Pitt Expert Available for Comment on British Terror Plot

PITTSBURGH-The following University of Pittsburgh faculty expert is available to comment on the recent foiled terrorist activity in Great Britain.

Simon Reich, a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and director of Pitt's Ford Institute for Human Security, says, "Today's news from London reaffirms an important point that U.S. authorities have been slow to grasp, at least publicly: that the contemporary nature of global terrorism is that it is often dependent on 'home grown' terrorists to carry out the missions, rather than by people coming into a country from the Middle East. The London July 7 attack last year is a good example of terrorist acts carried out by disaffected people who had been born and raised in the United Kingdom. We cannot discount the prospect that-like in Europe-a major terrorist threat in the United States may come from an alienated 'enemy within', against which efforts to seal off borders or slow the flow of immigrants will prove irrelevant."

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8/10/06/tmw