremism does not threaten one nation, one race, or one religion—it 

threatens the entire world order. Combating this evolving threat therefore requires 

close collaboration between all levels of government, law enforcement agencies, and 

everyday citizens. 

I am eager to learn more about the anti-terror efforts being made at the highest 

level of government, but I am also looking forward to hearing about the efforts being 

taken at the ground level. We must continue to encourage our local governments 

and law enforcement agencies to work with communities to address potential 

threats and develop working relationships based on trust. After all, we are all working toward the same goal, and that is to secure our communities and make sure 

our homeland is safe. 

Today’s terrorists are not always easily identifiable and are utilizing more innovative means to carry out their destructive missions. This is no more evident than in 

the case of Michael Finton, a man from my home State, who was recently arrested 

after trying to set off explosives in a van outside a Federal courthouse in Springfield, Illinois. The case of Mr. Finton, who exhibited the typical ‘‘lone offender’’ characteristics, illustrates how far reaching the ideals of al-Qaeda and similar terrorist 

organizations have spread. 

It is my hope that we will be able to curb this type of activity in our homeland. 

I look forward to learning more about our progress from today’s expert witnesses, 

and I will have a few questions. 

Thank you. 

Senator BURRIS. My question would be directed to Secretary 

Napolitano initially in terms of your comment where you say that 

we want all the communities to be vigilant and try to help us identify some of this local domestic terrorism that is coming up. 

Madam Secretary, I just wonder, in terms of this young man that 

the FBI just caught in my State capital trying to blow up an Illinois Federal building, how do we reassure our communities that 

you all are doing what you can to catch these people and that fear 

does not set in that? It would cause just total chaos, especially in 

smaller communities. We take care of New York and we take care 

of Chicago. But I come from a small town of 14,000 people, 

Centralia, Illinois, and if they had a homegrown terrorist there, 

and they strike there, I think that would send panic throughout 

the entire country. 

So are we dealing with the first responders to train—how are we 

handling this, Madam Secretary? Can you help me out? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, Senator Burris, and the point you 

make is so vital. We cannot limit our efforts to a few urban areas, 

and so the Department’s responsibilities extend nationwide, urban 

and rural, throughout the country. And it is the Fusion Centers 

where we collocate Federal, State, and local law enforcement. It is 


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training that includes officers from departments large and small. 

It is exercises that cover both urban scenarios, and also rural scenarios and scenarios where you may have several events happen simultaneously, both in urban and rural areas. And it is also communicating that our security is a shared responsibility. No one Federal department can do it, no matter how good it is; that we need 

State, local, tribal, and territorial partners, and we need the citizenry to be involved as well. 

And when you do that, and when everybody recognizes it is a 

shared responsibility and that training, preparation, exercising, collocation, Fusion Centers, and all the rest are all happening, then 

they can address this issue out of a sense of preparation and not 

out of a sense of fear. And that is the way the Department operates. 

Senator BURRIS. Now, are we possibly having a resource problem 

when it comes to this? Because I am just trying to anticipate the 

magnitude that would be involved, and some taxpayers may say, 

this is a waste of money, this is a waste of time. But all it takes 

is one incident, one thing to happen. Oklahoma City really woke 

us up, but now we almost had another Oklahoma City in Springfield, Illinois, in my State capital. And thank God, I do not know 

how all of it was coordinated, but Mr. Mueller says that the FBI 

antiterrorist force was the one that set this thing up. So—yes, go 

ahead. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I am sorry to interrupt. But, Senator, 

yes, and Oklahoma City is such a powerful reference to me because 

I was the U.S. Attorney in Arizona at the time, and we were heavily involved in the investigation of Oklahoma City since a lot of the 

planning was done in our State. 

But to your point, it is really a sense of everybody leaning forward and not being complacent and recognizing that these events 

can happen anywhere in our country at any time; that there are 

those who ascribe to al-Qaeda who are in our country and have 

operational training, as Mr. Leiter just said; but there are others 

as well. 

And so every law enforcement department is vested in this and 

invested in this. Our job is to make sure that those investments 

are sound, efficient, and coordinated. 

Senator BURRIS. Which follows up on the other question, because 

we have to have so many agencies involved. Homeland Security has 

to let the FBI know something, or we have to let the local law enforcement officers know something. Is the coordination really 

there? Or are there other barriers that you all are running into 

that may seem to be and could be challenged or that Congress can 

help out with in order to try to clear the path with bureaucracy? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I will let my colleagues answer that question as well, because coordination is an easy word to say. It is a 

difficult thing to achieve. 

Senator BURRIS. Absolutely. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. But it is something that I think is much 

better than it was prior to 1995, when the Oklahoma City bombing 

happened; it is much better than it was prior to September 11, 

2001. And, indeed, things have happened even in the last 8 or 9 


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months that I think have even improved coordination. But it is 

something that we are always working on. 

Senator BURRIS. Director Mueller. 

Mr. MUELLER. If you look at the disruptions in the last 2 

weeks—Denver, New York, Springfield, Illinois, Dallas, North 

Carolina—every one of those cases was handled by the Joint Terrorism Task Force which has a number of Federal agencies represented and, most particularly and most importantly, in every one 

of those communities it has State and local agencies as participants 

in it. 

Senator BURRIS. Can you say whether or not it was originated 

with local or was it originated from the top? 

Mr. MUELLER. Some of the cases have been originated from the 

local and then brought to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. 

Senator BURRIS. OK. 

Mr. MUELLER. Others come from the community directly into the 

Joint Terrorism Task Force. There are a number of ways we get 

the cases. 

But one point you did make in terms of resources is important, 

and that is, with the budget woes that many communities have 

now, and police departments, there is a squeeze on in terms of 

manpower. We think it is tremendously important that we continue 

to have the participation of State and local law enforcement in the 

Joint Terrorism Task Forces, but it is becoming increasingly more 

difficult for a police chief to assign that officer. 

