Norway terror attack exposes deeper anger over immigration (The Christian Science Monitor)

Oslo, Norway – Last week's Oslo terrorist attacks are raising delicate questions of immigration and integration here after the admitted attacker cited anti-Muslim views as motivating the assaults.

A country of less than 5 million people, Norway has seen its once homogeneous population change in recent years with new arrivals from Africa and the Middle East. This transformation, in part, drove Anders Behring Breivik, charged with Friday's car bombing and shooting spree that killed at least 76 people in the span of a few hours.

Now, even as this country still grieves for its victims, many say how Norway responds to the attacks could define immigration policy in the future.

RECOMMENDED: Norway attacks put spotlight on Europe's right-wing parties. Who are they?

While Mr. Breivik's views, revealed in his 1,500-page tirade against Muslims and multiculturalism, are extreme and his attack reviled by Norwegians of all political leanings, Breivik fed on an undercurrent of prejudice and hatred that exists in some areas of Norwegian society, where being Norwegian is still very much determined by one’s fair skin and light hair.

“We have to find out what kind of country Norway is. That’s where the struggle is going to be in the coming years,” says Thomas Eriksen, a professor of anthropology at the University of Oslo. “And we are going to have to deal with that.”

He says many immigrants still face an uphill battle in terms of integration and acceptance from their fellow Norwegians. “They can acquire our civilization but never our culture,” he says, offering up a common opinion. “In other words, they won’t be ‘us’ they’ll always be the ‘other’.”

Indeed, experts on immigration and integration point to a growing skepticism across Norway that now surrounds most Muslim immigrants. Though Breivik’s thinking is condemned, many of his views aren’t new.

“Some of his ideas are more commonplace than we’d like them to be,” says Rune Berglund Steen, communication manager for the Norwegian Center Against Racism. "This skepticism of Muslims has become a fairly central topic in Norwegian politics.”

Norway’s second-largest political party in parliament, the Progress Party, has been accused of backing xenophobic positions and Breivik was on the party’s member registry until 2006. The party quickly denounced the attacks and Breivik’s beliefs.

Mr. Steen says most Norwegians have a positive view toward immigrants. For example, he said a recent poll found that about 8 out of 10 Norwegians found it favorable if a child attends a school with mixed ethnicities.

But for Breivik and his ilk, Muslim newcomers here represent a "takeover."

“The problem can only be solved if we completely remove those who follow Islam. In order to do this all Muslims must ‘submit’ and convert to Christianity,” he wrote in his manifesto. “If they refuse to do this voluntarily prior to Jan. 1, 2020, they will be removed from European soil and deported back to the Islamic world.”

Most Norwegians, however, reject Breivik’s anti-Islamic views, preferring to see themselves as a tolerant, peaceful people and Breivik as a backwards extremist.

“It’s the fact that he attacked our multiculturalism,” says Alexander Roine, waiting outside the courthouse where Breivik appeared Monday.

Mr. Roine, an Oslo native whose father came from Tunisia, says Norway is rightly famous for its peaceful, tolerant attitude but conceded older generations are still adjusting to the country’s brisk demographic shift.

“We would think a guy with these views would be like 50 or 60 years old,” he says of Breivik. “This guy was born in a Norway that was already multicultural. He attacked everything this country stands for to the last detail.”

Norway has experienced a steady rise in immigration, like many European countries, with the number of its immigrants doubling since 1995.Most came for the robust economy, political stability and generous welfare state, settling in dense pockets in Norway’s largest cities. It’s estimated that 11 percent of Norwegians are immigrants or the children of immigrants and about 2 percent of the population practices Islam.

RECOMMENDED: Norway attacks put spotlight on Europe's right-wing parties. Who are they?

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Another Fort Hood terror plot? Army Pfc. Naser Abdo arrested. (The Christian Science Monitor)

Details about a Muslim-American US Army soldier arrested with guns and explosives near Fort Hood, Texas, remain sketchy.

