‘Sudden jihad syndrome’ poses domestic risk

Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced "sudden jihad syndrome" in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., a law-enforcement intelligence analysis says.

The Dec. 6 report by the Texas Public Safety Department's Bureau of Information Analysis warns officials not to dismiss individual or homegrown terror cells as "wannabes," saying they pose a credible threat to homeland security.

"Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism," said the report, which was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement in Texas. "As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism."

It said they might act with the intention of eventually joining al Qaeda or the jihad movement overseas.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, cited al Qaeda theorist Abu Mu'ab al Suri's book "Call to Global Islamic Resistance," in which Mu'ab al Suri noted that the future of al Qaeda terrorist fighters will depend on individual and small-group terrorists.

The intelligence analysis says homegrown groups are not purely "domestic," as their ideology is similar if not exactly like those of international terrorist groups, and cited examples such as the "Lackawanna Six." The six Yemeni-Americans who traveled to Afghan-istan before the September 11 terrorist attacks and attended the al Farooq terrorist training camp pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges.

It also cited the "Liberty City Seven" terrorist cell of Miami that planned to use explosives to bring down the Sears Tower in Chicago and then blow up the FBI field office in Miami. The group members were all U.S. citizens who adopted a global jihadist strategy.

The report includes several examples of people with "sudden jihad syndromes," such as Ali R. Warrayat, a Palestinian-Jordanian Muslim who drove his car into an Arizona Home Depot with the purpose of destroying the store and those inside it. The suspect said he would wear a Palestine flag but later decided to place the flag and a copy of the Koran inside his trunk.

Charles Bishop (Bishra), the 15-year-old boy who crashed his airplane into a Tampa, Fla., office building, also was mentioned.

"Before the crash, the boy had written a note claiming that the act was deliberate and that he supported Osama bin Laden," the report said. "Those who knew him have stated he was very much a loner."