Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: What if...

Moses: Thanks for these excellent submissions. Alas, Mwalimu Bangura will either escape from this thread into the welcoming arms of Gbagbo and Gadhaffi or find a way to recast spectres of Islamist terrorism, especially in Africa, as 'contextualizable' Afrikan terrorism with a k. Once he successfully smuggles in the K that functions for him like the blood of Jesus, cleansing and making everything whiter than snow, mountains of corpses and rivers of blood become justifiable in every circumstance. Notice that wily rhetorical strategy: he makes the woman ask him very carefully about a negligible minority of Muslims - "small number" - involved in terrorism. Nonsense. Unfortunately for Bangura, I don't live in the US and that spares me the compulsory recourse to the hypocrisy of political correctness or all that rubbish about being sensitive to anybody's feelings in the context of discussions about terrorism. It is precisely that American compulsion to sensitivity that allows the Banguras of this world to get away with infuriating strategies and politics of attenuation, when they are not trying an outright insulting evasion. So, I ask: what kind of nonsense small number is our friend, Bangura, talking about? Al-Qaeda is small number? The Taliban is small number? Our friends in the warrens of Lahore and the madrassas of Peshawar are small number? Has Bangura been to northern Nigeria? The Almajiri Islamist terrorists responsible for our annual national yam festival of blood and genocide - those folks who massacre Christians and non-Moslems in the northern when European cartoonists mock Islam - look like small number to Bangura? What part of the history of postcolonial Nigeria informs Bangura that our annual ritual of Islamic terrorism in the north happens in reaction to Western precedence and provocation? Small number my foot! Pius --- On Wed, 4/5/11, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote: From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: What if... To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Date: Wednesday, 4 May, 2011, 15:40 Mensah, that's a good question to pose to Abdul. I hope he doesn't come back with the tired, insulting, Mazruist rhetoric of Arab slavery and violence against Africans being of the benign, integrationist type. He claims to be a student of history, but where does that history start? From the Crusades? From Alexander the Great? From Rome? From the 15th century period of European (Christian) imperial ascendance? From the beginning of Islam in 7th century Arabia? From the beginning of Islamic imperialism represented in succession by several Islamic Caliphates/empires in the Middle East and South Asia? From the brutally imperious Ottomon Islamic Empire? Where do we start the accounting in order to locate the original sin, offense, or provocation? This simplistic, politically correct and lazily repeated canard about originary Western provocation justifying or explaining Muslim terroristic response is both ahistorical and reductive. And since Abdul brought up the subject of Muslim and African victimhood, let me say that: 1. The imperial, "terroristic" (to stay faithful to Abdul's semantic template) expansion of Islam from the Arabian peninsula into North and Northwest Africa victimized millions of Africans--Christians and traditionalists. 2. The successive Caliphates, beginning with the Umayyads, brutalized and victimized peoples of many races and religions in Africa, Asia, and Eurasia BEFORE the often cited age of European imperial ascendance in the 15th Century. In other words, Arabo-Islamic imperial "terrorism" could be read as having provoked the age of Western imperial "terrorism" if we adopt this simplistic and pedestrian explanatory model of equating chronology with causality. 3. The Ottoman Empire, the most powerful, longest lasting, and biggest Islamic empire of them all was a brutal machine of mass murder, imperial "terrorism" forced conversions, genocide, and in some cases, and wanton decimation. The victims of the Ottoman Empire's imperial violence (or terrorism) included Africans--both Muslim and Christian, Europeans, Christians, Muslims, Arabs, Persians, Indians, etc. All empires--Christian, Muslim, secular--have victims. You can't have empires without victims. On the one hand folks like Abdul want to rave about the glorious achievements of the medieval "global" Muslim empires but they won't even acknowledge the multi-racial and multi-religious victims and victimhoods produced by those imperial accomplishments, preferring instead to construct a simplistic narrative of European imperials as villains and Muslim victims. It is the intellectual equivalent of eating your cake and wanting to have it too. My point is this: A rhetoric that justifies or explains the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists in the present by simply referencing the terrorist imperial activities of Westerners is at best incomplete and at worst an ahistorical and dishonest refusal to acknowledge other originary terrorisms perpetrated by Islamic imperial formations--which, like Western imperial terrorism, victimized a diverse group of peoples, races, and religions. To the extant that we cannot justify or explain the Crusades and subsequent European imperial adventures as having been simply a response to or a "fight back" against prior Islamic imperial adventures, this banal rhetoric of political correctness and of refusing to properly name and delegitimize Islamist terrorism is void. Bottom line: it is an unhelpful, dead-end exercise that illuminates nothing.  