mr. joscelyn is how big of a threat is this to the united states? there are those who would say that these individuals are leaving the united states to join the special forces in the civil war, and that that is their main focus, their threat, the focus is not posing a threat to the united states, how would you respond to that? >> thank you, congressman. as i set forth in my remarks, i believe that the threat that we need to be aware of is the fact that the terrorist training camps run by al-shabaab teach their participants how to kill people, how to utilize weapons, how to build bombs, and military training provides an ideological indoctrination that teaches that it's okay to do that attacks, and if the individual to return to the united states and to put into practice that training as a threat. >> mr. joscelyn? >> welcome you know, it's tough to say how big a threat but i take it seriously. any al qaeda of joliet party shouldn't downplayed. we were talking about the ugonda bombings for example which were a very personal connection. the brigade to c

mr. folk. tom joscelyn is a senior fellow and foundation of defense of democracies.as a result of his extensive research and writings, he's distinguished himself as a leading terrorism expert focusing on al-qaeda and other organizations operating around the world, and senior editor of the long war journal. we welcome you back. you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much. i thank congressman king and chairman king and thompson for having me here today. we have been following shabaab since 2006 and 2007 fairly closely. there's two observations i want to share with you today. the first is to our mind shabaab is a threat to the interests abroad and the homeland. most of shabaab's terrorism is focused on muslims in somalia and internationally. the first point -- the threat to the u.s. homeland. i want to point the committee to what happened previously with al-qaeda in the peninsula. prior to december 25th, 2009 against 553, many believes akap was a threat homeland. characters and analysts, cia -- that's proven to be fatal flaw. we witnessed they sought to