Sudden Jihad Syndrome Is Still Terrorism
January 3, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
When discussing “sudden jihad syndrome”, the most important point to remember is that it is not a mental illness, a temporary lapse in judgment, or the “acting out” of a wannabe terrorism fanatic. It is T-E-R-R-O-R-I-S-M.
Whether it’s lying in wait, in a park with an automatic weapon, shooting up a Jewish Community Center, running your car at full speed through a crowd of students, or innocent citizens in the Bay Area, it is still terrorism. The following story appeared yesterday in the Washington Post.
Sympathy for al Qaeda has produced “sudden jihad syndrome” in domestic terror cells unaffiliated with foreign terrorists and people seeking to carry out attacks in the U.S., a law-enforcement intelligence analysis says.
The Dec. 6 report by the Texas Public Safety Department’s Bureau of Information Analysis warns officials not to dismiss individual or homegrown terror cells as “wannabes,” saying they pose a credible threat to homeland security.
“Oftentimes, these attackers are dismissed as suffering from mental health issues, but their own words and writings reveal an affiliation with Islamic supremacy or an affinity for Islamic extremism,” said the report, which was distributed to federal, state and local law enforcement in Texas. “As a result, law enforcement should not be too quick to judge their attacks as having no nexus to terrorism.”
It said they might act with the intention of eventually joining al Qaeda or the jihad movement overseas.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, cited al Qaeda theorist Abu Mu’ab al Suri’s book “Call to Global Islamic Resistance,” in which Mu’ab al Suri noted that the future of al Qaeda terrorist fighters will depend on individual and small-group terrorists.
Note: Although The “Nearly Famous” Barry Young wanted to raise the National Terror Alert based upon this story, it remains at Elevated. 
