Terror grows abroad: Jihadis are appearing from and in unexpected places

As the plague of Islamist terrorism continues to spread around the globe, there is ever more evidence that America and its allies are, in case you forgot, at war with a lethal and global gang of fanatics.

The locales may be changing and the profile of the terrorists may be evolving - but it is the same interconnected, religiously motivated enemy waging the same jihad against us.

The latest case in point: Thursday's arrest of three men in, of all places, Norway.

The thought-to-be sleepy European country is only the first surprising detail here.

Second is the background of the alleged plotters. The 9/11 attacks were pulled off by Muslims of Arab descent. But the three netted by Norwegian officials are a 39-year-old member of China's ethnic Uighur minority who went there as a refugee in 1999 and became a citizen three years ago; a 31-year-old man from Uzbekistan who was denied asylum in Norway in 2002 but later got a residency permit, and a 37-year-old Iraqi Kurd who emigrated to Norway in 1999 and received a residence permit on humanitarian grounds.

Now look at whom the three hooked up with and what they were up to.

Under surveillance for a year, they got their plan of attack from Saleh al-Somali, Al Qaeda's worldwide operational mastermind. This is the very same al-Somali who was behind attempts to bomb the New York subways at rush hour - to which Najibullah Zazi of Queens pleaded guilty in February - and a related attempt to hit a shopping mall in Manchester, England.

The Uighur, in fact, visited Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region and met up with Al Qaeda operatives at the same time as Zazi - though not apparently at the same terrorist training camp.

And the Norwegians intended to employ the same type of small, portable peroxide bombs that Zazi and his Flushing High School pals were going to use in the subways before being scared off and flushing the chemicals down the toilet.

Al Qaeda big al-Somali was blown to bits by a U.S. drone in December. But the threat lives on.

Sometimes, as with Zazi or Times Square terrorist Faisal Shahzad, would-be terrorists get training or plans or weapons with help from a terror leader in a far-flung place. Other times, they are inspired to action through the ether - a radical cleric here, a YouTube video there.

Many plots, many targets, many methods, one fanatical motivation.

There will be more.

Source: nydailynews.com