Senator BURRIS. Some of them are cutting back. They are laying 

off local law enforcement—— 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, and if there is one thing that I do think 

would be helpful, it is as monies are allocated from Congress 

through the Department of Justice that would be allocated to encourage State and local law enforcement to participate in Federal 

task forces, despite the budget concerns that the individual department might have. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, if I may on the coordination point. 

Senator BURRIS. Yes. 

Mr. LEITER. I think both the Secretary and Director Mueller are 

exactly right, that the coordination over the past month or 2 

months is markedly improved over just 3 years ago. 

The second point I would make is in terms of sharing information with State and local officials so they know what they should 

be looking for, although the press just picked up over the past 2 

or 3 weeks some of the information that was passed to State and 

local officials about some of the improvised explosives that might 

be involved in current threats, roughly those same products for 

State and local officials were provided more than a year ago—not 

based on what we are seeing here now today, but based on the integration of foreign intelligence, seeing what terrorists were doing 

overseas, taking those lessons learned, and providing them to State 

and local officials here. 

Senator BURRIS. That is terrific. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see 

my time has expired. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Burris. It just makes 

the point that we have talked about in this Committee—and the 

Springfield case does—that when you are dealing with lone wolves 


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and homegrown terrorism, every part of America is vulnerable. 

Naturally, we know that there is a higher probability that great 

metropolitan centers like New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and 

Chicago may be higher-priority targets for the terrorists, but, here 

you go in these cases, Springfield, Illinois, and Dallas, Texas. Now, 

Dallas, Texas, is a big city, but it would not probably be on anybody’s list of the top 10 targets for terrorism. 

So this speaks to the great importance of the national coverage 

that the Joint Terrorism Task Forces and the Fusion Centers and 

all the work that you are doing gives us. 

Senator Tester. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR TESTER 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not mean to disagree with your analysis of Senator Kirk’s deference, but being the 

most junior Senator not too long ago, my recommendation would be 

if you get a chance to jump ahead, do it. [Laughter.] 

I want to thank Secretary Napolitano and Director Mueller and 

Director Leiter for being here today. I was over at the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and so I apologize for being late. I very much appreciate the work you do in helping make this country more secure 

and as secure as I think it possibly can be. So thank you for that. 

Madam Secretary, good to see you again. I want to get at something you said in your written testimony. You stated that DHS is 

reinvigorating collaboration with the State, local, and tribal law enforcement. I think to be bluntly honest, I do not know if we are 

where we need to be yet. At least in Montana, I think that there 

is a ways to go. 

There is no doubt that in many Northern border areas our law 

enforcement up there are first responders because the reality is the 

Border Patrol cannot be everywhere, even though they try to be. 

Last year, the sheriff of Toole County, which is right up on the 

northern Canada border—right at the port of Sweet Grass, in 

fact—told the Committee that on any given week deputies from his 

agency assist Federal authorities in apprehending port runners, 

border jumpers, and locating undocumented foreign nationals. So 

the role of local law enforcement is critical. I think you know that. 

But that means that our local folks need to know what to look 

for. They need to know about drug smuggling. They need to know 

if the folks in Director Leiter’s office issue an advisory that relates 

to the Northern border. My understanding is that that information 

is not well shared between CBP and local communities. 

There is a Fusion Center in Montana. Unfortunately, it is 200 

miles away from the border in Helena, so it is difficult for local law 

enforcement folks to go to a 1-hour meeting at a Fusion Center 

when it is a 4 to 6-hour drive round trip, and sometimes longer. 

If you lose an officer in some of these small counties, like Phillips 

County, for an entire day, that takes a chunk out of your law enforcement duties. The Operation Stonegarden grants help alleviate 

equipment and overtime needs. We like those. But how can we actually improve intelligence sharing among local law enforcement 

areas when they are, frankly, in my opinion, as much a part of border security, or could be, as the Border Patrol itself? 


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Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Senator, and I totally agree 

with you that this is an evolving issue, and we do not rest on 

where we are, but we continue to work. 

Sparsely populated rural areas are some of the most difficult to 

cover because of long distances. And you are right. Sparsely populated areas typically have small economic bases, they have small 

law enforcement departments. They do not have a plethora of Federal agents there, so everybody has to work together. 

First, there is the increasing use of technology is going to help 

us bridge these gaps. For example, a secure video teleconferencing 

capacity so that people do not have to drive to meetings is something that we are improving and enlarging. 

Second, making sure that our own agents, as they are deployed 

in these border areas, have their own training and understanding 

this culture of sharing that we must have and are having their own 

outreach to local law enforcement. 

The third thing is to recognize—and I think it is good to explain 

the difference between a JTTF and a Fusion Center. A JTTF is 

really focused on terrorism and terrorism-related investigations. 

Fusion Centers are almost everything else. And some Fusion Centers are very good, very mature, others are not, but the whole concept of a Fusion Center is still a relatively new concept. 

Our plan is over the next years to really work with those Fusion 

Centers, concentrate funding on those Fusion Centers, recognizing 

the differences between one that is in a rural area and one that 

is in an urban area, and how it makes outreach to small towns. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you for that. I want to get to port modernization, which I am sure you knew we were going to talk about. 

Eight years ago in Montana, before September 11, 2001, those 

ports were secured, in the most loosest term, by putting down an 

orange cone. That was on September 10, 2001. Since that time, we 

have got gates. We are somewhat better off. But those have their 

holes also, as you well know. 

A lot of folks, including myself, have been asking for port modernization and how much that is going to cost. Frankly, we are 

looking forward to the answers to those questions on how that 

money is to be used by the CBP. And, quite frankly, we still have 

questions on some of the legitimate oversight. You know that. We 

still have questions that have to be answered. 

On this border it is critically important. There have been a lot 

of reports and there are a lot of folks up there that know that we 

need to spend some money on these ports. They are not doing a 

suitable job today under the threats we have—asbestos-contaminated wells. At one of the ports, you probably know, they detain 

the bad guys by locking them up in a bathroom. It does not meet 

21st Century threats. 

