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Report: Few US Muslims radical
The events shocked a nation and elicited concern that terrorism was now a home-grown product.
A Muslim-American member of the Army guns down fellow soldiers at Fort Hood. Five young Muslim-American men from Virginia are arrested in Pakistan and charged with terrorism. Members of a Muslim-American family living quietly near Raleigh are indicted for plotting terrorist acts.
But, in fact, a new report released Wednesday by scholars at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill says the number of radicalized Muslim-Americans remains small.
"Muslim-American organizations and the vast majority of individuals that we interviewed firmly reject the radical extremist ideology that justifies the use of violence to achieve political ends," said David Schanzer, an associate professor at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, and co-author of the report.
The 61-page study, "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans," found that since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, 139 American Muslims have been accused of planning or carrying out violent attacks motivated by extremism.
That's out of around a population of 2.5 million.