On the related question of whether terrorism--however defined or practiced--is prohibited or not by the canons and revelations of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, I disagree with Abdul's take that the Holy books forbid terrorism or acts that can be construed as terrorism, especially if he means that these texts conclusively, unequivocally forbid them under any and all circumstances. There are clearly verses in the Quran, the Hadith, and the Sunnah that call for violence, even unprovoked, nihilist violence, against unbelievers. The relevant question is whether or how these verses are weighted against other verses in the same cannons that unequivocally condemn gratuitous violence against unbelievers (Christians and other non-Muslims) and even urge love toward the "people of the book." Another question is who constitutes an "unbeliever" and in what circumstance is such a designation warranted? There are many issues to consider: 1. Can the verses calling for violence and "terrorist" activities be realistically or even theologically detached in interpretive terms from the circumstances in which they were revealed? Some interpretations disregard the modern applicability of these violent verses or interpretively contextualize them as reflecting the state of the Muslim Ummah in 7th Century Arabia at a time when Islam was persecuted and was under threat from the traditional religious establishment, necessitating a flurry of revelations that explicitly call for violence against unbelievers because rapprochement seemed impossible and only aggression could have saved the young faith. Fast forward to the later revelations given when Islam was on secure ground, and was growing and expanding through imperial conquest and conversions. The verses and injunctions become decidedly more conciliatory and less violent, urging the accommodation of subordinated peoples and respect for the religions of subject peoples who would not convert. That tells me two things: that the context in which these verses were given should be factored into any comprehensive effort to interpret them for today's Muslims and that the Quran, like all other holy books, has to be read with a sense of history, circumstantial transitions, and in light of the prevailing order in a given epoch. To insist on interpreting verses across time and space and without a sense of revelatory transitions as the extremists do is to adopt a literalist approach to exegesis in order to justify a prepackaged agenda. 2. This all brings up the question of who exactly is an "unbeliever" as contained in the many verses in the Quran, Hadith, and Sunnah urging violence against "unbelievers."  3. Understandably, extremists are drawn toward an interpretations that understand the "unbelievers" in these verses to mean Christians and non-Muslims in all ages and everywhere while pragmatic Muslims insist on interpreting "unbelievers" in much narrower semiotic and contextual purviews. 4. Is one interpretation more valid than the other? Not necessarily. Interpretive conventions shift along with intellectual, economic, and political events and certain interpretations gain or lose currency depending on the state of mind or state of being of Islamic societies and depending on the age in which Muslims live. 5. There is always an ebb and flow to how moderate or extreme or intolerant interpretive conventions increase or decrease in appeal. In moments of insecurity and crisis, literalist interpretations and interpretations that discountenance temporal and spatial contextual mitigations tend to find more appeal, and vice versa. Bottom line: It's all in the interpretation, who is doing the interpretation, and why they prefer one interpretive convention to another. The Bible, especially the Old testament, contains verses that can be read and have been read as a manifesto for terrorism, racism, and slavery, and violent imperialism. Even the ascendancy of Christian Europe to power and stature after the Enlightenment did not stop the proliferation of extreme Biblical interpretations. It took the convergence of multiple modernist forces and influences and the revulsion of Christians themselves for extreme interpretations to be discarded for moderate ones that are compatible with the realities and pragmatics of the modern and postmodern world.  