So I guess the question is that we are in the middle of a 30-day 

reassessment of those dollars. I have been told that those costs are 

going to come back lower than they were first as in April. I just 

think that it is important that we spend the money to match the 

threat. Let us just put it that way. Spend the money to match the 

threat. I do not think a cookie-cutter approach can be used at all. 

I think you have the people in your office who can determine what 

that threat is and how to deal with it. 


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I just want to know how that assessment is really changing the 

CBP ports and what you anticipate will be coming out of that 30- 

day assessment. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Thank you, Senator. Yes, because questions were raised, we put a 30-day assessment in there. And to give 

the taxpayers confidence that these monies were not being wasted, 

the press was characterizing these as $15 million for five-car-a-day 

ports, and that was not a correct characterization. These are not 

cookie-cutter ports, and they do have threats that they have to 

match. 

What I hope comes out of this is a fair and objective look at the 

planning that has already been done and the contracts that already 

have been let. If changes need to be made, obviously, to the extent 

we can, we will make them. But I will share with you, Senator, I 

have been through those northern ports now with a fine pencil and 

feel very confident that this review will overall show that these 

ports match the threats for the areas for which they are designed. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Well, I look forward to those reports, and 

hopefully we can get detail as far as how the money is to be spent, 

what it is to be utilized for, and, quite frankly, hope it will not be 

classified information and we know what those threats are. 

Just one last question, if I might, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sure. 

Senator TESTER. And I apologize. When I first got here, the input 

that we got, Director Mueller, was that the threats on the Northern 

border dealt with drugs and terrorism, mainly. The threats on the 

Southern border revolve around immigration. I think when you 

look at Canada, where 90 percent of their population lives within 

100 miles of the border, and the fact that you just talked about, 

I think 16 terrorists were going to do some damage to their parliament, I guess the question I have: Has that assessment changed 

at all over the last 3 years or 21⁄2 years as far as what the threats 

are and what we really need to focus on as far as those two borders? 

Mr. MUELLER. In my mind, that threat has always been there, 

and look back to when Ahmed Ressam, who came down from Montreal, was caught on the border coming in to Washington on his 

way to blow up the Los Angeles airport. And with the breathing 

of new life into al-Qaeda in the Maghreb and some of the communities not only in Europe but also represented in Canada, and the 

experience before with Ressam, that means in my mind that we 

have to be aware of the threats from the Northern border. As people tend to concentrate on the Southern border, we have to be 

equally aware of the threats on the Northern border. 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, and I appreciate that. I have always 

said that the border is only as strong as its weakest link, and we 

need to make sure that we secure it in a way that makes sense, 

not only to this country’s national security but also to the taxpayers of this country. So I appreciate that very much. I appreciate 

you guys being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the flexibility. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you, Senator Tester. Senator Kirk, 

it is an honor to call on you for questions for the first time. 


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Senator KIRK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to 

associate myself with other Members of the Committee who have 

given well-deserved salutes to the panel here this morning for all 

the work they have been doing improving this process of vigilance 

going forward. 

One of the questions that came up in the Zazi case, at least as 

I understand it, there was some speculation about Zazi and his associates having in mind densely populated, non-governmental entities like fashion week or sports stadiums and so forth—I was just 

wondering, as we head into the baseball league championship series and the National Football League is underway, is there some 

coordination, conversation with the league officers or their individual franchises with hints of difficulty; or even if there are not, 

that secure measures are taken in those densely populated venues? 

Mr. MUELLER. Whenever we get information relating to a possible threat to—it can be a State—collegiate football, National 

Football League, or other venues, baseball—that is passed on to the 

security directors of the various leagues, and it is coordinated. 

As I said, there is no imminent threat that we see at this juncture, but, again, as I stated before, we do not want to become complacent. But there is coordination with the league offices when we 

do get a threat. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you very much. 

A question on the Fusion Centers. In the testimony there are references to the densely populated urban areas, like Boston, or State 

of Massachusetts offices and so forth and a reference to sometimes 

the Federal judicial districts. 

Is the Fusion Center just a coordination of those various levels 

in sort of a task force? Or are we envisioning some sort of a new 

regional office when we talk about Fusion Centers? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator Kirk, Fusion Centers take many 

different appearances. The classic form of a Fusion Center is a collocated Federal, State, local, tribal—or territorial, if that is relevant—facility where not only do you have officers collocated, but 

you have access to databases and you have a certain number of 

State and locals who are cleared to receive some types of classified 

information. Some Fusion Centers meet that; others are, quite 

frankly, very small and very isolated, and, as Senator Tester indicated, perhaps not as able of receiving and getting the kind of information that we need. 

So as we now have decided—and this is a fairly recent decision— 

that the Fusion Centers will be the focus and a major portal 

through which we share information, particularly non-terrorist-related information, now we will work through the grant process and 

otherwise to make sure all of them reach a certain basic standard. 

Senator KIRK. Good. Thank you very much. The other question 

that I had is in terms of the outreach to communities in Boston. 

We have a significant Somali-American community, and without 

getting into any information that should not be disclosed—I understand it is sort of a proactive outreach. Is it more to encourage the 

members of those communities to fully understand their rights and 

responsibilities as American citizens? Is it that kind of affirmative 

outreach? Or is it basically intelligence gathering or a combination 

of the two? 


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Mr. MUELLER. When we talk about outreach, we talk about our 

special agents in charge. We have 56 of them around the country. 

They are not co-extensive with the 93 judicial districts, unfortunately—or fortunately. But there are 56 field offices, and each of 

our special agents in charge has a mandate to educate, meet, learn 

about, become friends with the members of the Muslim-American 

community, Arab-American community, and Sikh-American community so that the communities understand what we do and why 

we do it, and the efforts we spend protecting civil liberties and civil 

rights. 

