Lawmaker sees threat from radicalized U.S. Muslims

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee said on Sunday he saw a security threat from organized al Qaeda efforts to radicalize American Muslims.

"The overwhelming majority of Muslims are outstanding Americans, but at this stage in our history there is an effort to radicalize efforts within the Muslim community," Representative Peter King said on CNN's "State of the Union."

The New York Republican, who plans to address the matter in a congressional hearing on Thursday, cited recent foiled U.S. security threats from individuals trained by al Qaeda, including Afghan national Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to plotting to bomb New York's subway system.

"We're talking about al Qaeda," King said. "We're talking about the affiliates of al Qaeda who have been radicalizing, and there's been self-radicalization going on within the Muslim community, within a very small minority, but it's there. And that's where the threat is coming from at this time."

In New York on Sunday Muslims, activists and supporters demonstrated in Times Square to protest the hearing.

Holding placards that read "Today I am a Muslim, too," a few hundred gathered at the interfaith protest, decrying what they said was the bigotry and ignorance behind anti-Muslim sentiments in the United States.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, until recently the leader of the controversial plan to build a mosque and cultural center near the former World Trade Center site, said he was concerned King's scheduled hearing would only alienate U.S. Muslims.

"My concern is the perception among the youth here that Muslims are under attack ... by their own government.

"This helps radicalize people, and we need to reverse that cycle of radicalization," Rauf said.

Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, said he was worried the hearings unfairly singled out Muslim Americans.

"I worry about it. Everybody I talk to worries about it," Ellison, who plans to testify at the hearing, told the same CNN program.

" ... It's absolutely the right thing to do for the chairman ... to investigate radicalization, but to say we're going to investigate a religious minority and a particular one, I think, is the wrong course of action to take."

Ellison said members of the Muslim-American community have been helpful in informing U.S. law enforcement about potential security threats within their community. But King said they had not been helpful enough, and some imams were telling Muslim-Americans not to cooperate with the FBI.

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Paul Simao and Todd Eastham)