How can you account for John Walker Lindhs participation in Al Qaeda?
Al Qaeda has emphasized that it must recruit people from migrant communities as well as new converts to Islam. It prizes people who have joined them from Western Europe or North America, whether they are Anglo-Saxon or people who are migrants, because they will have passports. They will also be able to travel with the least suspicion. That itself gives a very good opportunity for penetrating organizations like Al Qaeda, but unfortunately that opportunity was not seized by many Western agencies until 9/11. But we are seeing in particular that European intelligence agencies have stepped up their recruitment of Muslim migrants after 9/11, and that means that in the next five years we will have very high quality intelligence of terrorist organizations. Q: How many Al Qaeda operatives are there currently in the U.S.? A: Most Al Qaeda cells in Western Europe and North America are support cells, not operational cells. A support cell primarily disseminates propaganda. Without propaganda you ca