We have a class that is a citizens academy in each of our offices 

where we will bring members of the community for a several-weeks 

course where one night a week we will explain various aspects of 

the Bureau. 

In the wake of learning about the travel of Somali youth to Somalia to participate in the actions there, we would make a specific 

concentrated outreach to that community through specialists, and 

that is far different than developing sources. This is an effort to 

educate, explain, and to have them understand our concerns in a 

way that makes them a partner with us in addressing the threat. 

Mr. LEITER. And, Senator, if I may, I think it really is worth noting, of the more than 100,000 Americans of Somali descent here in 

the United States, we are talking about literally minute percentages that have been drawn to the fight in Somalia and al-Qaeda’s 

messages—in the dozens at most, 20 or so. So I think it is particularly important. This outreach is very much designed not to develop sources, but instead to explain to them the rights of American citizens, ensure that they understand the immigration system, 

and ensure that they understand the dangers of their sons being 

associated with groups like al-Shabaab and what can happen to 

them. 

So it is really not meant to develop intelligence. It is much more 

to ensure that they do not become a group like some of the South 

Asian communities in the United Kingdom, isolated from the larger 

U.S. society. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you. Very helpful. I appreciate it. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much, Senator Kirk. 

Senator Levin, welcome. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome 

to Senator Kirk. We are delighted to see him here, and we will welcome him on the Armed Services Committee, more appropriately, 

since I am Chairman there. I am sure our Chairman here has already done the honors. 

Senator KIRK. Thank you very much. 

Senator LEVIN. Secretary Napolitano, first let me raise questions 

with you about the Fusion Centers. You have already testified 

about them. We have, I think, two of them now in Michigan, and 

the question is the funding. And you have indicated, I think in 

your last testimony, that we are going to make sure that we reach 

a basic standard through the grant process in terms of financial 

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ess does not guarantee a steady stream of funding for the Fusion 

Centers because there is a lot of competition for those grants. 

And so there is a real stress on the Fusion Center that we have. 

The one I am most familiar with is the Michigan Intelligence Operations Center, which is Michigan’s Fusion Center. We have State, 

local, and Federal agencies all represented there. But in terms of 

funding, there are some real problems in terms of future funding. 

How are you going to assure through a grant process that Fusion 

Centers are going to be adequately funded given the competition 

for dollars? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Senator, obviously we cannot provide a 

guarantee, but what we can do and are doing is steering the dollars 

that we have discretion over in the grant process to fund the things 

that we think should receive priority. 

Now, with respect to Fusion Centers, let me put on my former 

governor’s hat for a moment. Of course, every budget is under 

stress, and Michigan’s is under more stress than perhaps any other 

State. But they are a good deal from a law enforcement expenditure perspective in terms of basically the yield per officer, in terms 

of what you get particularly from a prevention standpoint. 

So we will have a very active outreach program with governors 

and mayors, and part of that is making sure they know what the 

Fusion Centers do and how they, really from a budgetary standpoint, are a very good expenditure of the limited dollars they have. 

Senator LEVIN. I hope you will really take a look at that. It 

should be a priority. Coordination is what has been so lacking over 

the years. I know everyone is making an effort to improve coordination, integration of information, and that is where it is done in 

terms of these assessments at a State and local level. So I hope 

that you will really pay some attention to that issue. 

On the operational side, where are operations coordinated? And 

here I will look to Mr. Mueller on this. We have task forces. Is that 

where operations are coordinated? 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. We have now, I think, 106 Joint Terrorism 

Task Forces. Represented on those task forces are the other Federal agencies in that area and the State and local law enforcement. 

Any threat information comes in, it is immediately investigated. 

And so it is a combination of intelligence gathering and then the 

immediate investigation to follow whatever leads there are about 

a potential threat. And that is where it is coordinated. 

Senator LEVIN. All right. Now, looking at the information side of 

this, is there one place where all information about potential 

threats is centralized now? Can a law enforcement person call one 

number and say, ‘‘Hey, there is a guy here at the border’’ or ‘‘We 

have just arrested somebody. What do we have on him?’’ Is there 

one place in this country with people from Customs, the Treasury, 

the FBI, Homeland Security, State police, and you name it, where 

all the information goes? 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, I would say that my friend to the left from 

the National Counterterrorism Center, who has access to all of our 

databases—— 

Senator LEVIN. No, not access to. Is there one database where 

somebody can make a phone call, a cop at a local level calls up and 

says, ‘‘Hey, we have got a guy’’? 


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Mr. LEITER. The answer is yes, Senator. A cop at a local level in 

Michigan or Connecticut or Maine or Massachusetts, a consular official checking a visa in Islamabad, a Customs and Border Protection agent, they type into their own computer and they will get information about that person, whether or not they are associated 

with terrorists. And if they have a question, they are going to pick 

up the phone—— 

Senator LEVIN. And that information comes to the NCTC? 

Mr. LEITER. That comes to the NCTC and is supported by the 

Terrorist Screening Center of the FBI. So, yes, there is one place 

that it all comes together at NCTC. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. With one phone number, that person gets all 

the information about that individual from all sources. 

Mr. LEITER. Correct. 

Senator LEVIN. Are there any missing pieces? Are there any 

sources that are not inputting their information into that single 

computer? 

Mr. MUELLER. There are no sources of information that the U.S. 

Government holds about known or suspected terrorists that are not 

there. 

Senator LEVIN. Secretary, did you want to add something? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. No. I would echo what Mr. Mueller said. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, going back to the Zazi case, I know, Director, you have commented on this, saying that it was overblown that 

there was any kind of disconnect between, I guess, the local police 

in that case and the FBI. Is that correct? 

Mr. MUELLER. I believe so. 