But initial reports suggest that Army Private 1st Class Naser Abdo has confessed to a plot similar to the attack that hit Fort Hood in 2009 – an individual acting alone, based on religious beliefs as well as a personal grudge, intending to do harm on a wide scale. It’s the kind of “lone wolf” scenario US law enforcement officials – and those in Europe, witness Norway massacre suspect Anders Behring Breivik – have been focusing on as a likely source of domestic terrorism.

Here’s what’s known so far: Abdo was arrested Wednesday in a motel room in Killeen, Texas. He had been absent without leave from Fort Campbell, Ky., since the July Fourth weekend.

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

Tipped off by a gunshop owner in Killeen who became suspicious when Abdo asked about making explosives, agents found firearms and "items that could be identified as bombmaking components, including gunpowder," according to FBI spokesman Erik Vasys.

The “Guns Galore” shop where Abdo made his purchases was the same one where US Army Maj. Nidal Hasan bought the weapons he allegedly used to kill 13 people and wound 32 others at Fort Hood in November 2009. Abdo also went to a military surplus store where he bought uniform items with Fort Hood patches.

"Suffice it to say we're looking into all aspects of Mr. Abdo's life to determine his motivations and intentions,” Mr. Vasys told the Associated Press.

Abdo, who had served about a year on active duty, was an infantry soldier in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, about 800 miles from Fort Hood.

Although he once believed that by joining the US Army he could help protect the free practice of Islam in Iraq and Afghanistan, he eventually changed his mind. Based on his religion, Abdo applied for and had been granted conscientious objector (CO) status.

"A Muslim is not allowed to participate in an Islamicly unjust war," he told ABC News last August. "Any Muslim who knows his religion or maybe takes into account what his religion says can find out very clearly why he should not participate in the US military."

Although his request to become a CO had been approved by the secretary of the Army, his separation from the military was delayed when he was arrested in May and charged with having child pornography on his computer. A military Article 32 hearing under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (the equivalent of a civilian grand jury finding) recommended that he be court martialed on those charges. That was when he disappeared from Fort Campbell.

ABC News is reporting that Abdo allegedly planned to bomb a restaurant popular with Fort Hood soldiers then shoot the survivors with a pistol. (Based on information from a defense department official, CNN describes this potential arsenal as “gunpowder, shotgun shells, 18 pounds of sugar, a pressure cooker, four magazines, and ammunition.)

Given the heightened security at Fort Hood since the 2009 rampage in which Hasan is charged, it might have been much more difficult for Abdo to enter the base.

According to the FBI's Vasys, the initial investigation indicates that Abdo was acting alone. "I would emphasize that any threat that Abdo posed is now over," he said.

Many plots involving small groups of conspirators or a lone-wolf individual have been thwarted in recent years, often through the work of paid informants.

But officials increasingly see attacks like the one at Fort Hood – carried out by a single individual driven by ideology and perhaps mental or emotional instability, rather than by a group involved in a conspiracy, as was the case with 9/11 – as the greatest threat to domestic security.

“Our review of attempted attacks during the past two years suggests that lone offenders currently present the greatest threat,” concluded a recent assessment by federal agencies, marked “for official use only” and obtained last month by the AP.

That includes threats against US military installations. Eight such attacks have been planned or carried out in the past two years.

Abdo is expected to be charged under federal law.

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

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Pakistan braces for Indian pressure in wake of blasts in Mumbai (The Christian Science Monitor)

Lahore, Pakistan – Wednesday’s triple-bomb attack on Mumbai has Pakistan bracing for renewed attention and has put a spotlight on the fact that leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terror group blamed for the 2008 attacks, remain free.

Though no one has yet claimed responsibility for the new series of blasts, there is some speculation the home grown Indian Mujahideen, who have ties with the LeT, are involved.

Analysts blame a systematic failure on the part of police and prosecution to make criminal charges stick. Analysts also blame a government too weak to deal with terror organizations.

“The basic problem is evidence collection and investigating terrorism. And another basic problem is political will – there are some political sectarian and ethnic reasons that allow the government to release people without trying them effectively or keeping them in jail without a trial,” says Badar Alam, editor of Pakistan’s Herald magazine.

