Program note: CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson spent a year investigating convicted terrorist, Bryant Neal Vinas. He is now on assignment in Pakistan tracking down details of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad. Watch AC360° tonight at 10pm ET to see Parts 2 & 3 of Robertson's report. Watch CNN"s "American Al Qaeda: The Story of Bryant Neal Vinas" on Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16, at 8pm ET.
Paul Cruickshank and Nic Robertson
CNN
Nearly a decade ago, a group of Saudis and other men from the Middle East came to the United States to carry out the worst terrorist attack on the U.S.
Not a single one had American citizenship.
Almost nine years after the September 11 attacks, the threat of another major terror strike is still a concern, but where the threat is coming from has changed.
A growing number of American citizens and longtime residents of the United States are becoming radicalized enough by al Qaeda's extremist ideology to kill their fellow Americans, counterterrorism officials say.
A growing number are also learning the bomb-making skills necessary to become potentially dangerous terrorists, the officials say. They are training in the mountains of Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, where al Qaeda still enjoys significant safety.
That's where, according to the U.S. government, alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, a group with close ties to al Qaeda.
Shahzad's case has strong similarities to that of another American who plotted with terrorist groups in Pakistan to attack the United States. His name is Bryant Neal Vinas, a Catholic convert to Islam from Long Island, New York, who became radicalized, traveled to Pakistan to join up with al Qaeda and helped Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization plot a bomb attack on New York City.
When news of Vinas' arrest broke last summer, family members, friends and terrorism experts where dumbfounded by how a studious, middle-class, baseball-loving, all-American kid and onetime U.S. Army recruit could end up plotting to kill in the name of al Qaeda.
Program Note: CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson spent a year investigating convicted terrorist, Bryant Neal Vinas. He is now on assignment in Pakistan tracking down details of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad. Watch AC360° at 10 p.m. ET. to see Parts 2 & 3 of Robertson's report. Watch Part 1 on AC360.com. Watch CNN"s "American Al Qaeda: The Story of Bryant Neal Vinas" on Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16, at 8pm ET.
AC360°
Bryant Neal Vinas, a former altar boy from the suburbs of New York, planned an attack on U.S. soil that could have caused massive casualties. See a photo gallery of Bryant throughout his childhood.
Bryant Neal Vinas
Program note: CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson spent a year investigating convicted terrorist, Bryant Neal Vinas. He is now on assignment in Pakistan tracking down details of Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad. Watch AC360° tonight at 10pm ET to see Parts 2 & 3 of Robertson's report. Watch CNN"s "American Al Qaeda: The Story of Bryant Neal Vinas" on Saturday and Sunday, May 15-16, at 8pm ET.
Program note: More American al Qaeda Investigation on AC360° 10PM ET tonight.
Nic Robertson talks about investigating a convicted al Qaeda terrorist who grew up in suburban New York.
CNN
Newly released photographs show what a damaged World Trade Center tower and its collapse looked like from a New York Police Department helicopter as it flew nearby on September 11, 2001, in New York.
The aerial photos were obtained by ABC News after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which had collected the images for its investigation into the towers' collapse.
A couple of the images show one of the twin towers burning after a hijacked airplane had flown into it. Others show it collapsing, and the rest show the clouds of debris and dust spreading below after the towers crumbled.
Gloria Borger
CNN Senior Political Analyst
Sen. Susan Collins is not prone to hyperbole. She's a moderate Republican who survived the Obama sweep in the last election by winning handily in Maine as an independent thinker. She's not doctrinaire. In fact, she abandoned most of her GOP caucus to support the administration on the controversial stimulus package. And she's an important player, as the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee.
Lately, she's been (uncharacteristically) sounding alarms. She complained last week that the administration treated the Christmas Day bomber as an "ordinary criminal" rather than a terrorist when officials decided to eventually hand him a lawyer some time after his arrest. And now, she's even more concerned. "I am frustrated about it," she told me. "It was such a dangerous decision. It really worries me."
Why the additional angst? Because intelligence officials told a Senate panel this week that al Qaeda and its subsidiaries were actively plotting a new attack against the United States within the next six months. If that's the case, she tells me, we need to get our act together. And fast.
Octavia Nasr | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Senior Editor, Mideast Affairs
They call themselves Al-Shabaab which means 'the Youth' in Arabic.
On several occasions, they pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and his terror network al Qaeda. They use the internet to propagate al Qaeda's ideology.
In July 2009, an Al-Shabaab propaganda video featured a man speaking English with a clearly identifiable U.S. accent.
He was introduced as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki (the American) claiming that he left the U.S. for Somalia to pursue al Qaeda’s brand of Jihad.
In the video, a bearded al-Amriki says with a smile, "The only reason we’re staying here, away from our families, away from the cities, away from, you know, ice, candy bars, all these other things, is because we’re waiting to meet with the enemy.”
Editor's note: Christopher Boucek is an associate in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Christopher Boucek
Special to CNN
In recent days, international attention has refocused on the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Yemen. The claim of responsibility for the attack on Northwest flight 253 on December 25 by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has underscored the fact that Yemen's problems will not stay in Yemen.
In the absence of immediate and sustained attention by the international community, Yemen may be overwhelmed by a unique convergence of crises. While some observers feared this would come in several years, it is increasingly apparent that failure may come sooner than previously expected.
Yemen has frequently been described as a failing state - and with good reason. Civil war, terrorism, a deepening secessionist movement and economic and demographic trends threaten to overpower the Yemeni government, provide a breeding ground for terrorists and destabilize the region. Yemen has often teetered on the brink of collapse, but it has never faced so many interconnected challenges at one time.
At the heart of the country's problems is a looming economic crisis. Oil is the source of nearly 80 percent of government revenue, and it is quickly running out. There are few viable options for a sustainable post-oil economy, and Yemen is already the poorest country in the Arab world with an unemployment rate conservatively estimated at 35 percent.
Barbara Starr
CNN Pentagon Correspondent
"Solid intelligence" from U.S. and Yemen services finally persuaded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh last summer to accept increased help in fighting al Qaeda in his country, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
After years of pressure from the United States to crack down on al Qaeda in Yemen, Saleh was persuaded to accept help after he was presented with intelligence that al Qaeda "was targeting inner-circle Yemeni leaders," and that there was a growing number of terrorist training camps in Yemen, the official said.
The official, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation in the wake of the attempted attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, detailed to CNN growing U.S. involvement in fighting al Qaeda in Yemen.
A Nigerian man is accused of trying to blow up the Northwest flight carrying 300 passengers from the Netherlands to Michigan on Christmas Day. A federal security bulletin obtained by CNN said suspect Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab claimed the explosive device used Friday "was acquired in Yemen along with instructions as to when it should be used."
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertise with us | About us | Help | Advertising Practices
Gumby celebrates Isha Sesay's birthday
Anderson Cooper's birthday surprise
You asked, Anderson answers