Senator LEVIN. Putting aside whether it was overblown or not, 

was there a problem? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, in every investigation, and particularly a 

fast-moving investigation, there are steps that are taken that may 

or may not work out. This is no different than any other investigation, and—— 

Senator LEVIN. Is there any procedural or structural failure at 

all here? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do not believe that there is a procedural or 

structural failure. There is one thing that happens in an investigation—an investigation never goes the way you want it to, and—— 

Senator LEVIN. I understand that, and I know you understand it 

better than I will ever understand it. Is there something that somebody should have done or not done? 

Mr. MUELLER. In retrospect, there will always be things that you 

would do differently, but—— 

Senator LEVIN. Is there a lesson to be learned—— 

Mr. MUELLER [continuing]. It does no good to—— 

Senator LEVIN. I understand. 

Mr. MUELLER [continuing]. Go and dissect—— 

Senator LEVIN. No. It does do good. We want to learn lessons. I 

am just asking. I know things are overblown. That does not mean 

there is nothing there. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. Is there a lesson to be learned? 

Mr. MUELLER. On this one, I do not think so. 


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Senator LEVIN. Good. That is responsive to my question, and that 

is all I needed to hear. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Levin. 

If you can put up with it, we will do one more round, which will 

be quick because there are fewer of us here. 

Let me go back to the question of infiltration of terrorists from 

abroad who come from the United States, and I want to deal with 

the al-Shabaab case. This is the most unusual case of the SomaliAmerican community in Minneapolis and elsewhere. We have had 

testimony here. Mr. Leiter, you are right, this is a very small fraction of that community. In fact, the community is feeling a combination of outrage, anger, and fear that this has happened. 

But this is an unusual case because they also seemed to be recruited to be part of the conflict over in Somalia. But, naturally, 

we are concerned that once they are there and involved in a terrorist group—which al-Shabaab does have ties, we had testimony 

here, to al-Qaeda and others—because they are American citizens 

and they have legal status here, they will be able to return to carry 

out attacks against us. 

Do you share that concern, Director Mueller? 

Mr. MUELLER. Absolutely. And not just with those who travel to 

Somalia but those who travel, say, to Yemen to maybe train, those 

who travel to the western part of Pakistan, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. We had the example of an individual by the 

name of Vinas from New York who was trained in the camps, 

and—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. In Pakistan? 

Mr. MUELLER. In Pakistan, but then participated in an operation, as I think you or others pointed out, in Afghanistan. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. I mentioned it, right. 

Mr. MUELLER. And then returned to the United States—well, actually was returned to the United States. But our concern would 

be the same. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Yes. So is there any evidence that there 

is any intention by al-Shabaab to send these recruits back to the 

United States for this purpose? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think at this juncture—I would defer to Mr. 

Leiter on this, but I think that we have seen some information that 

the leaders would like to undertake operations outside of Somalia, 

but no hard information or evidence that has been effectively pursued. And I would defer to him on whether he—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Do you want to add anything, Mr. Leiter? 

Mr. LEITER. I think Mr. Mueller is exactly right. There is alShabaab, and the leadership of al-Shabaab is clearly associated 

with al-Qaeda elements in Somalia. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. LEITER. And it is those al-Qaeda elements that we fear will 

push al-Shabaab members—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. To send people back. 

Mr. LEITER [continuing]. To change their focus. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And we are obviously watching that to 

the best of our ability. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, sir. 


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Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask a different kind of question, 

Secretary Napolitano, related to the Zazi case. The Homeland Security Advisory Council, as you well know, recently completed its review of the color-coded threat level system, and I guess I would ask 

you what your reaction to their recommendations is or where you 

are in the process of deciding what to do with that. But in regard 

to the Zazi case, I am interested in knowing whether at any point 

you considered raising the threat level in response to what we are 

learning about the Zazi plot, even perhaps for a particular region 

or sector—well, of course, once it became public, it was essentially 

raising the threat level. 

So I am interested in the extent to which the color-coded system 

was in your mind as you were learning about this really significant, and in some sense unprecedented since September 11, 2001, 

plot to attack the United States. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Two parts to your question. One is, yes, 

I did appoint a task force to review the color-coded system. It has 

been in place a number of years now, and it is time to take a fresh 

look. They have given me their recommendations. I am in the process of reviewing those. Then I will submit those into the interagency process and ultimately to the President. So that review is 

ongoing. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. And that is where it is right now. 

In terms of Zazi, we thought about it and rejected it, because we 

did not have in the Zazi investigation any kind of a specific location, time, threat that in our view would justify actually raising the 

color code. So it was contemplated and rejected, given the nature 

of the investigation and the nature of the intelligence that we had. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK. Good enough. 

Let me ask a final series of questions about how some of the people in these cases become radicalized, because obviously, to the extent that we are able, if we could figure that out, we try to stop 

it from happening or counteract it. 

Am I right that in Zazi’s case there is no evidence that he was 

radicalized when he came here 10 years ago or that he was sent 

here on a mission 10 years ago? 

Mr. MUELLER. I do not believe there is any evidence of that. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So that he became radicalized here. 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, much of his family resides in Pakistan, and 

he visited Pakistan, so I think it is—— 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good point. So I guess I would say he became radicalized after he came here in 1999, but it may well not 

have happened here. It may have happened over there. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, I think that is fair to say. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. So that may be a somewhat unique case 

because he was traveling—we do not have any particular information now, I gather, about whether he became radicalized in a 

mosque, over the Internet, here, or wherever. 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, at this point, because of a continuing investigation, I am hesitant to go into any more detail on it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. OK, understood. And in the case of Finton 

in Illinois, as was discussed with Senator Collins, there was a case 

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on. Is there evidence yet that he was radicalized in prison, or did 

that come later? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think, again, it is in the stages of litigation, but 

I do believe that the conversion and radicalization is principally attributable to that time that he was in jail. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Incarcerated. 

Mr. MUELLER. But there were probably other factors afterwards 

that continued to contribute to it. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. Obviously, that raises exactly the 

questions that you answered that Senator Collins raised about 

what prison authorities should be doing to try to deter that from 

happening. 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And in the case of Smadi in Texas, I gather he is a Jordanian citizen who came here on a student visa. 