It is therefore infinitely more productive to focus on why and how certain extremist interpretations persist and gain currency and become ideological manuals for terrorism than to engage in the escapist, defensive, and politically correct game of repeating the empty statement that the holy books forbid terrorism, which fails to explain why and how terrorism in the name of God has found appeal through many epochs in history. Obviously the ability of Christians to disregard or impose moderate interpretations on the letter of the Bible and the relative inability of Muslims to do so is inflected by other factors, as some religious scholars have posited: 1. Muslims believe that the Quran is a direct revelation from God while Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired World of God--or that God inspired men to write it. This has a huge implication for how the faithfuls of both religions approach their faiths and the injunctions in their respective holy books. In short, it means that, for Muslims, contextualizing and imposing culturally specific interpretive imperatives on violent verses to arrive at interpretations that mitigate or release faithfuls from their obligations is a lot harder. 2. In Christianity there is the added interpretive alibi/leeway of the Old/New testament divide. This allows Christians to separate injunctions given during the time of Law and those given during the time of Grace, the time of Grace (the new testament) being the overarching spiritual dispensation governing the life of Christians. This does not mean that violent verses in the old testament cannot and are not still being invoked to justify evil. It means that Christians who do not want to engage in violence or evil in the name of their religion have a very good excuse because they can legitimately claim that the Law (old testament) does not apply to them. There is, as far as I know, no equivalent of this spiritual disjuncture in Islam. For what it's worth, below is a relevant post I made in a discussion on extremism sparked by Farooq Kperogi's article in another forum. I was obviously responding both to the article and responses from some forum members, so forgive the specific references. I agree that Farooq's excellent analysis is little comfort to those outside the "people of the book" designation who may still be regarded as legitimate targets of Muslim aggression. But that is only if one takes a literal interpretive approach to the Islamic texts, which I understand Farooq to be "preaching" against. And there may be verses in the same Quran that mitigate this reading/interpretation and provide textual protection to "idolaters." I don't know. I am just speculating here. If such a verse exists, Farooq will certainly know it and will use it to defend himself against your critique.  That brings me to my point. I think you're missing Farooq's overarching point about a literal and de-contextualizedreading/interpretation of those verses that direct Muslims to do violence to unbelievers (however defined). My big take way from Farooq's analysis is that:  1. Those verses should be understood/interpreted in the context of the time that they were revealed or authored. They emerged in the context of intense conflict between Mohammed and his followers on the one hand and his polytheistic ("idolatory") Arab, Jewish, and Christian enemies on the other. If you read the Quran, you'll see that it evolves from the period of intense conflict when the emergent religion and Muhammed and his followers faced threats and existed in a state of war with the pre-Islamic secular and religious authorities of the Arabian peninsula. The early verses revealed at that time tend to be more belligerent, more explicitly endorsing of violence against "unbelievers," and more derogatory in casting people of other religions than those revealed later in the context of peace after Muhammed/Islam had triumphed over the Jews, Arab polytheists, and Christians. The verses of this period tend to be more conciliatory, much less endorsing of violence and intolerance towards "unbelievers" and more ecumenical. I defense of Farooq, I'd say that a short newspaper column does not provide enough space to flesh these things out in detail. I understand Farooq to be arguing that this evolution is important for making sense of the simultaneous Quranic injunctions urging violence against unbelievers and peaceful coexistence with them. In other words, he is arguing that context should play a central role in the interpretation of Quranic verses, especially those relating to violence and peace because certain verses were clearly given for certain periods to serve the needs of Muslims in a particular era and that applying these verses across time and space and in contexts where the conditions that necessitated bellicose verses do not exist is a wrong way to interpret the Quran. Those who take this wrong approach, according to Farooq, do it mostly for misguided political, ideological, and pecuniary reasons. I agree totally with Farooq.  2. Even if one were to assume that those "violent" verses can be taken literally and insist that they were given for all seasons and circumstances, one would still have to adjust for changing times and for how values and the boundaries of what is humane, permissible, and acceptable shift over time. This is the 21st century and marking a whole population of people for death simply on account of their faith is no longer acceptable as a form of religious piety. Stoning convicts and the marrying of underage children, all ancient Bedoiun Arab desert cultures that apparently influenced the rhetorical and cultural flavors of the Islamic textual corpus (much like ancient Judaic cultural idioms and norms influenced the text of the Bible), are no longer acceptable. All texts, including religious canons, are products of their cultural and linguistic milieus. To yank them from these contexts in a literalist interpretive exercise is to be a prisoner of religion rather than to be ennobled by it. Religion is supposed to liberate, not trap adherents in a medieval time warp that denies them the enjoyment of the pleasures and norms of their own era or authorizes behaviors that are clearly out of step with the norms of their time.  