Word: gadahn
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Dates: during 2004-2004
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Adam Yahiye Gadahn, A.K.A. Abu Suhayb, could be just the kind of prospective terrorist that intelligence analysts in Washington are most concerned about these days--a personification of what Attorney General John Ashcroft calls the changing face of al-Qaeda. Gadahn, 25, is an American through and through, born and bred in California, a speaker of unaccented English, intimate with the country's habits and thus able to move about without arousing suspicion. Brought up and homeschooled on his parents' goat farm, Gadahn was an introspective teenager who went looking for meaning and found it in Islam. Eventually, he also...
...announcement last week that it was seeking Gadahn for questioning conjured memories of John Walker Lindh, the young Californian convert to Islam who in 2002 was sentenced to 20 years in prison for serving in the Taliban army. But it also called to mind the cautionary tale of Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, another American convert, who just a week before had been released from jail after U.S. officials mistakenly tied him to the March bombings in Madrid. Had al-Qaeda found a gateway through an American recruit, or were authorities again overreaching...
Americans could be forgiven for wondering, given the confused, conflicting signals the government sent with its latest terrorism alert. Besides asking citizens to be on the lookout for Gadahn and six other alleged al-Qaeda associates, Ashcroft repeated the claim of an al-Qaeda--related group that preparations for a massive attack inside the U.S. were "90%" done, although he acknowledged that officials had not picked up any specifics about a plot. Intelligence officials questioned the credibility of the group but insisted there was ample support for Ashcroft's warning. The same day that Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller...