WASHINGTON, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Homegrown extremists are posing a threat as serious as al-Qaeda and its affiliates who have been threatening to strike the United States again, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned on Wednesday.
"Homegrown and lone-wolf extremists pose an equally serious threat," Robert Mueller told a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee.
The FBI chief referred to the shooting spree at Fort Hood, an Army base in Texas, where 39-year-old military psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan shot to death 13 and wounded over 30 others.
"We have also seen U.S. born extremists plotting to commit terrorist acts overseas, as was the case with the heavily armed Daniel Boyd conspiracy in North Carolina and David Headley's involvement in the Mumbai attacks from his home base in Chicago, Illinois," Mueller added.
Boyd was charged with leading a group of men who planned to kidnap, maim and kill people in other countries in the name of Jihad.
Headley was charged with conspiring to attack the Copenhagen newspaper that ran cartoons of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed.
