Al Qaeda recruiting native Americans: Report
NEW YORK, June 01 (Online): A captured Al Qaeda leader wanted an American-born terror suspect to join a plot to blow up fuel stations outside Baltimore, a media report said quoting an FBI document.
According to Press Trust of India, an Al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed wanted Adam Yahiye Gadahn, one of the seven terror suspects named by Attorney General John Ashcroft, to join a plot to cause unrest in the United States, 'Newsweek' magazine reported.
Khalid said Gadahn had a pregnant Muslim wife and was not eager to participate in "martyrdom" (suicide) operations, the report said quoting the May 2003 FBI document.
Gadahn, who had taken the name Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki, was last seen in Karachi in October 2002, the document quotes Khalid as saying.
Khalid was captured in Pakistan and taken into custody in March 2003.
During interrogation he said the tightened security after September 11, 2001 attacks had forced Al Qaeda to rethink its strategy for penetrating the United States.
The terror network needed operatives with US passports and had begun trying to recruit native-born Americans, looking for those living abroad who had converted to Islam or black Muslims inside the US, the report said.
According to Qari Saheb, a former driver for Taliban leader Mullah Omar, interviewed in January 2002 by Newsweek, Gadahn befriended John Walker Lindh, known as the "American Taliban" after his capture in the Afghan war.
Gadahn had offered to help Lindh find a Muslim wife-his own wife's sister. Lindh was interested, but told Gadahn that he would marry only when he returned from the front lines. He wound up in an American prison, PTI reports.
Interesting. I don't think little ole Gadahn was so innocent (as his family has been saying) if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had his eye on him. Hmmmm.
your post brings out a topic that I have been wondering about. We've had KSM, and Zubayda and Binalshib in custody for 2+ years now. Is there any information comning from them now that is still pertinent to possible current and future terror operation? I've got to believe these guys are a well run dry now, too much time has passed for them to be giving information that could be pertinent today. If there were any AQ "big plans" on the books from when these guys were still inside - they have surely given that information up by now under interrogation.
Its the new stuff we have to worry about - not sure if we've had any AQ captures at a high enough level to flush those out.