A Look At The Americans Who Are Joining And Dying For Al Qaeda

Americans Dying For al Qaeda -- Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

(CNN) -- Nearly 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, many Americans were likely surprised to learn that one of their fellow citizens had committed suicide on behalf of al Qaeda in a massive bombing attack last week in northern Syria.

The American al Qaeda recruit's name was Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, according to the U.S. State Department, and he grew up in Vero Beach, Florida, where he played high school football.

Abu-Salha, who was 22, is the first American suicide bomber in Syria, but he is not the first U.S. citizen to die in a suicide attack on behalf of an al Qaeda-affiliated group. In the past six years, at least three Americans have conducted suicide attacks in Somalia for Al-Shabaab, al Qaeda's Somali affiliate.

It is cases like that of Abu-Salha that explain why senior U.S. counterterrorism officials tell me that they are "all Syria, all the time."

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My Comment: It is not only Syria and parts of Iraq where Al Qaeda now has safe sanctuaries .... but it is also in places like Libya, the Sahel, Yemen, and Somalia where this groups are flourishing and are accepting Americans who want to do Jihad. Fortunately .... there are not too many Westerners who are flocking to do Jihad and to then do Jihad when they come back home .... but it only takes one to conduct a major terror attack in an American city .... and after that .... be able to change the dynamics ann the public's perception of terrorism that will change everyone's lives in a measurable way.