Mr. MUELLER. I believe that he was in the United States on a 

B2 temporary Visitor Visa. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. And then he overstayed. Is that right? 

Mr. MUELLER. Yes, that is right. It expired in September 2007. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. But do we have any knowledge of what 

turned him into a bomber? 

Mr. MUELLER. I think with Finton and Smadi, as you say, the 

Internet played somewhat of a role, particularly with the one in 

Dallas. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. I know this is tough stuff, but 

what kinds of lessons can we draw about what possibly we can do 

to deter—I mean, we are talking about large communities here in 

which there are a very small number of people who become 

radicalized. How do we fight it? And do, for instance, the engagement teams that you are sending out fight it. 

Now, incidentally, as I told you the other day, Director Mueller, 

we had a hearing here earlier in the year with leaders of the Muslim American community, and I was interested and, I will tell you, 

surprised to hear that the Federal agency that they had the most 

extensive and, they thought, constructive relations with was the 

FBI, which is a tribute to your special agents around the country. 

But tell me about the engagement teams and whether you think 

they are having any effect on deterring the radicalization process. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Senator, these are teams that are 

sent out to have outreach in a way, as described by Senator Kirk, 

to talk to people about America, the rights, the liberties that people 

have here, the responsibilities that people have here, get to know 

them, get them to know us. 

One of the things we have learned from the United Kingdom, for 

example, is that alienation is a factor or an element that is present 

oftentimes when someone is in the process of becoming radicalized. 

And so to the extent that we can engage undercuts at least that 

feature of the radicalization process. 

We are really working with some of our partners such as the 

United Kingdom, who have had more experience with this kind of 

domestic radicalization than we have, to see what other practices 

that they have begun or started that we could profitably employ 

here. 


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Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good. Thank you. My time is up. Senator 

Collins. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

We have had a great deal of discussion this morning about the 

importance of coordination and information sharing. Obviously, a 

great deal of progress has been made, but there are some areas 

that are still rough and not perfect, and, Director Mueller, I want 

to ask you about one of those. The Justice Department’s Inspector 

General recently released a report on the FBI’s weapons of mass 

destruction (WMD) coordinator program, and the report found that 

even though the WMD coordinators are supposed to serve as the 

Bureau’s WMD experts in the field, many of them were unable to 

even identify the top WMD threats and had not received adequate 

training. According to the report, there was little interaction between the WMD coordinators and the intelligence analysts who 

compiled the WMD assessments. 

What is your reaction to the findings in that report and the recommendations? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, I think there are 13 recommendations, if I 

am not mistaken, in that report, and we have followed up on each 

of those recommendations. 

It must be 2 or 3 years ago that we established with the consent 

and approval of Congress a WMD Division and have stood that up 

from scratch, pulling the personnel from a variety of other divisions 

to focus on weapons of mass destruction. This is in part as a result 

of the anthrax attacks in 2001. 

And so it has some birthing pains as it grew, and what we now 

have throughout the country in each of our 56 field offices, I believe, is not only interested but educated and have professional persons who can address these particular issues. 

Whenever there is—and we still get a ton of them—an envelope 

with white powder, there is a response that brings in not only our 

experts but experts from DHS and other experts to find its way in 

response to that particular threat. Key to that are our personnel 

on the ground, but also key to it is being able to get back on a coordinated call with the experts in this field to decide what you are 

going to do in each step. 

So we have grown the division, the WMD Division. The recommendations that the IG made we have followed up on, and I 

think we still have a ways to go, but are doing much better in 

terms of response to any threat in the WMD arena. 

Mr. LEITER. And, Senator, if I may. 

Senator COLLINS. Yes. 

Mr. LEITER. Just to give you an anecdote of something that 

would have been, I think, unheard of before September 11, 2001, 

the FBI’s WMD operational component at headquarters is actually 

collocated with NCTC’s WMD analysts, who are collocated with the 

foreign operators and intelligence analysts who work on WMD. So 

they are literally side by side sharing that information. 

Senator COLLINS. That is terrific to hear. 

Mr. Leiter, you mentioned earlier the creation of the NCTC, 

which I always thought was the most important part of the 2004 

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ligence. And I really commend you and everyone who is working 

there for bringing our concept to life in such an effective way. 

I do want to ask you, because there was so much controversy at 

the time, how the authority to engage in strategic operational planning is working. There is no doubt that the other side of the shop, 

the sharing of information and having the analysts sit side by side, 

is working very well. But are you engaged in strategic operational 

planning? 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, we are, but I would agree with you, it is 

not nearly as advanced as the intelligence sharing that in many 

ways was an evolutionary responsibility; whereas, the strategic 

planning responsibilities are really revolutionary since they cut 

across all departments and agencies and are a direct report to the 

President. 

What it requires, because of the way in which the law is written, 

without a command authority—which I think is quite appropriate—is a true partnership. And what I have seen over the last 

8 months with the change of the Administration is a new set of 

eyes and new approaches from people who may have not been as 

wedded to doing things the old way and an appreciation that there 

must be slightly stronger synchronization of activities across the 

worlds of law enforcement, homeland security, but also diplomacy, 

military, and so on. 

So the planning is going on at a high level strategically. It is 

going on at a more granular level, as I said, in helping to ensure 

that our outreach efforts both domestically and overseas are speaking to the challenges we see in some of our Somali population, and 

then all the way down to the budget level to make sure those programs are well aligned. 

Senator COLLINS. I hope that you will keep in close touch with 

this Committee on that issue. 

Let me just ask one final question of all of our panelists, and it 

is a variation of the ‘‘What keeps you up at night?’’ question, which 

the Chairman is very fond of asking our witnesses. But let me 

make it more precise. 

