DHS Report Compares Terrorism To “Ordinary Crime,” Omits Islamists

A new Homeland Security report compares terrorism to “ordinary crime” in metropolitan U.S. cities and omits the radical Islamic factor, instead finding “significant variability in the ideologies motivating terrorist attacks across decades.”

This appears to be part of the Obama Administration’s Muslim outreach effort, which includes hiring a special Homeland Security adviser (Mohamed Elibiary) who supports a radical Islamist theologian and renowned jihadist ideologue. The Obama Justice Department also created a special Muslim Engagement Advisory Group to foster greater communication, collaboration and a new level of respect between law enforcement and Muslim and Arab-American communities.

And, in 2010, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano held secret meetings with radical Arab, Muslim, Sikh and South Asian “community leaders.” Judicial Watch uncovered documents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that includes a list of the individuals who participated, including radical leaders such as Imad Hamad, outed as a Hezbollah supporter by attorney and investigative journalist Debbie Schlussel, and extremist Salam Al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Considering this cozy relationship, the new DHS terrorism report should come as no surprise. It compares terrorist attacks to “ordinary crime” in large, metropolitan areas which is why the nation’s terrorism “hot spots” are Manhattan, Los Angeles County, Miami-Dade County Florida, San Francisco County and Washington, D.C. As if to downplay the distinct difference between crashing a plane into a high-rise and a mugging, the DHS says “terrorism and ordinary crime occur in many of the same areas.”

It stresses that the “Ideological motivation” for terrorist attacks varies greatly. For instance, the brilliant DHS minds found that certain counties are prone to a particular type of terrorist attack, including extreme right-wing, ethno-nationalist/separatist and “religiously motivated,” though no specific religion is mentioned. The report does point out however, that “religiously motivated attacks occurred predominately in the 1980s.”

Terrorism is also linked to social economic status, poverty, residential instability and “ethnic heterogeneity,” a dramatic change in the urban landscape caused by massive numbers of immigrants. Because neighborhoods were “rapidly transformed into centers of diversity,” the result was not immediately positive and some turned to terrorism, the DHS report seems to indicate.

The only mention of Islam is buried deep in the 36-page document as an example of “those who seek to politicize religion” along with “Christian Reconstructionists” and those who seek to bring about Armageddon, such as Jewish Direct Action and Mormon extremists. The study was conducted by the DHS’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a team of social scientists that research the causes and human consequences of terrorism in the U.S.