Date Posted: March 26, 2010

Intelligence officials say there is a wave of young people who are attracted to the adventure of jihad but would like to skip all the rigors of Islam, such as reading the Quran and fasting.

"I think what we are seeing is sort of what I like to term a new generation of lazy Muslims," says Arsalan Iftikhar, a human rights lawyer and the former national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

"These are people who might not be theologically devout or even have a sound religious foundation, but they are using this new jihadi cool to justify criminal acts of terrorism," Iftikhar says

Listen to audio at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125186382