I may have stated these points rather crudely, but I believe that they also apply to Christianity. How? If you read the old testament, you'll see evidence of many behaviors (stoning for instance) that no Christian today would advocate. Although there are few explicit injunctions for violence in the Bible (even in the old testament) relative to the Quran, this paucity of violent commands (as opposed to violence itself, which is plentiful in the old testament) and the Christian consensus on non-violence that partly results from it are as much a product of enlightened, proactive/revisionist interpretive intervention as they are of a dearth of clear instruction to do violence. We Christians today are inheritors of a vastly reformed Christianity, one that we can now hold up as a model of tolerance and non-violence only because moderate Christians centuries ago took action against the perversion of their faith and recovered it from minority extremists. That Christian tolerance and non-violence is the norm today is because modern Christians have decided not to do a literal interpretation of some of the verses in the old testament because such an interpretation would be incompatible with the values of their time. When I as a Christian read about stoning and violence/war against non-Israelites (unbelievers) with God's permission in the old testament, I know that this was for the Israelites, not for me as a Christian today and I don't conclude that it authorizes me to do violence to non-Christians. This is true of the overwhelming majority of Christians and they are willing to defend and enforce this moderate interpretation of the Bible and the mainstream consensus that it sustains against any threat of extremist interpretation. This decision of the dominant Christian authorities to embrace a peaceful, less literal interpretation of old testament scriptures took time, effort, and an overwhelming attitudinal shift, education, enlightenment, and prosperity. Christians simply set aside the idea of going to war in God's name because it offended enlightened values not because they couldn't find verses in the old testament to justify it. There were times when Christians in Europe and elsewhere burned "heretics" and "unbelievers" at the stake. It took the collective revulsion of Christians at these perversions of their faith for Christian practice to be cleansed of extremism and extremist violence and intolerance. I believe that this is what needs to happen in Islam. In other words, there are clearly verses in the old testament (and even in the new--I can go into more specifics if prodded) that we CANNOT interpret literally because they are inflected by Jewish cultural and narrative norms that do not reflect the norms of our world. Although these may not be violent scriptures, they also assail our modern values. Most Christians have decided to be pragmatic about these things and to, in some cases, even set aside Biblical injunctions (e.g regarding divorce and how women should dress and behave in the church, etc).  I do believe that perhaps there needs to be a global convergence of authoritative Islamic opinion on the imperative of "modernizing" Islam and making it more compatible with the values and norms of the (post)modern world. That may entail setting aside some of the more violent verses in the Islamic canons and/or issuing clear decrees and interpretive commentaries that disavow their literal interpretation. This is very possible locally in localized Islamic enclaves like Northern Nigeria but may be impossible globally since there is bewildering interpretive diversity in Islam and there are many authoritative schools of exegesis. More crucially, this may be difficult globally because there is a strong perception among moderate Muslims (rightly or wrongly) that Islam/Muslims are under assault from the West and a concomitant belief that a more belligerent Islam is needed to counter this threat. Also, there is at the moment a strong belief in Islam that the image of Islam is being sullied in the West. To reform the religious or begin the task of wresting the interpretive high ground from extremists would be to exacerbate that image problem or project a weakness and give more ammo to the perceived enemies of the religion.  