It is ridiculous to suggest that the chairman of the House committee responsible for homeland security is out of line to investigate the subject of radicalization in the American Muslim community.

Al-Qaeda remains intent on attacking the United States, as made clear by a series of planned attacks prevented by the American intelligence community, and it is unsafe to assume that al-Qaeda is not planning a staggering attack for the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

Recent attacks by al-Shabab in Uganda and the court hearing of an American charged with trying to join the jihad in Somalia are bad signs that a new transnational terrorist network is taking shape in East Africa, and President Obama has made the problem worse by ordering the killing of the man who could have helped disrupt and destroy the network.

Recruiting Westerners has become a top priority for Somalia's al Qaeda-linked terrorist group al Shabaab, worsening an already severe threat posed by the global Islamist movement.