Excerpt:
Two days after a panel took to Capitol Hill to say the terrorist threat to America is overblown, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a House committee Tuesday that "the terrorist threat to the homeland is in many ways at its most heightened state since 9/11."
That threat comes from homegrown terrorists ready to strike with "little or no warning," she said.
Islamist groups including Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, al-Shabaab and branches of al-Qaida are driving the threat, National Counterterrorism Center Director Michael Leiter added. "I actually consider al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, with Awlaki as a leader within that organization, probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland," he said.
Both officials said the problem reflects on only a tiny portion of the Muslim-American community.