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Adam Gadahn aka Adam Pearlman - Magda Hassan - 08-03-2010 Officers: Pakistan detains American-born al-Qaida Play Video AP – Al-Qaida calls on U.S. Muslims to attack America AP – This image from video released by IntelCenter Sunday, March 7, 2010, shows Adam Gadahn, featured in a … By ASHRAF KHAN, Associated Press Writer Ashraf Khan, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 7, 6:33 pm ET KARACHI, Pakistan – Two Pakistani officers and a government official said Sunday that an American charged with treason for working with al-Qaida had been captured, a development that could deliver another significant blow in the U.S.-led battle against the terror network. U.S. defense, intelligence and law enforcement officials could not immediately verify the reported detention of Adam Gadahn, a 31-year-old spokesman for al-Qaida who has appeared on videos threatening the West, including one that emerged earlier Sunday. The reported arrest of Gadahn follows the recent detention of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the group's No. 2. Those detentions have been seen as a sign that Pakistan, which has been criticized as an untrustworthy ally, was cooperating more fully with Washington. Some observers were cautious about giving credence to the claim that Gadahn was in custody as reports emerged that the man arrested might instead be a Taliban militant leader. There was no way of independently verifying the arrest or identity, and detentions of terror suspects in Pakistan are often surrounded by conflicting reports. "If this is him, it's a big capture and a morale-booster," said Patrick Rowan, the former top anti-terrorism official in the Bush Justice Department. Gadahn, the first American to face treason charges in more than 50 years, has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting the West and calling for its destruction. The video that surfaced Sunday showed him urging American Muslims to attack their own country. "It's a blow to al-Qaida and a boost to the U.S. when a guy that has been taunting the U.S. for years has been captured," Rowan said. Gadahn was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning. In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States. If the man in custody is indeed Gadahn and authorities can get him to talk, he could offer valuable intelligence about al-Qaida's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri and maybe even Osama bin Laden, Rowan said. Gadahn has been on the FBI's most wanted list since 2004 and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest. He was charged with treason in 2006 and faces the death penalty if convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. Gadahn grew up on a goat farm in Riverside County, California, and converted to Islam at a mosque in nearby Orange County. He moved to Pakistan in 1998, according to the FBI, and is said to have attended an al-Qaida training camp six years later, serving as a translator and consultant. He is known by various aliases, including Yahya Majadin Adams and Azzam al-Amriki. In the video posted Sunday, he praised the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. It appeared to have been made after the end of the year, but it was unclear exactly when. "You shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that military bases are the only high-value targets in America and the West. On the contrary, there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage," Gadahn said, an assault rifle leaning up against a wall next to him. Pakistan joined the U.S. fight against Islamic extremists following the Sept. 11 attacks, and several high-ranking al-Qaida and Taliban have been arrested. But critics have accused the country of not fully cracking down on militants, especially those who do not stage attacks in Pakistan, while receiving billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere in the country, most likely close to the Afghan border. Al-Qaida has used Gadahn as its chief English-speaking spokesman. In one video, he ceremoniously tore up his American passport. In another, he admitted his grandfather was Jewish, ridiculing him for his beliefs and calling for Palestinians to continue fighting Israel. Dawud Walid, the executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Southfield, Mich., condemned Gadahn's call for violence, calling it a "desperate" attempt by Al-Qaida's spokesman to provoke bloodshed within the U.S. Walid, a Navy veteran, said Muslims have honorably served in the American military will be unimpressed by al-Qaida's message aimed at their ranks. "We thoroughly repudiate and condemn his statement and what we believe are his failed attempts to incite loyal American Muslims in the military," he said. Imad Hamad, the senior national adviser for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, based in Dearborn, Mich., condemned al-Qaida's message and said it would have no impact on American Muslims. "This a worthless rhetoric that is not going to have any effect on people's and minds and hearts," he said. The last person in the U.S. convicted of treason was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese-American sentenced to death in 1952 for tormenting American prisoners of war during World War II. President Eisenhower later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. ___ Associated Press Writers Patrick Quinn and Maamoun Youssef in Cairo, Rick Callahan in Indianapolis and Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100307/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_al_qaida_arrest Adam Gadahn aka Adam Pearlman - Magda Hassan - 08-03-2010 Adam Yahiye Gadahn (Arabic: آدم يحيى غدن, Ādam Yaḥyā Ghadan; born Adam Pearlman, September 1, 1978) is an American senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman[2] and media advisor[3] for the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. Since 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by Al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American" ('Azzām al-Amrīki, عظام الأمريكي, sometimes transcribed as Ezzam Al-Amerikee). He is believed to have inspired bin Laden's September 2007 video.