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Analyst: Homegrown terrorists a very big threat

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Clark Kent Ervin

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Acts of terror

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal indictment unveiled Friday alleges seven men in Miami were engaged in a terrorist plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, and other U.S. government buildings in Miami, Florida.

Friday on "American Morning," CNN's Soledad O'Brien spoke with CNN security analyst Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security and author of the book "Open Target," about possible homegrown terrorist threats to the United States.

O'BRIEN: Tell me a little bit about the threat from homegrown terrorists, because it doesn't sound like they necessarily have a real definite connection to al Qaeda, at least at this point.

ERVIN: The biggest fear has always been homegrown terrorists, simply because they look and act like you and me. They fly under the radar screen. The FBI, we're told, knows of about 1,000 al Qaeda sympathizers here in the country, and about 300 extremists are under surveillance. So it's a very big threat indeed.

O'BRIEN: At the same time, the descriptions and the eyewitness statements seem to contradict everything we know about al Qaeda. Al Qaeda seems to want to fly beneath the radar, try to assimilate as much as possible. These guys walking around, in some cases, by witness descriptions, covered their entire faces except for their eyes, standing outside the building in a very militaristic way.

ERVIN: It could be, of course, this is a homegrown terror cell that's just not very good. You know, one of the problems is that there are these cells around the country. ... Some of them are not very good at hiding. On the other hand, the fact that they were so conspicuous could, indeed, suggest that they weren't terrorists at all. (Watch the FBI director's take on the threat from homegrown terrorism -- 2:24)

O'BRIEN: If, indeed, they are a homegrown terror group, a group, I guess, inspired by what's happening overseas, maybe inspired by al Qaeda, is this a turning point, do you think? Because as you point out, suddenly you don't need to worry about the visa issues. You don't need to worry about the language difficulties. You don't need to worry, frankly, about sticking out like a sore thumb in a community.

ERVIN: Well, that's exactly right. You know, al Qaeda knows that we all, whether we admit it or not, have a stereotype in our minds about what a terrorist looks like. And so they are actively -- we know this -- seeking to recruit Anglo-Americans, Hispanic-Americans. They have also been attracted to African-Americans, and we know that African-American males are disproportionately represented in prisons. And many of them have been converted to Islam, if not radical Islam. So this is a major issue. And if this turns out to be a homegrown-terror plot, this may be the beginning of many more things of this nature to come.

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