RELATED: Mumbai's terror track record: nine major attacks in two decades

The trial of Zaki ur Rehman Lakhwi, founder of the Laskhar-e-Taiba and other senior members of the group continues to flounder more than two years after it began. And Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, head of Jamat-ud-Dawah (the organization’s charitable wing) who was named in a list of India’s 50-most wanted fugitives, remains free in his Lahore home.

Since Mr. Lakhwi’s trial began in March 2009, it has been beset by numerous unforeseen adjournments, for reasons ranging from the judge’s absence to the validity of the defense lawyer’s law degree being brought into question. The trial descended to what observers called farcical levels for several months last year, when it was held up because India unsurprisingly refused a Pakistani court’s request to send Ajmal Kassab, the lone surviving gunman from the attack to Pakistan to testify.

Jamat-ud-Dawah, an organization banned by the United Nations Security Council, meanwhile operates openly from a base in Lahore and was particularly visible in its relief efforts following last year’s catastrophic floods.

And on Thursday, an antiterror court freed Malik Ishaq, a sectarian militant believed to be the mastermind of the 2009 attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team that brought an end to visits to Pakistan by foreign cricketing teams. Following his release from a Lahore jail, Mr. Ishaq was feted by armed Sipah-e-Sahaba (a banned sectarian organization with links to domestic terrorism) members, who shouted sectarian slogans.

Such demonstrations of impunity are by no means uncommon and provide the space for terrorism to thrive, says Ahmer Bilal Soofi, an expert in Pakistani criminal law.

a€?There is a need for creative legislation in Pakistan. And the government doesna€™t have this priority. The nature of legal challenges are unique and different ... the legislation has to be very creative to respond to those challenges,a€

On the courts side, those criminals that are nabbed are often quickly let go because of a lack of forensic evidence and retracted confessions. A recent report commissioned by the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan found that the accused have been acquitted in 98 percent of serious crimes.

RELATED: Mumbai blasts: India asks 'who' and 'why' a day after blasts rock Mumbai

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Mumbai blasts raise terrorism concerns, but not calls for political change (The Christian Science Monitor)

New Delhi – Facing a dearth of evidence from Wednesday’s terrorist attack on Mumbai, the Indian government has avoided speculating on culprits and announced planned talks with Pakistan would continue as scheduled.

American officials have worried in the past about India’s ability to avoid escalating tensions with Pakistan in the face of another major attack after the Nov. 26, 2008 raid on Mumbai. So far, India’s government has played it very cool.

Part of the early muted response has to do with the uncertainty over who perpetrated the attack and its smaller scale as compared to the 2008 attack. But there’s another major factor that could give policymakers here leeway as more facts emerge: National security does not play a large role in Indian elections.

“Terrorism has never been an electoral issue,” says Yashwant Deshmukh, a pollster with Team CVoter in Noida. “If you talk about the biggest issue in front of the country, then terrorism will shoot up as an issue that concerns them. But if you talk about what is the biggest issue when you go to vote, then terrorism as an electoral issue isn’t there.”

He argues that many voters do not see terrorism as under the control of politicians in the same way as inflation or corruption a€“ two issues that are currently upsetting Indians.

Related: History of terrorist attacks in Mumbai

The main opposition party is trying to make an issue out of the government’s response to terrorism, however.

“It’s not a failure of intelligence, it’s a failure of policy,” said L.K. Advani, senior leader of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “The last attack [in 2008] on Mumbai is proved to have been engineered by the ISI,” he said, referring to Pakistan’s premier spy agency, which he argues should be “declared as a terrorist organization.”

Talks still onInstead, the current government agreed to resume dialogue with Pakistan in February after freezing talks for more than two years in response to the 2008 attacks.

Rather than wade into Pakistan policy, the ruling Congress Party’s rising star Rahul Gandhi addressed concerns expressed by ordinary Mumbaikars that the government hasn’t proven capable of stopping terror attacks.

“You will not have heard of all the attacks that have been stopped. It is something that we will fight … but it is very, very difficult to stop every single terrorist attack,” said Mr. Gandhi.

Investigators are currently looking through hours of surveillance video from the three blast sites to look for clues. However, the rainy weather has not helped. Umbrellas blocked some of the view in the videos and rains washed away evidence from the sites.

The bombs appeared to be improvised explosive devices made with ammonium nitrate. The Ministry of Home Affairs described them as having “some level of sophistication.” The perpetrators placed one bomb in Dadar on top of a bus shelter, another at the Opera House under some garbage, and the third at Zaveri Bazaar under an umbrella. The death toll stands at 17.

While the latest Mumbai attack has received a lot of international attention, India has quietly faced a string of bomb attacks across the country in recent years, including in New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Varanasi, Pune, Jaipur, and Bangalore.

Keeping calmSome of these attacks occurred before elections and they factored not at all in voting behavior, says Mr. Deshmukh.

“Look at the geographic spread [of attacks], and then you realize that it can happen to any state, anywhere and it doesn’t matter which party is governing,” says Deshmukh. While the opposition BJP has tried to sell itself to voters as being tougher on national security, several high profile terror attacks struck during their tenure as well, he adds.

While the country is rapidly urbanizing and has a growing middle class, most of India remains rural and poor. These voters care primarily about pocketbook issues, such as the cost of food and how politicians will reward them tangibly for their votes. Much voting still takes place not over policy issues but identity in the hopes that politicians will reward their own communities.

As they fire their latest salvos over national security, some opposition politicians appear to acknowledge the limited political impact of the issue.

“It is the process of vote bank politics that is weakening the war against terrorism. But at least there should be system of action against the system of terror itself,” said opposition leader Arun Jaitley.

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NATO says it has killed a senior Haqqani militant in Afghanistan (The Christian Science Monitor)

New Delhi – The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan said it killed Wednesday a high-level insurgent commander it suspects provided “material support” to the terrorist assault Tuesday on the InterContinental Hotel. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says it killed a man named Ismail Jan in an airstrike over eastern Afghanistan. According to ISAF, Ismail Jan was a deputy to the senior commander in Afghanistan for the Haqqani Network, a faction of the Taliban-led insurgency. However, local journalists in Paktia Province, reached by the Monitor, report no knowledge of any airstrike nor of a commander named Ismail Jan.

So far, the response to the InterContinental has offered a window into the US approach to the Afghan conflict for the years to come.

The response during the hotel raid involved Afghan forces on the front lines with an option to call for backup [see story on how the raid tested Afghan security skills]. And the swift retaliatory strike the next day a€“ if it indeed happened a€“ fits the intelligence-driven, focused strikes that the Obama administration wants to rely more on in the US effort to combat terrorism.

RELATED Kabul raid shows Taliban's strength, tests Afghan security coordination

A key advantage of this strategy is that it requires far fewer troops. One disadvantage, however, is that it relies heavily on Afghan political support for the sort of missions that have come under the heaviest local criticisms: bombings and special forces raids.

Such operations often result in complaints from residents that those targeted were in fact innocents a€“ charges that are sometimes true and often reported nationwide.

IN PICTURES: Far from home: US soldiers serving in Afghanistan

Another disputed incidentThis type of dispute occurred once again today following a separate coalition raid conducted Wednesday in Zurmat district of Paktia Province. An ISAF press release claims that two Haqqani Network insurgents were killed during a hunt for a Haqqani leader. Residents say that among those killed were a student in the 9th grade, Mohammad Afzal, and his brother, a farmer named Mohammad Anwar, according to local journalist Ihsanullah Mahjoor. Mr. Mahjoor says he went to the village and saw school documentation showing Azfal was a student and spoke to his teacher who said Azfal was not against the government. An ISAF spokesman declined further comment. President Hamid Karzai, under mounting public pressure, has previously criticized ISAF airstrikes and special operations raids. After 2014, the US ability to have access to bases to stage such attacks will depend on ongoing negotiations in Kabul. Many Afghans as well as Afghanistan’s neighbors deeply oppose a continued US military presence in any form.

US attempts to keep even a minimal presence in next-door Pakistan are steadily unraveling. On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chaudhry Mukhtar announced that the government told the US to vacate Shamsi, an air base in southwest Pakistan that has housed drones.

What the Haqqani network has to do with itThe ISAF report announcing Ismail Jan’s killing also assigned responsibility for the InterContinental attack on the Haqqani Network “in conjunction with Taliban operatives.”

According to ISAF, the "material support" given by Ismail Jan consisted of fighters, weapons, and training. He also assisted in providing accommodation and facilitated movement for the fighters.

In a phone interview yesterday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid refused to give the name of the commander in the fight, but he said the main person in charge of the operation was the insurgency’s shadow governor for Kabul. The level of sophistication of the attack suggested it came from the Haqqanis, not other Afghan insurgents, says Christine Fair, a regional expert at Georgetown University in Washington. The Haqqani Network is led by Afghan warlord Jaluluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin. The group has a strong presence in eastern Afghanistan and a haven in the North Waziristan tribal agency of Pakistan. The group remains a major point of contention between the US and Pakistan. The US wants Pakistan to launch a military offensive into North Waziristan to eliminate the Haqqanis and a host of other Islamic militant groups living alongside them. The Pakistan military, echoing some of Obama’s latest war rhetoric, has said it will consider targeted, intelligence-driven operations in North Waziristan, but appears disinclined to launch a full-scale ground assault.

Kabul raid shows Taliban's strength, tests Afghan security coordination

IN PICTURES: Far from home: US soldiers serving in Afghanistan

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How will the Kabul raid affect a peace deal? [VIDEO] (The Christian Science Monitor)

New Delhi – For all the talk about peace negotiations with the Taliban, one word rarely comes up: cease-fire. Instead, the US and the Taliban talk while shooting, a fact brought home again with the major terrorist attack overnight on a landmark hotel in Kabul.

The siege left seven civilians dead, including one Spaniard. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says one reason his group struck the InterContinental Hotel was the presence of foreigners.

Such provocative targeting of civilians by the insurgents, as well as the civilian deaths that result from US-led operations, erode trust around the negotiating table. However, since both sides clearly intend to try to show a stronger hand on the battlefield, neither Afghan nor American observers expect the attack to shut down the peace process.

“When you see this kind of incident, especially in Kabul, it brings mistrust among the people over the peace process, but it does not means we will sit quiet and stop the peace efforts,” says Attaullah Lodin, a member of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council.

RELATED Kabul raid shows Taliban's strength, tests Afghan security coordination

He says at this point the peace talks have to involve those who deepen insecurity, including a€?foreign forces killing innocent and weak Afghans in the villages in their raids and bombings, or those [insurgents] who carry out attacks on the mosques and crowded areas.a€

For many Westerners there is not the same equivalency between so-called collateral damage from military missions that target insurgents and a group that goes door-to-door in a hotel to hunt guests.

'Diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to friends'But in a speech earlier this year making the case for peace talks, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argued against letting the Taliban’s brutality derail efforts to end the war.

"Now, I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends," said Secretary Clinton. "But that is not how one makes peace.”

Still, the attack could have minor impacts on the calculations surrounding the talks.

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It has not been clear whether the Taliban are using talks as a tactic to encourage international withdrawal, or if they are genuinely interested in finding a negotiated settlement. The continuation of major terrorist assaults only deepen this uncertainty. On the other hand, the attack is a reminder that despite 130,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, the Taliban remain capable of striking inside the capital.

“I hope politicians are not too influenced by this [attack] and [do not] drop the political approach,” says Thomas Ruttig with the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul. “The attack yesterday showed that the Taliban cannot be gotten rid of through a military-only approach.”

What about a cease-fire?In order to avoid the danger of each side outraging the other with stepped-up attacks, one solution is to seek some form of cease-fire to give space for talks.

A cease-fire would also help stop further fragmentation of the insurgency, which adds uncertainty to whether a peace deal could be enforced by Taliban leaders. As the US steps up attacks on mid-level commanders, fresh leaders are elevated who are not as bonded to the top-level leaders.

“When you continue to hammer the organization, that means you have more factionalization,” says Christine Fair, a regional expert at Georgetown University in Washington. “It does mean you are increasing your odds of having significant spoilers [to any settlement].”

