As investigators try to determine whether Faisal Shahzad's attempted Times Square bombing was tied to the Pakistani Taliban, officials are sounding a larger alarm. If it's true, the attack shows a terrorist group that has shifted its regional focus in South Asia towards American targets.
It isn't the only example.
Rhetoric from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) indicates that the group has also shifted emphasis from attacks in Yemen and Saudi Arabia to a sharp focus on hitting America. In addition, these groups have adopted a terror strategy that is more difficult to detect and shut down.
That's the conclusion of a recent report by the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), reviewed by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. It traces messages in Sada al-Malahim [The Echo of Epic Battles], AQAP's magazine. In the October 29, 2009 issue, the group began moving away from Saudi and Yemeni government targets that it has pursued for years. AQAP leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi recommended that individual jihadists expand their attacks on the West using any possible means, including household items and knives, and target the "airports of the Western crusader countries… or in their aircraft, residential compounds or in the train tunnels, etc."
This declaration immediately preceded the attack on Fort Hood, embodying the new method of lone jihadists that had been recently emphasized by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Furthermore, the Fort Hood terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan expressed a close connection with and respect for Anwar al-Awlaki, an AQAP leader who had claimed to have advised Hasan to carry out the attack. U.S. officials fear there are dozens of Americans who have traveled to Yemen for training or have been in contact with Awlaki.
