The three [year-end 2010] plots had two things in common: They were launched by lone-wolf attackers, and the FBI was in the middle of them. Experts say to expect more undercover cases in 2011, because the agency has clearly decided that the best way to battle the growing threat of homegrown terrorism in this country is to confront the suspects directly.<\/p>\n
“I believe that we have something in this country that you don’t see characterized in TV shows,” says Philip Mudd, a former counterterrorism official with both the CIA and the FBI, who is now a research fellow at the New America Foundation.<\/p>\n
“It is not cells or clusters of individuals that are like-minded … it is clusters of kids who are talking about extremism,” he says. “I think this exists across the country. Kids are talking about what they don’t like in Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan, and within those clusters occasionally you’re going to have a couple who say, ‘All my friends, all our friends are talking, why don’t we do something about it?’ ”<\/p>\n