Muslim American Terrorism Since 9/11: Why So Rare? Charles Kurzman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill David Schanzer Duke University Ebrahim Moosa Duke University I n the years after 9/11, Americans wondered how many more terrorist attacks would be unleashed against the United States. Government officials offered divergent information about the scope of the threat. Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to President George W. Bush for homeland security and counterterrorism, told reporters that al-Qaida was so small in scale that it had been unable to recruit enough militants to conduct 9/11 attacks on both the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States at the same time, as was the original plan. By contrast, Robert S. Mueller III, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, told Congress that government investigations had uncovered a much larger number of Islamist militants in the United States, and that “we strongly suspect that several hundred of these extremists are linked to al-Qaeda.” 1 The Obama Administration has continued to offer divergent information about the scope of this threat. Janet Napolitano, secretary of homeland security, commented in her 2011 “State of America’s Homeland Security Address” that “our homeland is more secure that it was ten years ago, and, indeed, more secure than it was two years ago.” Two weeks later, Napolitano told Congress that “the terrorist threat facing our country has evolved significantly in the last ten years — and continues to evolve — so that, in some ways, the threat facing us is at its most heightened state since those attacks.” 2 1 Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, “Press Briefing on the West Coast Terrorist Plot,” February 9, 2006; Robert S. Mueller III, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, “War on Terrorism,” testimony before the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate, February 11, 2003. 2 Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, “State of America’s Homeland Security Address,” George Washington University, January 27, 2011; Janet Napolitano, “Understanding the Homeland Threat Landscape — Considerations for the 112th Congress,” testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, February 9, 2011. © 2011 Hartford Seminary. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148 USA. DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-1913.2011.01388.x 464