Al-Qaida seen shifting tactics to smaller attacks.

• Author: Tadjdeh, Yasmin

* As runners raced down Boston streets April 15, two bombs housed in pressure cookers exploded. The blast killed three people and maimed hundreds more.

The bombing quickly brought domestic jihadist terrorism back into the public eye.

Counterterrorism analysts are now concerned that the United States may soon face an increase in deadly, smaller scale attacks.

The Boston bombing inspired al-Qaida to think differently about terrorist attacks, said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"What's concerning is that in the past they [al-Qaida] were very eager to have ... big 9/11-style events, and they would take a long time to plan those big ... impactful events," said Rogers. "Well, unfortunately, they learned a lot from the Boston bombing and so now you see a change in attitude."

In the future, al-Qaida will likely conduct more frequent, smaller attacks rather than large-scale ones on par with 9/11, he said at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance's Intelligence Community Summit in Washington, D.C., in September. The terrorist group's definition of what constitutes a successful attack is changing, he said.

"You don't have to look for the big event, flying a plane through a building. They would like to do that, too, but we also now have to worry about those smaller, knock-off events," said Rogers.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said al-Qaida realizes the United States' intelligence community is sophisticated enough to detect major, well coordinated attacks, so it is settling for smaller ones using operatives who can be kept under the radar.

"You can't misjudge how many people are helping al-Qaida and funding them, and you have some very smart people that are part of the organization," he said.

Homegrown extremists are much harder to discover than a terrorist directly affiliated with a formal organization, said Nicholas Rasmussen, deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center at the opening of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in September.

"As we look forward in the years ahead, the threat posed by homegrown violent extremists is the one that causes us to scratch our heads the most," Rasmussen said. "These are people that live among us, who have gone to the same schools, who attend the same churches, who attend the same health clubs [and] institutions in our...