On his way to planting an explosive in a Manhattan alley last September, suspected bombmaker Ahmad Rahimi stumbled into a deep hole in the U.S. system of safeguards against domestic terrorist attacks.
The Elizabeth, N.J., resident had twice come under scrutiny by the FBI because of reported extremist views and suspicious travel overseas. But investigators found no grounds for arresting him, and they lacked alternative measures for maintaining surveillance or influencing the Afghan immigrant’s behavior.
That gap is the subject of a new bipartisan report that warns of a serious flaw in U.S. defenses against homegrown terrorism: the lack of an effective, comprehensive system for finding, redirecting and rehabilitating Americans who may be on a path to violent extremism. Unless such a system is put is put into place, the report says, law-enforcement officials will be left to try to prevent attacks only after the would-be terrorist becomes operational.
“Fighting terrorism requires both tactical efforts to thwart attacks and strategic efforts to counter the extremist radicalization that fuels its hatred and violence and undergirds its strategy and global appeal,” says the report, based on a yearlong study commissioned by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank.