I'll give you one thing: you have a point in your assertion that we cannot take for granted the standard explanation that the Arabs of 7th century Arabia persecuted and threatened Muhammed and his followers since that narrative is from the eventual victors--a perspective of Islam. It is quite plausible that, since Islam is a monotheistic religion that constructed pre-Arab religious practice as idolatory and therefore wrong, Muhammed and his followers were proactive in wiping out what they believed to be wrong and a threat to the spread of the true religion. I agree that most "traditional" religions are polytheistic (although many are actually monotheisms expressed through a seemingly polytheistic ethos) and thus permeable to new religious influences. However, as the more dominant and more established religion of 7th century Arabia, it is also plausible that the traditional Arabian religious order perceived Muhammed's monotheism as a threat and as an insurgent religious order that threatened the polytheistic orthodoxy of the time, causing them to proactively try to nip it in the bud. So, while I agree that the standard Islamic explanatory template of the contest between early Islam and the religious order of 7th Century Arabia is inadequate I think that we cannot simply supplant it with the opposite explanation. We do not know for sure who was the aggressor and sometimes accurate history is one that admits the indeterminacy of events rather than try to substitute one explanation for another. On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 10:10 PM, Mensah, Edward K. <dehasnem@uic.edu> wrote: Professor Bangura Your first reason to the woman who raised the issue of Muslim terrorism is as follows:  "1) As a student of history, I know that it was Westerners that first started to terrorize Muslims, Afrikans, Native Americans, Asians, etc. through their imperialist machinations. This led to the deaths and suffering of millions of these people." Are we to believe that the terrorizing of Africans by the West in the name of slavey( slavery was terrorism of the highest level)  preceded the Arab slavery of Africans? Which came first? Kwaku Mensah Chicago On Tue, May 3, 2011 8:06 pm, Abdul Bangura wrote: > Good Greetings Kohthoh Shek Sesay: > > For me, all I see is a failure of our human race to live with one another > in peace. Let us pray that our children, who are becoming more astute, do > better than us. > > After my plenary address yesterday at the ECDC-CARI conference, a lady in > the audience walked up to me and asked a very important question. She was > very carefully in wording her question not to generalize about all > Muslims. She wanted to know how I felt about the small number of Muslims > engaged in terrorist acts and the consequences for Muslims in general. > > My response was that Muslims have had to bear and continue to bear the > brunt in the following three ways: > > (1) As a student of history, I know that it was Westerners that first > started to terrorize Muslims, Afrikans, Native Americans, Asians, etc. > through their imperialist machinations. This led to the deaths and > suffering of millions of these people. > > (2) A small number of Muslims are fighting back by engaging in the same > terrorism that is forbidden in the Qur'an, the Hadith, the Torah and the > Bible, and other revelations that Muslims must respect. And because of > their tactics, Muslims, Afrikans, Asians, etc. also get killed by them. > > (3) Westerners then retaliate for the actions of these small number of > Muslims, leading to the deaths and suffering of Muslims, Afrikans, Asians, > etc. > > In short, we humans must find a way to stop this vicious cycle. We must > create conditions for the future generations to leave in a peaceful world. > It is not too late! We must begin now! > > In Peace Always, > Abdul Karim Bangura/. > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Shek Sesay > To: leonenet@lists.umbc.edu;john cole;salonediscussion@yahoogroups.com > Sent: 5/3/2011 8:17:52 PM > Subject: [Leonenet] Re: What if... > > > Netters, > Since Sunday when news started spreading about the death of Bin Ladin, I > have been thinking and tossing a lot of things in my quiet. Obama stated, > clearly, in his campaign that if elected and he had to command a raid in > Pakistan in order to root out bin Ladin then so be it. His statement > caused a lot of unease both far and near considering the infringement on a > foreign state implied therein. Today many may not recall the said > statement. It is however worthwhile to note that Obama may have had fore > sight and was au fait with issues than many were/are willing to accept. Is > it also possible that he could have pulled off a similar precise "surgery" > as the one on Sunday that could have removed the Taliban in Afghanistan > without the necessity of war? Just musing... > It always pays to give praise where praise is due... It might just as well > help humanity get out of the current quagmire... > > Shek G. Sesay > (Who joins others in giving praise where it is due) > > > > > > From: john cole <siehcole@yahoo.co.uk> > To: leonenet@lists.umbc.edu > Sent: Tue, May 3, 2011 4:29:28 PM > Subject: Re: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > hahahahah hey Doc nor kill me wit laf...  de open minded Bush na im start > de war dem, en ef  de war  dem result na increase enrollment fo de > terrorist dem na Bush responsible fo dat. Obama nor need tink tanks dem > weh som of unu bin dae becoz ee nor plan for start oda war. Bush needed > it. > "Obama kill Osama" is focused on ending the wars ( I truly believe Obama > can walk on water)...u hear it here first!. > > Jay Cee. > > > > > From: OSMAN KABBA <osmankabba@verizon.net> > To: leonenet@lists.umbc.edu; Toegondoe Sagbah <mendemoi@yahoo.com> > Sent: Tue, 3 May, 2011 15:48:16 > Subject: Re: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > So Nfa Karim, that is your beef with Obama all along that he did not use > you as a pondit? > > > > > From: Toegondoe Sagbah <mendemoi@yahoo.com> > To: theai@earthlink.net; leonenet@lists.umbc.edu; > "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com> > Cc: leonenet <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu> > Sent: Tue, May 3, 2011 3:42:33 PM > Subject: Re: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > Doc > The more they swell up in ranks, the more they get killed and locked up. > Just remember how many of your Christmas Bombers, New Year Bombers, Black > Shoe Bombers, Undervest Bombers etc. etc. have been locked up? We have > enough jail room for all of them, and if we go out of gas, we will bring > in the mechanical guillotine > >   Toegondoe Sagbah, FAT IDOF >          Fighting Against Tribalism >            In Defence Of Fairness > > > > > > > From: Abdul Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> > To: Toegondoe Sagbah <mendemoi@yahoo.com>; leonenet@lists.umbc.edu; > "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com> > Cc: leonenet <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu> > Sent: Tue, May 3, 2011 3:21:38 PM > Subject: Re: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > Karmoh Sagba, this is very sad for me to say; but the truth is that the > ranks of the terrorists have swollen since we launched the wars against > Iraq and Afghanistan. And with our war against Libya, we can expected the > numbers to keep increasing. > > Is there a way out of this, I think so. But since some of us have been > excluded from Obama's foreign policy circles, unlike Bush who was open > minded to listen even to those of us who were his severest critics, I will > keep my proverbial two cents to myself. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Toegondoe Sagbah > To: leonenet@lists.umbc.edu;Abdul Karim > Bangura;USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com > Cc: leonenet > Sent: 5/3/2011 3:14:46 PM > Subject: Re: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > By the way, how many of those terrorists have been killed since The Great > Obums took over? Start counting from Iraq. They are all going to be killed > one by one until the civilize world gets constituted by only civilize > humans. > >   Toegondoe Sagbah, FAT IDOF >          Fighting Against Tribalism >            In Defence Of Fairness > > > > > > > From: Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> > To: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" > <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com> > Cc: leonenet <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu> > Sent: Mon, May 2, 2011 7:48:22 PM > Subject: [Leonenet] A Poignant Piece From AP > > > Bin Laden dies, but the terror threat lives on > > > > Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and > Counterterrorism John Brennan gesturess during the daily news briefing at > the White House in Washingotn, Monday, May 2, 2011. (AP Photo - Carolyn > Kaster) > LOLITA C. BALDOR > From Associated Press > May 02, 2011 6:42 PM EDT > WASHINGTON (AP) — Osama bin Laden's death may temporarily decapitate > al-Qaida, but the threat of terror attacks remains, and it could spike in > coming days from individuals or small extremist groups inspired to take > revenge for killing, terror experts said Monday. > Would-be successors to the terror leader pose a threat as they jostle for > power and attention. And other jihadists inspired by the extremist > messages may decide to act on their own — a threat that law enforcement > officials say is much harder to detect and prevent. > <a > href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/news.earthlink.dart/news_300x250_top;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;ptile=5;ord=06377155?"><img > style="float:right;margin-left:5px" > src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/news.earthlink.dart/news_300x250_top;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;ptile=5;ord=06377155?" > border=0 height="250" width="300"></a> > "People who are angry at us will be more so," said Matthew Levitt, a > counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for > Near East Studies. "They had attacks in the works last week, last month, > today — and those things can still happen." > While the terror threat to the U.S. erupting from the Sept. 11, 2001, > attacks has been rooted in al-Qaida, it has metastasized in recent years > to spawn a broad range of affiliated groups operating out of Yemen, > Somalia, Afghanistan and the Pakistan border region. > And with the Internet as their tool, terror leaders have worked to inspire > individuals around the globe to take up the fight and launch their own > attacks on Main Street USA. Bin Laden's death, at the hands of U.S. > special operations forces who stormed his private compound in Pakistan on > Monday, may ignite simmering passions, and no one knows how or where the > danger could surface next. > "The biggest threat in the coming days is the recently radicalized people, > or people that have been thinking about participating and are part of this > demographic of jihadists