Western analysts who follow the region, including Dr. Fair, Mr. Ruttig, and Seth Jones at the RAND Corporation, say they have never heard serious discussion about pursuing a cease-fire deal.

Mr. Lodin says everyone on the High Peace Council is suggesting a cease-fire, but he does not expect it to happen soon. The Taliban, meanwhile, have demanded that foreign soldiers depart Afghanistan – which is a lopsided form of cease-fire – but the US has made it clear that withdrawal would be an outcome not a precondition or intermediate step.

The Taliban spokesman Mr. Mujahid declined to say much about the attack’s impact on peace talks.

“I do not want to comment on this since I did not get the official statement from the leadership, but I would say that the fight is going on on a daily basis, the enemy attacks us everywhere and the goal of freedom that we have, we can not forget that goal,” says Mujahid by phone.

Fair argues that the InterContinental was not really meant as a Western target since mostly Afghans these days actually stay overnight in the past-its-prime hotel. She sees this as a message to Afghans that while the internationals are starting to leave, the Afghan conflict remains.

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Seattle arrests show how domestic terror fight is evolving (The Christian Science Monitor)

The arrest of terror suspects in Seattle this week presents a good example of what US law-enforcement agencies are facing today:

• One or two potential attackers not affiliated with any broader group.

• Emotional, psychological, and perhaps personal economic difficulties driving a plot to attack Americans.

• “Soft targets” picked for maximum damage to innocent victims.

a€? The importance of paid informants and sting operations.

“Our review of attempted attacks during the past two years suggests that lone offenders currently present the greatest threat,” according to a recent assessment by federal agencies, marked “for official use only” and obtained by The Associated Press. “Unlike hardened facilities such as active duty military bases and installations, soft targets such as recruiting stations are more likely to be deemed a feasible target due to their easy, open access to the public.”

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

That appears to describe the episode in Seattle this week.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., of Los Angeles, were arrested Wednesday night when they arrived at a warehouse to pick up machine guns they intended to use in an alleged terror plot.

The alleged plotters – both US citizens who had converted to Islam – had sought firearms through an acquaintance of Mr. Abdul-Latif’s. That man, a convicted felon, alerted the Seattle Police Department, which put him in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to conversations recorded by the paid informant, Abdul-Latif and Mr. Mujahidh were inspired by the Fort Hood shootings, which killed 13 people in 2009. In that case, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, apparently acted alone using his personal military weapons.

"If one person [at Fort Hood] could kill so many people, three attackers could kill many more," the informant told authorities, according to the criminal complaint.

Over the next three weeks, the informant secretly recorded conversations in which Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh allegedly spoke of wanting to attack service personnel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, an Army and Air Force base south of Tacoma. Several US Army soldiers based there are being prosecuted for allegedly killing civilians for sport in Afghanistan.

Yet the alleged plot was switched to a location thought to be a softer target – the Military Entrance Processing Station just south of Seattle. Some 900 military personnel and civilians are employed there, many of them working for the US Army Corps of Engineers or processing new military recruits. The campus includes a child-care facility.

"It's a confined space, not a lot of people carrying weapons, and we'd have an advantage," Abdul-Latif allegedly said in a recording.

The suspects were arrested in a Seattle warehouse where they expected to buy the firearms (which had been rendered inoperable) from the informant.

According to the AP, this case marks the eighth time in the past two years that attacks have been planned or carried out against military installations in the US.

The number of Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators has averaged about 16 per year since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in Durham, N.C.

While most attacks failed on their own or were disrupted, 11 attacks since 9/11 have resulted in 33 deaths – including the 13 at Fort Hood.

In the years since 9/11, sting operations and the use of informants have become among the most important weapons in the fight against domestic terrorism – in about 30 cases over the past five years or so, according to Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League.

Recently, that has included Antonio Martinez (a Muslim convert who had changed his name to Muhammad Hussain), who allegedly attempted to detonate a car bomb at a US Army recruitment center in Maryland, and Somalia-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, arrested in December for allegedly plotting to explode a bomb at the Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Ore., where thousands of families had gathered for the traditional Christmas tree lighting.