What gaps in our knowledge or our capabilities concern you the 

most? We will start with you, Madam Secretary. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, thank you. I was going to say what 

keeps me up at night is preparing for hearings. [Laughter.] 

But I think I want to go back to Senator Levin’s question about 

is there one number you call where you can get all relevant information. Our ability to do that I still think is in the developmental 

stage. I think that for any well-trained law enforcement official, he 

knows several places to call which will get him to the right answers. But in some instances there may be classified information 

that cannot be shared. In some instances the information may be 

spread among different departments still. 

So our ability to really not only collect information but to fuse 

it is really part and parcel of where the Department is moving so 

you have that direct connectivity with an officer on the street. 

Right now I think officers on the street or State police officers 

may know to call the JTTF, they may call a Fusion Center; they 

may call the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, DC. 

They know to call somewhere, that somewhere someone can get 


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them to the right information. But the whole business of fusing 

consolidation and making sure that we have streamlined this as 

much as possible given that some information will have to remain 

classified is, in my view, still a work in progress. 

Senator COLLINS. Mr. Mueller, gaps in capabilities or knowledge? 

Mr. MUELLER. Well, my greatest concern still is the ability of alQaeda to use western Pakistan and Afghanistan as a sanctuary. To 

the extent that I worry, and do, about a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of a terrorist, it is that orchestrated out of that 

sanctuary there will be the capability of either developing or obtaining a weapon of mass destruction. 

If you look at the most serious case we have had recently, which 

is the Zazi case, it was training in Pakistan that gave him the 

capability of undertaking the attack. And the ability to obtain intelligence, to reduce the threat from that area is, in my mind, absolutely key to protecting the homeland. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Leiter. 

Mr. LEITER. Senator, I think what keeps me up at night, the capability that is a challenge, is that in a country of more than 300 

million people, where the overwhelmingly vast majority finds terrorism abhorrent, how do we as a team locate those one, two, 10, 

or 20 who feel differently? And how do we do that in a way that 

is not invasive of those other 300 million plus? And how do we ensure that you as a Congress and those 300 million plus people have 

sufficient trust in our organizations that we can do this with a 

level of secrecy so it is not played out in the press but individuals 

like yourself and others in the Congress and the public believe that 

we are not inappropriately invading their privacy and their civil 

liberties in a way that should not be done. 

Ensuring that we can strike that right balance remains a challenge, and I think even 8 years after September 11, 2001, remains 

a very significant one. 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you for that very thoughtful response. 

I think the issue of the lone wolf, the individual who has been 

radicalized perhaps using the Internet, is so difficult for us to deal 

with, and I commend all of your efforts and the progress that you 

have made. Thank you. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Collins. Senator Levin. 

Senator LEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What is going to keep 

me up tonight is a number of things, but one of them will be the 

difference in the answers that I received to my question from you, 

Secretary Napolitano, and you, Director Leiter, as to whether or 

not there is a place where all information concerning potential terrorists or people who might threaten us is accumulated and can be 

given promptly to, immediately to somebody who is in law enforcement who has arrested somebody. We all know the story of what 

happened before September 11, 2001, where the CIA had information it would not share with the FBI. I know we are way beyond 

that. I hope we are way beyond that. 

But talking about fusion, now there is some confusion because—— 

Mr. LEITER. And if given an opportunity, I would be happy to 

clarify. 

Senator LEVIN. Yes, let me give you that opportunity. 


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Mr. LEITER. Senator, I tried to phrase my answer quite precisely, 

which is there is one place in the U.S. Government where all information about known and suspected terrorists comes, which is the 

National Counterterrorism Center, which is subsequently shared 

with the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center. So if any one of those 

screeners come across someone and they have a question, they 

should know to call the Terrorist Screening Center, and, in fact, 

that data will be held at NCTC, and they will be able to provide 

information to that police officer or consular official. 

What I think Secretary Napolitano said, and which I would agree 

with wholeheartedly, is really two challenges. One, ensuring that 

the police officer on the beat understands that system and knows 

to whom to turn, which is different from asking whether or not 

there is a place within the U.S. Government where all that information resides. It is reaching that last tactical mile to ensure there 

is an understanding and a streamlined way in which it can be 

done, and that police officer or that port official understands that. 

The second piece that I think is equally important, Senator, is 

that my organization holds statutorily that responsibility to hold 

information about known and suspected terrorists. The U.S. Government, ranging from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to the 

Department of Homeland Security and every other acronym that 

we have here in Washington, DC, holds other data. What we do not 

hold is all of that data together. Is there a piece of data out there 

at DHS or at the IRS, for that matter, that might in some way be 

a bit of data that relates to someone that we do not yet know is 

a terrorist? Absolutely. 

Senator LEVIN. Well, obviously, there is. 

Mr. LEITER. And that is a challenge. 

Senator LEVIN. I can see that, but as soon as it does relate to 

an individual, presumably it is sent to your Fusion Center. 

Mr. LEITER. That is correct. 

Senator LEVIN. I do not understand, then, your answer as to how 

that answer is the same as Secretary Napolitano’s answer, which 

is that—we better get to Secretary Napolitano. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Well, Director Leiter and I spend a lot of 

time together, so I think our answers are very consistent. 

Senator LEVIN. Good. Try your answer again. What is missing? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. What I am saying, Senator, is the process 

of training and attuning all law enforcement, no matter what level 

or where located, about where to call or where to go is still ongoing 

and is one of the functions, I think, or one of the great things that 

will happen when, as the Fusion Center concept develops, whatever 

it is, you will have something right there that everybody knows at 

least to call there. 

But I will share with you that the hypothetical you raise, someone at the border who comes in, those screeners are going to know. 

