ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Right Side News
11February2011 8:41amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Two days after a panel took to Capitol Hill to say the terrorist threat 
to America is overblown, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House committee Tuesday that "the terrorist threat to the homeland is in many ways at its most heightened state since 9/11."
That threat comes from homegrown terrorists ready to strike with "little or no warning," she said.
Islamist groups including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, al-Shabaab and branches of al-Qaida are driving the threat, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter added. "I actually consider al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, with Awlaki as a leader within that organization, probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland," he said.
Both officials said the problem reflects on only a tiny portion of the Muslim-American community.
A similar theme was emphasized during a forum Monday sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). But the rest of "Muslims, Law Enforcement and National Security" offered a tutorial on how not to have a serious discussion about the homegrown terrorist threat. Panelists mired themselves in platitudes and use of misleading statistics to downplay the threat to the United States. They relied on data from faulty studies and featured witnesses who have downplayed the threat of radical Islamist groups. (read full report)
