The Majority Staff of the House Committee on Homeland Security has been conducting an investigation, which finds that 70% of the plots against military targets occurred since mid-2009 – including the two successful homeland attacks since 9/11.
Other key findings:
- More than five terror plots have been disrupted involving U.S. military insiders in the past decade and at least 11 or more cases involved veterans or those who attempted to join law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The likelihood of another deadly attack by a trusted insider is a severe and emerging threat, which the Pentagon is aggressively investigating to identify perpetrators;
- Two successful attacks against the military outside of Afghanistan and Iraq were perpetrated by radicalized soldiers assigned to U.S.-based Army units: at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait in 2003 and at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009;
- At least 16 external terror plots targeting military personnel stationed inside the U.S. Homeland have been disrupted or investigated;
- At least nine other external plots were thwarted involving U.S. Persons in the homeland who traveled or planned trips overseas to kill G.I.s in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere;
- A growing number of terrorist threats are directed at families of military personnel. Particularly at risk are relatives of troops in units involved in counterterror operations.
The only successful U.S. Homeland Islamist violence resulting in fatalities since September 11, 2001 have been against the military: at Fort Hood, where 13 were murdered in an active-shooter attack allegedly by Maj. Hasan, and at a Little Rock recruiting center, where Army Pvt. William Long was fatally shot point-blank by radicalized homegrown Islamist Carlos Bledsoe, who calls himself “Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad.” According to the arresting officer’s report:
Mr. Muhammad stated that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had
done to Muslims in the past... Mr. Muhammad further stated that he drove around in the
vehicle and saw the Army Military Recruiting Station and two U.S. soldiers smoking
outside the building... Mr. Muhammad stated that he fired several rounds at the soldiers
with the intent of killing them. Mr. Muhammad further stated that he would have killed
more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot.
Both incidents also demonstrate the contradiction of the Obama administration regarding homegrown terrorism: The administration has steadfastly refused to say these cases are evidence of violent Islamist extremism.