The arrests followed that of the American Faisal Shahzad, characterized as a home-grown terrorist and charged in the failed Times Square bombing.

Since Senator Leahy is primarily associated with social and law enforcement issues, he seems more likely to attract the attention of home-grown terrorists.

He even phoned the authorities once to complain about graffiti scrawled on a neighborhood wall praising Spain's home-grown Basque terrorists.

Scott Atran, a US academic who has closely followed the trial, compared the bombers to the "home-grown" terrorists who carried out the 2005 London bombings.

"Virtually everybody believes that the two explosions are linked somehow, that this is the same gang of home-grown terrorists."

Those drove home the need to be concerned about "home-grown terrorists," he has said.

"Are these home-grown terrorists, like in London, or is it Al Qaeda?"

Conventional wisdom is that Greece is rampant with home-grown terrorists and ripe for imported mischief.

Already, home-grown terrorists have adopted the insurgent tactics being used in Iraq, and battle-hardened Saudi volunteers will eventually return home.

Likewise, the home-grown terrorists of the Victorian age were armed with mere revolvers and primitive bombs; lethal nerve gas was not an option.