Alarming rise of homegrown jihadis in US

WASHINGTON: The recent arrest of US citizen David Coleman Headley on charges of plotting a major terrorist attack in India and Denmark reflects an alarming rise in homegrown jihadi activities in the country with number of them being trained in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Since the Mumbai terror attack, several US officials and think tanks have feared that homegrown jihadis, indoctrinated by fundamentalist ideologies of organisations like Al Qaeda, are on the rise and the United States needs to be doubly alert.

The series of arrests made by the FBI in the last couple of months has raised alarm bells in the country, as there is an increase in the number of American citizens being part of the global Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Joe Lieberman had earlier said: ���These cases realise our worst fears about homegrown Islamist terrorist attacks in America and in some respects our best hopes for how the government will defend us from them.���