Originally Posted by PatrickHenry1775
The terrorists al-Qaeda is recruiting to replace the typical "middle easterner" profile share some common characteristics. They tend to frequent radical mosques, which means they subscribe to the virulent brand of Islam.
Not according to what I've been hearing as of late -- or even before 9/11. Avoiding mosques (period) -- especially the handful of infamous ones -- has been the way of Al-Qaeda when it comes to its general approach for more or less direct recruitment. And it's not like the latest Al-Qaeda recruits are even necessarily religious fundamentalists -- a lot of them are anything but. (Remember your disbelief that various white supremacists were looking to hook up with Al-Qaeda and the type? It's still going on.

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A lot of governments are wasting a lot of resources at mosques. That's not where the problems start, can be trailed (generally) or even be resolved. It leads to a lot of false leads, entrapment situations that are nothing but a paid informant trying to keep themselves on the payroll doing no real work, and bigger haystacks in which to lose the same handful of needles.