Separating the Fact From the Fiction In Islamic Extremism

ON Feb. 26, 1993, four men associated with Egyptian Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman set off a bomb under the World Trade Center in New York, killing six people and injuring thousands. For the first time, Americans saw they weren't exempt from the kind of terrorism, often tied to Islamic radicals, they saw overseas.

In a New York court two weeks ago, as Sheikh Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in prison on charges of seditious conspiracy for a second bombing plot, he called the US an "enemy of Islam." Days later, an Egyptian militant group said, "All American interests [are] legitimate targets" until the sheikh is released.

Some experts say a holy war pitting Islam against America and the West is growing. Others say such talk of jihad is a tragic misreading. They say Islamic fervor is a populist, political movement not aimed at the US.

As the debate shakes out, the question over how much of an Islamic fringe element exists in the US continues to reverberate.

The discussion deeply chills American Muslims. They say political causes abroad that deal with local grievances should not be linked with the practice of Islam, or Muslims in America.

Moreover, American Muslims are concerned that US policymakers will so demonize Islam overseas as the main post-cold-war enemy that they will provoke a violent response, either here or abroad.

Terrorism is an issue so wrapped in fear and controversy, it is difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Few Americans, for example, are aware of Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics dating to 1980 showing that only two of the 170 acts of terror on US soil by foreign nationals were committed by Islamists. Some 77 of the acts were by Puerto Ricans. Radical Jewish groups accounted for 16. The rest were assorted Irish, Latin American, Croatian, Russian. Only two American Muslims have ever been convicted for terrorist acts.

Moreover, despite warnings, there was only one incident of Iranian terror on US soil during the Ayatollah Khomeini's reign, one case of Libyan terror, and no Iraqi cases after the Gulf war.

Still, the severity of the New York bombing and the anti-Western sentiments of some Islamists abroad have raised the stakes in recent years. New York City's security was revolutionized after the bombing. American airports have been on alert for five months following rumors of a terrorist plot. The State Department told members of Congress last spring that cooperation between overseas and US intelligence agencies is on the rise.

Another key response - and one that has been controversial in the Muslim community - has been the anti-terrorism bill before Congress that would restrict residents from associations with overseas groups and increase surveillance.

Some radical Islamists do live on US soil, though the number is believed to be small. Last fall, for example, Muslims in Tampa, Fla., and professors at the University of South Florida were shocked to see their colleague, Ramadan Abdullah Shalla, a mild-mannered, British-educated economics professor, suddenly show up in Syria as the new leader of Islamic Jihad. The militant Palestinian group has claimed responsibility for bombing civilian targets in Israel.

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