A young man from Clarkston, Wash. – who idolized Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and nearly died exploding a test bomb before becoming interested in radical jihadists – was sentenced Tuesday to 12.5 years in federal prison.

The federal investigation and prosecution of Joseph Jefferey Brice shines a spotlight on the antigovernment, anti-Semitic links shared between Islamic jihadists and white supremacists.

“Tim’s characteristics are nearly the same as myself, physically (and) politically,” Brice, 23, wrote in an Internet message posted on Jan. 14, 2010. ( continue to full post… )

With the news that the Boston Marathon bombers may have Chechnyan roots, attention is turning to the threat of “self-radicalized” Muslims in the United States. In the fall of 2011, the Intelligence Report ran a cover story and several sidebars on that phenomenon that may be useful to readers.

Our lead story explored the changing nature of the jihadist threat as extremists living in the country have become at least as dangerous as operatives from abroad. We also published a timeline of 30 attacks by homegrown jihadists since 9/11 and profiles of 10 extremists. I also wrote an accompanying editorial.

At the same time, the fact that the two suspects, one of whom died in a shootout with police, may be Muslim has prompted serious concerns about a backlash against Muslims in this country. We explored issues of Islamophobia in a cover story in our Summer 2011 issue. Accompanying that story was a look at the anti-Muslim inner circle. We also reported recently on the rise in  anti-Muslim hate crimes that began in 2010. Pro-immigrant activists are also worried that the fact that the two suspects were immigrants may harm or even derail efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the near future.

A terrorist sympathizer, a college dropout who idolized both American terrorist Timothy McVeigh and Islamic jihadists while learning the hard way how to build bombs, likely faces a lengthy prison sentence after confessing to two terrorism-related crimes.

Joseph Jefferey Brice, 22, who nearly died when one of his eight-pound homemade bombs exploded in April 2010, pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane to illegally making the device and later providing bomb-making instructions online to potential foreign terrorists.

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A Manhattan man arrested on charges of plotting to build and detonate bombs in New York had become fascinated by the American-born militant Anwar al-Awlaki during the course of his radicalization, The New York Times is reporting.

The Southern Poverty Law Center profiled al-Awlaki in the Fall 2011 issue of the Intelligence Report, which noted that, “many homegrown extremists arrested on terrorism charges are known to have frequented extremist websites early in the radicalization process.” ( continue to full post… )

Two U.S. citizens who became Islamist jihadists were killed in an American drone attack in Yemen early this morning, officials in America and Yemen report. The deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki, an Amercan-born radical cleric linked to at least 15 terrorist plots, and Samir Khan, editor of Inspire, a sophisticated English-language online magazine devoted to inspiring homegrown jihadists, are being touted as a major blow to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al Qaeda’s virulent Yemen-based arm. ( continue to full post… )

Two men have been arrested in a plot to attack a U.S. military recruiting post in Seattle. The men, ex-convicts and Muslim coverts, allegedly planned to take over the post and shoot  military personnel there to gain media attention.

Six New York teens charged with murder are now under indictment for committing a hate crime in the beating death of Anthony Collao. The teens allegedly bludgeoned the 18-year-old with a pipe, cane and stick, mistakenly believing he was gay.

The trial of suspected white supremacist gang member Jessie Raffensberger is to begin today on charges of aggravated assault and kidnapping. The Costa Mesa, Calif., man allegedly lured a man to a hotel and pistol-whipped him in order to extort money to continue gang activities. ( continue to full post… )

A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over “blatantly racist and offensive” comments made by white Philadelphia officers on the popular police Internet forum  Domelights.com. The settlement requires the city to hire an anti-discrimination consultant as well as enhance anti-discrimination training within the department.

Two New York men pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to blow up a Manhattan synagogue. The two men, both immigrants from North Africa, are accused of attempting to purchase weapons from undercover NYPD detectives and planned to carry out a bomb attack on an unnamed synagogue. The men are suspected of being lone wolves, with no connection to international terrorist groups.

A member of the white supremacist group Battalion 14 of North East White Pride was sentenced to 30 months in prison Wednesday for attempting to sell guns to an associate of the Ku Klux Klan. William Bolton is the third man to be charged in the conspiracy to obtain weapons for other racist groups in order to raise the standing of the Connecticut gang in the white nationalist community. ( continue to full post… )

Two American Muslims, one of whom complained that Muslims were treated like “dogs,” have been charged with plotting to kill Jews by blowing up synagogues in Manhattan.

Ahmed Ferhani, 26, an aspiring fashion model who once sold cosmetics at Saks Fifth Avenue, and his accomplice, Mohamed Mamdouh, 20, a taxi service dispatcher, were arrested Wednesday after purchasing three semiautomatic pistols, 150 rounds of ammunition and a hand grenade from an undercover police officer.

They are charged under state law with second-degree conspiracy as a crime of terrorism, second-degree conspiracy as a hate crime and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism. ( continue to full post… )

A Detroit man fatally shot last week by FBI agents was a high-ranking leader of a nationwide separatist group that advocated violence and denigrated Christians, Jews and other non-Muslims, according to an FBI complaint.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah (also known as Christopher Thomas), 53, was killed during a government raid on Oct. 28 when he refused to surrender and fired his weapon, according to an FBI news release. A convicted felon, Abdullah helped lead what the FBI characterized as a “radical fundamentalist Sunni group” called Ummah (“the brotherhood”). The group consists mostly of African Americans, some of whom converted to Islam while in prison. Its main goal is to create a sovereign state within America’s borders that would be governed by Islamic law and ruled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (the former H. Rapp Brown), who’s serving a life sentence for murdering two police officers in Georgia. Abdullah was among 11 men linked to Ummah who were charged with conspiracy to commit an array of federal crimes, including theft from interstate shipments and illegal possession and sale of firearms.

Last week’s raid followed the eviction in January of Ummah members from their former mosque after they failed to pay property taxes. Inside that building, Detroit police found two firearms, roughly 40 knives and martial arts weapons, empty shell casings, and a concrete wall that had served as a shooting range.

Abdullah’s death led to criticism from several Muslim groups who say he was not the violent extremist that the FBI claimed. More than 1,000 people attended Abdullah’s funeral on Saturday at Detroit’s Muslim Center, where some speakers demanded an investigation into the shooting. Abdullah was imam (leader) of the Masjid Al-Haqq mosque in Detroit, which called the FBI allegations “utterly preposterous,” according to The Associated Press. ( continue to full post… )