Sen. Roy Blunt said Sunday that the Muslim communities must take responsibility for the fight against homegrown terrorism.
“We need to talk about it, our friends who are Muslim need to admit that this extreme sense of Islam that results in these attacks has to be called for what it is and we have to try to do what we can to intervene,” the Missouri Republican said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Mr. Blunt, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the forces driving young Muslim men to embrace the extremist ideology of Islamic State and other terrorist groups continues to pose a threat in the U.S., whether from low-tech attacks such as the van-and-knife rampage Saturday night in London or more sophisticated bombings and attacks on airliners.
He stressed the difficulty in identifying homegrown terrorists before they strike.
“You’ve got some groups that are looking at a big play like taking down an airliner. You’ve got others who need very little support, very little planning, and can do incredible damage,” he said, “which is actually in many ways almost more of terrorism because you go anywhere, do anything, you wonder what could happen at any moment. It could happen here.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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