FBI Study Shows Rise in Homegrown Terrorism Since 9/11

Washington’s foreign policy has sparked not only an increase in attacks on the United States since 9/11, but also an increase in the number of “homegrown terrorist,” attacks, according to a 2011 Federal Bureau of Investigation report released last week. 

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The March 2011 FBI Intelligence Assessment reveals that there was an 11 percent increase in “plots against the United States and U.S. interests” between 2006 and 2010 when compared to the first half of the decade. But U.S. citizens were wholly responsible for the spike; plots orchestrated by foreign nationals actually fell during the same period.  

The report, titled “Decade in Review: Self-selecting U.S. Persons Drive Post-2006 Increase in Anti-U.S. Plotting,” singles out the U.S.’s increasing military intervention in the Middle East as a driving factor behind the expanding phenomenon of homegrown terror.

“Information from the dataset appeared to indicate much of the activity stemmed from a perception that the United States is at war with Islam and jihad is the correct and obligatory response,” reads the report’s executive summary. 

The report draws on data from 2001 to 2010, dividing the decade into two five-year periods for the sake of comparison. The study looked at 57 plots in the United States or carried out “against U.S. interests overseas.”

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9/11: A Tale of Two Attacks

FBI researchers state “with confidence” that the data reveals an uptick in U.S.-led attacks against the country after 2006 by an even greater margin than foreign nationals led plots in the first half of the decade.

“Foreign nationals led anti-U.S. targeting prior to 2006, 52 percent to 44 percent among foreign nationals and U.S. persons, respective,” reads the report. “However, at 70 percent, activity by U.S. persons and groups dominated post-2006 numbers.”

According to the report, “triggers” of an-U.S. terrorism carried out by U.S.-based individuals included U.S. military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, professed hatred of the United States, and the ideological influence of Islamic extremism, including on the Internet.

But the report also emphasized that drivers of targeted attacks are highly individual and the data showed “few unifying features.” U.S. terror plotters analyzed in the report included born-Muslims, converts, and people with no religious affiliations. Attackers varied in age by 50 years and had “varying ancestral ties to the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe,” preventing demographic generalization of the plotters.

The 2011 report further suggests that the so-called “War on Terror” championed by both U.S. Democrats and Republicans is a misguided attempt to make the population safer.