http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-domestic-radicals-20110804,0,5516565.storyThe strategy calls on federal agencies to help police, schools and community groups prevent violent extremism.
Reporting from Washington— The White House announced a strategy to help police, schools and other local organizations counter the threat of domestic radicalism, a broad plan involving federal departments not usually associated with national security.
The effort is modeled on anti-gang initiatives developed in the 1990s and programs intended to prevent school shootings like the tragedy at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999.
Although short on details, the eight-page outline for the first time called on all parts of the U.S. government, including the departments of Education and Health and Human Services, to devise ways to help communities identify extremist agendas that could lead to violence.
Wednesday's announcement came a week after the arrest of U.S. soldier Naser Jason Abdo in Killeen, Texas. Abdo was charged with possessing an unregistered destructive device after a gun store clerk tipped police that he had behaved oddly while buying gunpowder. Abdo planned to blow up a restaurant frequented by soldiers stationed at nearby Ft. Hood, authorities said.
At his arraignment, Abdo yelled out the name of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 during a 2009 shooting rampage at Ft. Hood.
Congressional investigations into the Ft. Hood shootings revealed warning signs that could have tipped off authorities.
Intelligence reports indicate that Al Qaeda has tried to recruit Americans to launch attacks on U.S. soil.
Thirty-one American citizens or permanent residents were arrested between May 2009 and July 2011 in connection with homegrown terrorism plots, according to the Congressional Research Service. Those arrests within a two-year period contrast with 21 such arrests in the previous seven years.
In President Obama's written introduction to the new strategy, he cited threats from "Al Qaeda's hateful ideology" as well as domestic neo-Nazis and anti-Semitic groups.
Some government efforts to identify violent extremists before they act are underway. The Homeland Security Department held a training seminar this week in Columbus, Ohio, for 150 police officers from across the country on how to spot warning signs that someone might be planning an attack.
The Bureau of Prisons and the FBI have begun sharing information with police about inmates being released from prison who had known links to violent extremist groups while incarcerated.
Matthew Levitt, a former anti-terrorism official for the Treasury Department who is now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the strategy was a good first step.
"This is how you get agencies to do things they might otherwise not do," he said.
Although the plan does not specify how agencies should prevent violent extremism, Levitt suggested that the Treasury, for example, could fund financial literacy programs for poor populations that might be vulnerable to extremist recruitment.
The Education Department could launch investigations to ensure that students who are having trouble assimilating are being treated equally in schools, he said. And Health and Human Services could fund programs that attempt to address mental and emotional health in at-risk communities, as the department did after the Columbine shootings, in which two teenagers killed 13 people before killing themselves.
The plan did not identify a single agency that would coordinate the initiative, which could cause the effort to fall short, Levitt said.
In a statement Wednesday, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called on the Obama administration to follow up with a more detailed plan including specific actions, and to designate a lead agency and place an individual in charge
