Hillary Clinton Says al-Qaeda Groups Pose Bigger Threat Than Iran or North Korea

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday that while North Korea and Iran are the nations that pose the biggest security threat to the U.S. because of their pursuit of nuclear weapons, the greater danger is from the "transnational, non-state networks" of al-Qaeda branches around the world.

Asked on CNN's State of the Union to name the country that is most dangerous to the U.S., Clinton said, "In terms of a country, obviously a nuclear-armed country like North Korea or Iran pose both a real or a potential threat."

Clinton said attempts to engage with North Korea had "brought us a lot in the last year" but "not to the extent we would like to see."

She said that Iran has not yet progressed to possessing nuclear arms, but said "We believe that their behavior certainly is evidence of their intentions, and how close they are may be subject to some debate. But the failure to disclose the facility at Qom, the facility to accept what was a very reasonable offer by Russia, France and the U.S. through the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to take their ... their low- enriched uranium and return it for their research reactor ... It's like an old saying that if you see a turtle on the fence post in the middle of the woods, he didn't get there by accident, right? Somebody put him there."

But Clinton said, "I think that most of us believe the greater threats are the transnational non-state networks, primarily the extremists -- the fundamentalist Islamic extremists who are connected, al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, al Qaeda in the Maghreb, I mean, the kind of connectivity that exists."

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was the group that armed and trained a 23 year old Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, an attack that failed when the explosives concealed in his clothing failed to detonate.

The al-Qaeda groups around the world "continue to try to increase the sophistication of their capacity, the attacks that they're going to make," Clinton said. "The biggest nightmare that any of us have is that one of these terrorists member organizations within this syndicate of terror will get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction. So that's really the most threatening prospect we see."

Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan said on NBC's Meet the Press that, in the past, al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula had been focused in the past on "carrying out attacks in Yemen, against our embassy, a year and a half ago in Saudi Arabia."

"What we're now learning is that they have been determined, because of individuals who have been speaking out, Mr. (Anwar al) Awlaki and others focusing on trying to carry out those attacks in the west, including the homeland here," Brennan said. "We've had excellent cooperation from the Yemeni government, we're continuing to work very closely, and we believe we're now ahead of this curve