DUBAI // No country is immune to acts of terrorism, a Federal Bureau of Investigation official told a police conference on Tuesday.
Stephen J Gaudin, FBI legal attache-chief of office, UAE, said the murder of American teacher Ibolya Ryan highlighted the fact that incidents could still happen, even in the relative safety of the UAE.
The mother was killed in the toilets of a Reem Island mall last December. Her alleged killer, Alaa Bader Abdullah, is also accused of attempting to kill residents in an apartment in the Habtoor building on Abu Dhabi Corniche.
Mr Gaudin said at the International Symposium for Best Police Practices: “My understanding from what’s available in the public realm is that she spent a lot of time on the internet. Someone could be in their bedroom, never leave it, and meet, communicate and talk on any type of social media platform with anyone from Al Nusra, ISIL and Al Qaeda, and be provided with radicalisation, motivation and, more importantly, how to build a bomb.”
Mr Gaudin said that such groups no longer had to carry out spectacular attacks like 15 to 20 years ago to lure recruits.
“If you look at the group who are fighting with Daesh [ISIL] now, over 50 per cent are not from Iraq or Syria. They are groups from Tunisia, Saudi, Jordan, Turkey. We have American teenage girls living in Colorado trying to go to Syria. Things have gone upside down,” he said.
“What happened in Boston? What happened in Abu Dhabi? [These groups are saying] just go kill somebody wherever you are, and if you can videotape it, all the better.
“This is not an Abu Dhabi problem, it’s not a Boston problem, it’s not a New York problem, it’s the whole world’s problem.”
dmoukhallati@thenational.ae