that do not bear formal membership to any group, > that have not necessarily traveled to a training camp, but have been > encouraged by groups like al-Qaida, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and > others to conduct their own missions themselves," said Ben Venzke, > director of IntelCenter, a Virginia-based company that studies terrorist > groups and monitors their Internet messages. > Law enforcement officials said Monday that they are seeing no specific, > bin Laden-related threats at this point, but they issued a bulletin > warning that homegrown extremists could use this as an excuse to launch an > attack. > Offsetting that, experts said, are the reverberations of the successful > U.S. operation. > Extremists in the midst of attack plans, or looking to make a revenge > strike, "are looking over their shoulders," said Levitt. > "They're assuming everything is penetrated, they're afraid of talking on > the phone, they're afraid of using their couriers," he added. "It really > shakes the tree in a very violent way." > In the near term, Venzke and other experts say the attacks would likely be > small and planned quickly by would-be jihadists. But history shows such ad > hoc, individual attempts can as easily be deadly as they can be duds. > At Fort Hood, Texas, a shooter reportedly inspired by al-Qaida-linked > extremists gunned down 13 and wounded 32 more in November 2009. And > another man seeking to avenge the deaths of Muslims by U.S. forces shot > and killed a soldier at a Little Rock, Ark., recruiting center in June > 2009. > Then there have been the near-misses: the attempted Times Square bombing a > year ago, the plot to bomb New York subways and the failed effort to > detonate mail bombs on cargo planes last October. > The Homeland Security Department and FBI confirmed the retaliatory threat > Sunday, issuing a bulletin to law enforcement around the country. The > warning said bin Laden's death could inspire extremists to speed up their > plans for attacks, and the threats could come from unidentified al-Qaida > operatives in the country that could move forward with their own plots. > "Bin Laden's death may provide justification for radicalized individuals > in the United States to rapidly mobilize for attacks here," the document > said. > Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government does not > plan to raise the terror alert level in the U.S. > For al-Qaida, the future is at best uncertain. > Loyalists in Afghanistan, under increasing pressure from the U.S. and > coalition forces, may decide now is the time to sever ties with the terror > group, said Richard Barrett, the head of a U.N. group that monitors the > threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban. > Bin Laden's heir apparent, Ayman al-Zawahri, is deeply unpopular, and any > struggle to replace the terror leader could divide and further weaken the > group. > Al-Qaida and its core leaders have been under great pressure in Pakistan > in recent years from the escalating barrage of U.S. drone attacks. And the > Pakistani military has pushed into many of the group's strongholds along > the border, making communications, fundraising and attack planning far > more difficult. > But officials also warn that al-Qaida has proven to be resilient and > patient — a wounded tiger that still has some life in it, White House > counterterror chief John Brennan said. > For would-be bin Laden successors waiting in the wings, this presents a > prime opportunity to snatch the mantle. > "We should expect them to fast-track any and all plots that have the > chance to produce high-visibility, mass-casualty attacks against U.S. > targets overseas or on the homeland," said Frank Cilluffo, director of > George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute. > Cilluffo, a former special assistant to the president for homeland > security, said terror leaders "will be motivated to prove they are > relevant, that they can continue to pose a threat and most of all that > they deserve to be the heir apparent to bin Laden." > ___ > Associated Press writer Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report. > Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material > may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa > Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. >    For current archives, visit > http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue >    For previous archives, visit > http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html >    To post to this group, send an email to > USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com >    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue- >    unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.   For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   For previous archives, visit  http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html   To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com   To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-   unsubscribe@googlegroups.com -- There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed. ---Mohandas Gandhi -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin. 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