Battling terrorism at home and abroad will be a difficult and lengthy task, according to two counter-terrorism researchers with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

"With the internet and the way information flows in a global society it is very difficult to prevent recruitment of anything," said Mario Scalora, a professor of psychology at UNL.

Scalora said the federal government's adjustment of the terror alert warning is always a delicate balancing act.

"The government is in one of those darned if you do, darned if you don't situations," Scalora said. "If they don't raise the awareness and something happens, there will be all kinds of inquiries as to why they didn't do that. If they do raise the awareness, then people are going is this political, are you crying wolf, then they're getting hammered on the other side."

Randy Bowdish, a retired Navy captain, teaches a course on insurgency and terrorism at the university.

"It's not going to be a gut feeling," Bowdish said. "It's going to be intelligence based information that they've achieved put together, that's reliable and that they feel constitutes a warning."

Bowdish said there are two ways the country is fighting terrorism: anti terrorism and counter-terrorism.

"Fight it overseas so that you don't have to fight it as much over here, and yet defend against it here in our own country so that it doesn't occur within the borders," Bowdish said.

While the United States has successfully prevented terrorism from occurring domestically, both scholars say the journey to a terror-free world will be a long one.

In fact, in an outline to congress on the main threats facing the United States, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said Al-Qaida will continue to try to attack the united states until Osama bin Laden and his number two Ayman Al-Zawahri are dead.