A growing number of recruits from Western nations — including the U.S. — are traveling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to attend training camps run by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, American and European counterterrorism officials say.

The flow of Western recruits has continued despite the intensified American campaign to take out terrorist leaders with drone missile attacks.

According to the Washington Post, A propaganda videotape released in September by a group calling itself the German Taliban showed a gunman identified as Abu Ibrahim the American. The tape was one of several released by groups affiliated with the Taliban and al-Qaida warning of an attack on German targets if the government did not withdraw its 3,800 troops from Afghanistan. At least 30 recruits from Germany have traveled to Pakistan this year for training, Germany security forces say.

The Post added:

“About 10 people — not necessarily the same individuals — have returned to Germany this year, fueling concerns that fresh plots are in the works against European targets.”

Pakistani officials in August arrested a dozen foreigners on their way to North Waziristan, a tribal region where many of the training camps are located. Among them was Mehdi Ghezali, a former inmate at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In July, American officials announced that they had taken into custody New Yorker Bryant Neal Vinas, who confessed to traveling to al-Qaida camps in Pakistan and training to become a suicide bomber.

While he has been in custody, the U.S. has made a series of successful drone strikes on suspected al-Qaida locations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, raising questions about whether Vinas provided the information that led to any of the deadly attacks, according to The Associated Press.

Vinas also told American authorities that he spent time in Pakistan with another New York resident, whose whereabouts are unknown. Al-Qaida and its affiliates have now developed an extensive recruiting network, The Post disclosed, with agents providing Western recruits with guidance, money, and travel routes to South Asia.

Below is a portion of a press conference which took place prior to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates departing Germany:

Q: So today is an important day — the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraqi cities.  We’ve seen a peak of violence these past weeks and your commanders and yourself said that it was pretty predictable.  However, I was wondering if you could give us an assessment of the security in Iraq for the next month?  What is the Pentagon’s assessment?  What might happen?

SEC. GATES:  Well, I think it really varies around the country.  You have some places like Fallujah and Ramadi and Kirkuk, Basra that are pretty quiet.  Mosul — they were in the middle of a fight in Mosul when this deadline came, and we’re seeing some of these high profile suicide attacks in Baghdad.

And I think the general view is that part of General Odierno and what he has been anticipating for weeks was that al Qaeda, in particular, as soon as we began — two things.  First, as soon as we began to leave the cities, al Qaeda would try and reignite the sectarian violence, and to the degree that he has seemed relatively positive about developments, I think it’s because even after these high profile bombings and with a lot of casualties, that sectarian violence has not reignited.  And I think his view is most Iraqis are sick and tired of the violence.

The other thing is al Qaeda and others trying to increase the level of violence to try and pretend that they were the ones that forced us out of the cities and also to try and demonstrate deficiencies of the Iraqi security forces.

So this is — I think our commanders have anticipated these strategies on the part of the remaining al Qaeda and a few others, to try and take advantage of our withdrawal to get into the cities.  And the failure to spark new sectarian violence is what is, I think, making them as positive as they sound.

Q: So what do you expect for the next month to happen?

SEC. GATES:  Well, I expect that there’ll continue to be sporadic attacks as people try and take advantage of our being out of the cities.  But we’re not — you know, we’re not coming home and in many respects, being out of the cities and able to focus on, say, the belts around Baghdad and some of these other areas may, in fact, allow us to help the Iraqi security forces by preventing those who want to foment trouble from getting into the cities.

So I think we can continue the partnership that’s been developed with the Iraqi security forces.  We’ll just be doing it outside the cities.

To view the entire press conference, click here.

The President commemorates D-Day in Europe; we’ll have the latest. Plus, what’s it like jumping from 10,000 feet with the Army’s elite Golden Knights? One reporter finds out.

Eight military bases from across the country and Germany have received the Secretary of Defense Environmental Award. Plus, the man accused of shooting two Army recruiters enters a plea and more.