Senator LEVIN. I said the cop on the street. I said, Is there a 

number he can call where all the information that is known about 

a particular information has been centralized? That was my question, and the answer I thought was yes coming from Director 

Leiter, and I thought that you said we have got quite a ways to 

go in that regard. I understand that maybe there are some law enVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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1The information submitted for the record from Secretary Napolitano in responses to questions from Senator Levin appears in the Appendix on page 189. 

forcement officers out there who are not aware that they could call 

that number. That is just a matter of educating every—— 

Mr. LEITER. The beauty of the system, Senator, is it is transparent to that cop on the street. When that cop—— 

Senator LEVIN. That was not my question, whether it is transparent. My question is: Is it complete? Is all the information that 

all the agencies have about individuals who might constituent a 

threat to this country filtered or supposed to be filtered into that 

one number? That was my question. 

Mr. LEITER. All of the information about known and suspected 

terrorists is held by the National Counterterrorism Center. 

Senator LEVIN. And it is supposed to all go there and all the 

agencies know it. 

Mr. LEITER. Correct. 

Senator LEVIN. Maybe every police officer does not know to call 

that number, but every agency—State, local, Federal—knows all 

information about potential threats to the United States is supposed to go to that central place. 

Mr. LEITER. Correct. 

Senator LEVIN. Now, is that true? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. That is true. The National Counterterrorism Center holds the raw data, and so a trained police officer 

ought to know either to call there or to call his local Fusion Center 

to get connectivity there. 

Senator LEVIN. That is fine. That is what you said, too, Director 

Leiter. He may not know to call there, but if he knows to call there, 

it will all be there. 

Mr. LEITER. Yes. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes. 

Senator LEVIN. OK. Well, I think I have a minute left, so let me 

just ask a question about these demonstration projects. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. A minute and a half. 

Senator LEVIN. These international interoperable demonstration 

projects, Secretary. I have forgotten how many, like four or six we 

have funded. Do you know the status of those cross-border projects 

between us and Canada and us and Mexico? We have these demonstration projects which apparently are somewhere in the works. 

Do you know what the status is of that? And if not, would you give 

us that for the record? 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. Yes, we will. 

Senator LEVIN. And, also, if you would, Madam Secretary, for the 

record—you indicated that there are some discretionary funds that 

you could steer to the Fusion Centers, and if you could for the 

record identify what those sources are. 

Secretary NAPOLITANO. I would be pleased to do so.1

Senator LEVIN. Thank you all. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks, Senator Levin. 

Since Senator Collins asked a variation of my ‘‘What keeps you 

up at night?’’ question, I want to exercise the prerogative of the 

Chair and ask you a quick question, which is in terms of what we 

can do to help you further. 


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Is there one thing that we can do that you need, either by way 

of additional statutory authority or resources for a particular program that we are not supporting now that would assist you in the 

work of counterterrorism that you do? Mr. Mueller. 

Mr. MUELLER. I will leap into the fray and say, yes, the PATRIOT Act is going to be debated. I know it has been—those provisions have been very essential to us, particularly the first two 

which relate to the business records provision. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Right. 

Mr. MUELLER. And, second, the roving wiretaps. And a third, 

while it has not been used on lone wolf, it will be and is important 

if we get the similar situation that we had with Moussaoui in 2001. 

So I would urge the reenactment of those provisions. 

I also would make a point in terms of National Security Letters. 

Our success and our information is in large part attributable to the 

information we can gather not of substantive conversations but of 

the telephone toll data that we obtain by reason of National Security Letters. And so it is really retaining these capabilities that is 

important. 

The other point that I did make, tried to make, and that is, in 

terms of continuing the vigilance and the participation of State and 

local law enforcement on the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in a time 

where their budgets are being hit, I would encourage as Congress 

and the Administration allocate monies to State and local law enforcement, that it is done as an incentive to participate in that 

which is very important to the national well-being but not so important when the police chief is more concerned about violent crime 

on the streets. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Sure. That is very helpful. To me it is 

very significant that your first answer was about the PATRIOT Act 

reauthorization and then the National Security Letters. I hope our 

colleagues will keep that in mind. 

Secretary Napolitano. 

Secretary Napolitano. Well, I would add to Director Mueller that 

supporting funding that assists not just the JTTFs but the Fusion 

Centers as well. 

And then to build on something that was mentioned earlier, we 

call it homeland security, but homeland security begins in many instances abroad. And particularly what happens in Pakistan and Afghanistan is a source for many of the threat streams ultimately 

that we are expending resources on, there is an impact here in the 

homeland. 

So really commending that understanding, that homeland security does not actually start at the borders of the United States. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well said. Mr. Leiter. 

Mr. LEITER. Mr. Chairman, two quick areas I would say. First, 

continuing to enable the softer elements of national power domestically and overseas, so we have the diplomatic corps and the foreign 

aid, so you can get to these areas and try to undermine the spread 

of violent extremism before it occurs. 

Second, more theoretical and less tangible, something you cannot 

put into a law, but continue to urge, as you always do on this Committee, to approach counterterrorism with a truly bipartisan spirit. 

Really, the fact that Mr. Mueller and I served in the Bush AdminVerDate Nov 24 2008 12:04 Nov 01, 2010 Jkt 049640 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 P:\DOCS\49640.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: PAT

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istration and serve now today I believe is testament to the fact that 

it matters not what party you are. Certainly Zazi or any of these 

other fellows we have been talking about would not have cared 

whether or not they were Democrats or Republicans in charge. And 

what we do is in almost every instance nonpartisan anyway. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. That is a very important statement. A 

perfect one to end on. We try our best to reflect that attitude of national interest first on this Committee, and generally speaking on 

these matters, I think that is reflected throughout the Congress. 

I thank you for the time you have given us. I come back to my 

thanks to you at the beginning for the extraordinary progress I 

think we have made in the 8 years since September 11, 2001, but 

we know that we have a patient and persistent and fanatical 

enemy out there, and it is going to be a long time before we can 

really declare victory here against this particular enemy. 

Senator Collins, would you like to say anything? 

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. You said it well. 

Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you very much. 

The hearing record will be kept open for 15 days for additional 

statements or questions. The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 


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