Posted on 12/10/2001 3:40:38 AM PST by kattracks
New York, PRNewswire--John Walker, the American citizen captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was a "model student" at the madrasa, a primitive Islamic fundamentalist school where he studied Islam in a remote corner of Pakistan, his teacher tells Newsweek.
Walker, who grew up surrounded by upper middle class affluence in California, was determined to fit in at the Islamic religious school, an austere one-story building without hot water in a tiny village outside the town of Bannu in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, Newsweek reports in the Dec. 17 issue (on newsstands Monday, Dec. 10).
Speaking with the teacher, Mufti Mohammad Iltimas, Walker was critical of America as a land that exalted self above all else. Americans were so busy pursuing their personal goals, he said, that they had no time for their families or communities.
In the Islamic world, by contrast, he felt cared for by others, "In the U.S. I feel alone," he said. "Here I feel comfortable and at home." His mufti says Walker had no interest in girls or parties or world events.
His only real interest was studying. He seemed determined to memorize every word of the Quran, all 6,666 sentences of the ancient holy book that dictates every aspect of a devout Muslim's life, behavior, and being, according to a Newsweek Exclusive reported by Special Correspondent Colin Soloway in Afghanistan, San Francisco Bureau Chief Karen Breslau, Bangkok Bureau Chief Ron Moreau in Pakistan, and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas.
It is not clear how Walker wound up in Afghanistan. A friend from a San Francisco mosque tells Newsweek that he received an e-mail from Walker a month before he left the madrasa outside Bannu for the "cooler mountains" in May of this year.
"He was intrigued by Afghanistan," said the friend. "He said he was interested in getting a bird's-eye view of how Sharia (Islamic law) was being applied."
In his search for purity, Walker gravitated to the most extreme expression of Islam, the Taliban. Though he is currently in U.S. custody, the government has not indicated what it will do with Walker.
But one source said that Attorney General John Ashcroft and other top Justice Department officials were "disgusted" with Walker's actions and want to "make an example of him."
Walker discovered his early passion for Islam on-line, visiting various hip-hop Web sites at age 14. Later, as he got older he veered in a very different direction and began visiting Islamic Web sites, asking questions, like, "Is it all right to watch cartoons on TV or in the movies?"
His family says the turning point may have come at age 16 when he read the "Autobiography of Malcolm X," which describes the conversion to Islam of a militant black leader.
Some Internet postings examined by Newsweek, show that young Walker could be pretty militant himself. In a 1997 message to a hip-hop site, he demanded to know why a rapper named Nas "is indeed a 'God'? If this is so," Walker indignantly asks, "then why does he smoke blunts, drink Moet, fornicate, and make dukey music? That's a rather pathetic 'god,' if you ask me."
Writes Walker in another e-mail: "I have never seen happiness myself." Selling off his hip-hop CD collection on a rap-music message board, he converted to Islam.
In 1998, Walker became obsessed with memorizing the Quran and the Sharia, at about the time his parents split up. He became convinced he needed to go to Yemen because Yemeni Arabic was the closest to the "pure" language of the Quran.
His parents, though strapped for money because of their separation, agreed to pay for it. Walker's father Frank, told Newsweek that he wanted to support his son's "passion" and "commitment to learning."
Walker was troubled to discover that Islam was not quite as "pure" as he had hoped. He later complained to Mufti Iltimas that he was disappointed to find Islam divided between Sunni and Shiites and many other sects and factions. He believed all Muslims should follow one code, one law, the absolute truth of every word of the Quran.
Walker, who had been oblivious to politics in the U.S. began to absorb some of the politics of radical Islam. In October 2000, when suicide bombers blew a hole in the side of the USS Cole in Yemen, Walker wrote to his father in an e-mail that bringing the U.S. destroyer into a Yemeni harbor was "an act of war" against Islam.
In late 1999, Walker returned to California to visit his mother, but felt uncomfortable in America.
He had fallen in with an Islamic missionary group, the Tablighi Jamaat, which according to intelligence sources is sometimes used as a recruiting ground by extremist groups. Walker was taken under the wing of a Pakistani missionary named Khizar Hiyat, who invited him to join him on a drive to Nevada as he was spreading the word. After a brief return to Yemen, Walker traveled with Hiyat in Pakistan for a month before choosing the madrasa outside Bannu.
His only respite from studying at the madrasa, apart from the occasional foray to the cyber tea shop in Bannu to ship e-mails home, was books on Islam.
He slept on a rope bed, on the floor of his teacher's study in a place with no hot water, and no electricity after 10 p.m. and he peppered the mufti with questions on every aspect of the devout life: "Should I recite verses in a soft voice, or a loud one? While I am worshipping, how should I hold my hands?"
He did not seem to enjoy the company of others. Mufti Iltimas was constantly inviting Walker to join him out for lunches and dinners with local people, but Walker would decline, saying that socializing was a "waste of time." Perhaps he was not as comfortable as he claimed to be.
Even though the villagers sent him food and did his laundry for free, when the weather turned hot in April, he had trouble sleeping and began to suffer from rashes and the incessant dust. He said he wanted to go into the cooler mountains.
Then he vanished. He did not surface for seven months, and when he did he was a prisoner of the Northern Alliance along with other Taliban fighters.
What is it about Nevada?
He can still be the "perfect infiltrator" for al-Qaeda. He'll be tried here, given a light sentence, released and allowed to get back to his mission in life. How much training does it take to blow up a building or pull a trigger?
Like the WTC hijackers, apparently, Walker has "never been happy" in the midst of economic security. A perfect suicide bomber, don't you think?
Yes, he would. One can only wonder how many others like Johnny Jihad might already have infiltrated. Chilling thought.
In the early 80's I was in the midst of securing a direct commission in the Naval Reserves (Intelligence).
The final step was conducting a security clearance check on me. When I was on active duty less than 10 years prior to this, I held a Top Secret Crypto clearance, so I thought it would be an easy task to restore my clearance. I was shocked when I was told that the Navy could not possibly complete my clearance investigation within a year (when I would reach the maximum age for a direct commission). I didn't find out for quite some time that the reason the Navy was so swamped with security clearance checks was because they were conducting investigations on all active duty members of the Navy who held security clearances.
Why? A "career" naval enlisted man named JOHN WALKER was found to have been selling very sensitive intelligence material to the Soviets. If I am not mistaken, he also convinced one of his children to participate as well.
Wow, EODGUY! Maybe our Marin-ated traitor knew about it and chose his name accordingly.
However, I HOPE all people with same name are not alike. My real name is the same as a B Film and sometime stage actress from the '60s. I went backstage to meet her after a play when I was a kid, and the minute she walked out, I turned tail and ran. She was so sleazy up close, I didn't want to be in the same room with her, much less say hello.
Is that correct, that there are 6,666 sentences in the koran?
Walker Was 'Model Student'
I’ve studied models myself, with particular attention paid to Milla Jovovich & Elle MacPherson.
I hope this don’t make me go Talibani!
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktyown
The problem, then, is model students. We must crack down hard on model students! NO MORE MODEL STUDENTS!
We want real students, not models of them.
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