In another case last year, Pakistani-born US citizen Farooque Ahmed of Ashburn, Va., was charged with plotting to carry out a coordinated bombing attack on Metrorail stations in suburban Virginia near Washington, D.C.

Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh, the suspects in this week’s alleged plot in Seattle, are charged with conspiracy to murder officers and employees of the United States, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (grenades), and possession of firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence. They could face life sentences.

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

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New Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri: Do his flaws diminish group's threat? (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – An irritable micro-manager disliked by even the organization’s most loyal foot soldiers – it’s not the sort of description you’d expect to hear of the mastermind of a global terrorist network.

But that is precisely the description that intelligence analysts tend to give of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new head of Al Qaeda.

Not only is he widely believed to be a less-than-effective manager, US officials say, Mr. Zawahiri does not have the sort of “peculiar charisma” that Osama bin Laden did, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters last week.

RELATED: The top 5 Al Qaeda members still hiding in Pakistan

And that’s not all: Mr. bin Laden “was much more operationally engaged than we have the sense Zawahiri has been,” Mr. Gates noted.

Such comments seem to give the impression that US defense officials were privately high-fiving each other after hearing of Zawahiri’s ascension last week to Al Qaeda’s helm.

So, just how much does the Pentagon have to worry about the former Egyptian physician, now the de facto number one arch-nemesis of the US military? Pentagon officials have made it clear they still take the threat of Zawahiri seriously.

“I think we should be mindful that this announcement by Al Qaeda reminds us that despite having suffered a huge loss with the killing of bin Laden and a number of others,” Gates said, “Al Qaeda seeks to perpetuate itself, seeks to find replacements for those who have been killed, and remains committed to the agenda that bin Laden put before them.”

The Pentagon has also emphasized that the new leader of Al Qaeda, believed (for what ita€™s worth, considering where bin Laden was found) to be hiding in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, should expect to be the target of a robust and ongoing manhunt.

“I’m not sure it’s a position anybody should aspire to, under the circumstances,” Gates said.

The conventional wisdom, however, is that ita€™s a position that the ambitious Zawahiri has long coveted.

“He has been sort of a climber, not only within Al Qaeda but in the larger jihadist movement,” says Brian Fishman, terrorism research fellow at the New American Foundation. “He’s attached himself to a rising star within the organization – bin Laden – and that’s how he’s seen, as somebody who isn’t always piously committed, but brings with him a sense of personal aggrandizement.”

That kind of mercenary approach, however, can have practical advantages, Mr. Fishman says. In the internal debate about whether Al Qaeda should maintain a strict ideological litmus test for members, or “get as many people into the tent as possible,” Zawahiri is a member of the latter camp, Fishman says, which could translate into more Al Qaeda followers.

“He’s still very ideologically rigid – I don’t want to give the impression that he’s some out-of-the-box thinker,” Fishman says, “but he’s always been most concerned about creating political effect on the ground.”

Yet Zawahiri’s desire to create these political effects could also cause a rift with the Taliban, analysts say. The interim commander of Al Qaeda, Saif al Adel – who, like Zawahiri, is Egyptian – was viewed as having close ties to the Afghan Taliban. Zawahiri, on the other hand, has been interested in having Al Qaeda “step to the forefront and seize political power,” Fishman says, and this could involve bypassing the Taliban.

One quality that has made Al Qaeda particularly resilient in the past, however, has been its willingness to cede political authority to the groups on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan “that have a much more organic social base,” Fishman says.

The widely heralded defeat that the US military handed Al Qaeda in Iraq’s Anbar Province came about when the terrorist group “overreached” and got too ideological, he adds. Zawahiri for his part had argued that for political reasons, Al Qaeda would have been better off not enforcing its strict ideology and making accommodations with locals in the name of political harmony.

Any savvy leader will not want to make a similar mistake in Afghanistan. “My gut says that Zawahiri wouldn’t really be stupid enough to challenge the Afghan Taliban directly in a place like Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Fishman says.

But tensions between the two US enemies remain. The Afghan Taliban has long held that it is valid to fight the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “but they didn’t approve of 9/11, and they don’t want to take steps that might cause a political reaction in the United States” that might inspire US leaders to push to extend its presence in Afghanistan longer than it already plans to, Fishman says.

The Taliban’s publicity shop, for its part, has downplayed any tensions, says Jeffrey Dressler, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “If you’re going to be seen as an authentic Islamic extremist organization, you can’t break with a group like Al Qaeda,” he adds.

Other defense analysts agree. “Everybody is quick to comment on how Zawahiri’s a polarizing figure, uncharismatic, disagreeable – people can’t stand him,” Mr. Dressler says. “If all of that was going to be an obstacle, however, he never would have been approved. He’s a very skilled military tactician and planner,” he adds. Al Qaeda leaders “discussed this – and appointed him anyway.”

RELATED: The top 5 Al Qaeda members still hiding in Pakistan

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Fukushima meltdown could be template for nuclear terrorism, study says (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Fukushima disaster's dramatic demonstration of how nuclear plants are vulnerable to cooling-system failure could "awaken terrorist interest" in attacking such plants, says a new joint study by US and Russian experts on the threat of nuclear terrorism.

After 9/11, Al Qaeda operatives were reported to have to have conducted light reconnaissance of US nuclear reactor facilities. But beefed up defenses apparently led the terror group's leadership to conclude "it would be too difficult either to crash a plane into a nuclear facility or to sabotage a plant," says the report released Monday by the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Now, however, Fukushima's multiple meltdowns could alter that line of thinking, says the "US-Russia Joint Threat Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism," whose authors include former CIA officials, Russian nuclear specialists, and nuclear proliferation experts.

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"One important lesson of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents is that what can happen as a result of an accident can also happen as a result of a premeditated action," the report says. "Indeed, today’s high levels of nuclear safety are dependent on the high reliability of components such as cooling systems; if these are intentionally destroyed, the probability of a large release would increase greatly."

While most of the report focuses on continued trafficking in nuclear material and the need to lock down vulnerable nuclear sites, it also confirms what nuclear-power watchdog groups in the US have been saying for months – that Fukushima demonstrated an acute vulnerability that could be exploited at US reactor sites.

"Terrorists will most likely try to damage a reactor’s support and water-supply systems as well as its control and protection system to cause a heat explosion of the reactor with subsequent demolition of the reactor and the building in which it is located," the Harvard study notes.

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Pools of circulating water that cool spent fuel could be an attractive a target, the report adds. At the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the spent-fuel pool belonging to its No. 4 reactor lost power to its cooling system, resulting in the water boiling off and a spent-fuel fire that released radiation directly into the atmosphere.

At least 28 reactors in the US have designs similar to the Fukushima plant, where spent-fuel pools are suspended near the ceiling of the reactor building. Such pools, when loaded with spent fuel, are safe as long as their cooling systems are working.

But US spent-fuel pools tend to be far more heavily loaded than those in Japan. Today, some 65,000 metric tons of spent fuel is stored at reactor sites around the country, 75 percent of it in US spent-fuel pools, according to data from the Nuclear Energy Institute cited in the report.

Some 30 million such rods are stored in spent-fuel pools at 51 sites around the country that "contain some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet," the study said.

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The rods are usually kept in tightly packed racks submerged in pool water, which requires a steady flow of electricity to keep water circulating and the rods from overheating. If water drains from a spent-fuel pool, it can lead to a catastrophic fire that emits dangerous radioactive elements like Cesium 137.

Even so, the US does not mandate backup power for cooling systems to the pools, nuclear power watchdogs have noted in several recent studies.

The National Academy of Sciences in 2004 cited the pools as vulnerable to terrorist attack and fires. While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said the pools are safe, the Fukushima reactors' core meltdowns and spent-fuel pool fire prompted a new study of the possible impact of an earthquake or electrical blackout on US sites.

Now comes the Harvard study bolstering the terrorist threat to spent fuel.

"Even if terrorists fail to cause a wide-scale dispersal of radioactive material," the report says, "their sabotage efforts may still provoke widespread terror, shut down a reactor, and cause significant economic and socio-political damage.”

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