[3] Gadahn converted to Sunni Islam in 1995, at the age of 17, at a California mosque. In 2004, he was added to the FBI Seeking Information - War on Terrorism list.[4] On October 11, 2006 he was removed from that list, and placed on the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Rewards for Justice Program list of wanted criminals.[5] On the same day, Gadahn was indicted based on the testimony of the FBI case agent E.J. Hilbert II, in the Southern Division of the United States District Court for the Central District of California by a federal grand jury for the capital crime of treason for aiding an enemy of the United States (i.e. Al-Qaeda). Gadahn is the first American charged with treason since Tomoya Kawakita in 1952.[6] Background and childhood Gadahn's Jewish paternal grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a prominent urologist; according to Gadahn, he was a "zealous supporter" of Israel.[7][8] Gadahn's paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, a Christian, was an editor for The Chronicle Christian Newspaper.[9] Gadahn's father, originally Phil Pearlman, grew up in Orange County, California. He was involved in the counterculture movement at the University of California at Irvine, and before Adam's birth became a Christian. He and his wife Jennifer changed their name to Gadahn, after the Biblical warrior Gideon.[2] Gadahn was born in Oregon, raised a Christian, and homeschooled through high school by his parents on an isolated farm in Southern California.[2] He played Little League baseball and participated in Christian homeschool support groups. As an adolescent he became very involved in the death metal community, making contact with fans and musicians through alternative magazines.[2] During the summer of 1993, he formed his own one-man band called Aphasia.[2] Gadahn contributed music reviews and artwork to a zine called Xenocide.[2] In 1995, at age 16, Gadahn moved in with his grandparents in the Floral Park neighborhood of Santa Ana, California, where he worked in a computer store and explored the Internet.[2] Conversion to Islam While living with his grandparents in West Floral Park, Santa Ana, Gadahn described himself as having a "yawning emptiness", and he sought ways "to fill that void." He explored Christianity on the Internet, radio, and locally, but later said that he found evangelical Christianity's "apocalyptic ramblings" to be "paranoid" and hollow.[10] In 1995, at age 17, Gadahn began studying Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County. Members of Gadahn's study group were young fundamentalists who "targeted the mosque's chairman, Haitham Bundakji," whom they referred to as Danny the Jew for his practice of "wearing Western clothes and being overly friendly with Jews."[11] Gadahn converted to Islam later that year, and shortly thereafter posted an essay to the USC website describing his conversion, entitled "Becoming a Muslim."[10] According to his parents, Adam was "arrested and convicted of assaulting his former mentor Haitham Bundakji in May 1997." He served two days in jail, but his failure to do 40 hours of community services leaves a warrant for his arrest active.[2] Gadahn reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghan refugee and maintained intermittent contact with his family.[12] al-Qaeda affiliation An image from the September 11, 2005 tape of "Azzam the American", believed by U.S. intelligence officials to be Adam Gadahn The first production of al-Qaeda's media division, As-Sahab, was believed to have been in 2001 with the involvement of Adam Yahiye Gadahn.[13] U.S. and British intelligence officials believe it to be run by Gadahn.[14] Although it has been reported that the media production of these messages has had a notable decrease in quality, possibly due to Gadahn's involvement in other tasks for Al Qaeda.[13][15][16][17] The "high quality" of the English subtitles and the "references to Malcolm X" in al-Qaeda's 2008 post-presidential election video where Barack Obama is attacked as a “House Negro”, has been said to "reflect the influence" of Gadahn.[18] On May 26, 2004, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that reports indicated that Gadahn was one of seven Al-Qaeda members who were planning terrorist actions for the summer or fall of 2004. Gadahn's name was the only new name released by Mueller in this warning. Two of the other alleged terrorists named on that date were Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. Those two had been listed as FBI Most Wanted Terrorists since 2001, indicted for their roles in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. The others, Amer El-Maati, Aafia Siddiqui, Abderraouf Jdey, and Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah had all been on FBI wanted lists for some time. Jdey had been on the FBI's "Seeking Information" wanted list since January 17, 2002, to which Gadahn was added with the other three as well.[19] CNN reported that Gadahn had developed strained ties with al-Qaeda leadership in early 2010.[20] Appearances in Al-Qaeda videos 2004—2006 In late October 2004, ABC News broadcast a 75-minute videotape of a man who identified himself as "Azzam the American" threatening the United States with terrorist attacks.[21] After the network played excerpts of the video someone from one of Gadahn's mosques told law enforcement officials that he believed the man in the video was Gadahn.[22] In 2005, on the fourth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, an eleven minute videotape message purportedly from Al-Qaeda was broadcast on the ABC News program Good Morning America. The American English-accented speaker, a man whose face was partially concealed, was identified by U.S. intelligence officials as Gadahn. The speaker praised the "echo of explosions and the slitting of the throats of the infidels"[23] and attacked U.S. foreign policy and military activity, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. He predicted that there would be future attacks in Los Angeles, California and Melbourne, Australia: "Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, God willing. At this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion."[24] Around the same time, he appeared in an Al-Qaeda-produced American documentary film "Knowledge is for Acting Upon – The Manhattan Raid – Parts 1[25] and 2 [26]", a film which traces the organization from its genesis among the anti-Soviet Mujahaddin in Afghanistan through its establishment of training camps around the world to its defining moment, the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. Gadahn provides Western viewers with an expository look at the group's ideals, philosophy and goals as well as a retrospective look at their perspective on the geopolitical situations which led to their decision to execute the attack. The film culminates with Gadahn's description of the events' aftermath, pre-attack martyrdom videos filmed by the hijackers, and finally a montage of videos portraying the attacks themselves. The high production-value film, completely captioned for both English and Arabic-speaking audiences, is widely regarded as a tool intended to motivate and attract other Western-born Muslims. On July 7, 2006, Gadahn appeared unmasked on an Al-Qaeda tape made public on the internet.[27] On the tape he denounced the United States military presence in Iraq and alleged killings and rapes committed by American soldiers. Gadahn's family, who had previously said that they could not tell whether or not it was Gadahn who appeared in the Al-Qaeda videos, did not immediately respond to the new tape. On September 2, 2006 a video called "Invitation to Islam", features a lecture by Adam Gadahn for approximately 44 minutes of its 48 minutes with a lesser part given to Al-Qaeda theorist Ayman al-Zawahiri. In the video, Gadahn stated "If the Zionist crusader missionaries of hate and counter-Islam consultants like Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, Michael Scheuer, Steven Emerson, and yes, even the crusader-in-chief George W. Bush were to abandon their unbelief and repent and enter into the light of Islam and turn their swords against the enemies of God, it would be accepted of them and they would be our brothers in Islam." Both Pipes and Spencer have publicly declined to accept Gadahn's invitation to convert to Islam.[28][29] Gadahn praised British politician George Galloway and journalist Robert Fisk for expressing their "respect and admiration for Islam" and for "acknowledging that it is the truth" and for "demonstrating their sympathy for Muslims their causes", but added "I say to them, isn't it time you stopped sitting on the fence and came over to the side of truth?" Gadahn urged American soldiers to "surrender to the truth", "escape from the unbelieving Army", and "join the winning side."[30] 2007—2010 On May 29, 2007 Gadahn again made headlines when another video "Al-Qaeda Video Warning to US by American Adam Gadahn" was released on the internet. In this video Adam Gadahn listed five actions that Bush and America must take in order to prevent future terrorist attacks.
"…your failure to heed our demands and the demands of reason means that you and your people will – Allah willing – experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq".[31] Gadahn is felt to have inspired bin Laden's September 2007 video, in which bin Laden, among other things, made reference to the subprime mortgage crisis.[32] M.J. Gohel, chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London-based security-studies organization, found bin Laden's video "very reminiscent of [Gadahn's] messages in terms of style and content."[3]On January 6, 2008 Gadahn featured in a video called "An Invitation for Reflection and Repentance."[citation needed] On October 4, 2008 a video featuring Gadahn was posted on Laura Mansfield's website. The 32-minute video primarily focused on Pakistan, but referenced economic woes in the US. "The enemies of Islam are facing a crushing defeat, which is beginning to manifest itself in the extending crisis their economy is experiencing. The crisis, whose primary cause, in addition to the abortive and unsustainable crusades they are waging in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, is they are turning their backs on Allah's revealed laws, which forbid interest-bearing transactions, exploitation, greed and injustice in all its forms and demand the worship of Allah alone to the exclusion of all false gods, including money and power."[33] In May 2009, Gadahn appeared in a new al-Qaeda video. He was shown talking to several recruits, explaining life in the organization. The video was deemed propaganda to convert the US youth to Islam, and was spoken in American English.[34]On December 12, 2009, Gadahn, in another English-language video entitled "The Mujahideen Don't Target Muslims", claimed that the organization was being framed by the United States and Pakistan and blamed the media for helping implicate Al-Qaeda in the recent deadly string of attacks in Pakistan that have killed hundreds of civilians.[35][36][37] False rumors of death In February 2008, Pakistani news sources reported rumors that Gadahn was killed by a missile fired by a MQ-1 Predator drone in the strike that killed Al-Qaeda leader Abu Laith al-Libi.[38][39][40][41][42] On March 2, an Al-Qaeda spokesperson claimed that Gadahn was alive,[43][44][45] but the rumor was fueled by the considerable drop of quality of recent Al-Qaeda videos from As-Sahab.[15][16][17] On May 18, 2008, Counterterrorism Blog surmised that Adam Gadahn was dead based on the latest Al-Qaeda missive.[16] On June 2, 2008, ABC News reported that the U.S. Is Stepping Up Efforts to Capture California Boy Turned al Qaeda Operative,[46] and MSNBC on June 13 reported that 'U.S. tries to smoke out accused terrorist Adam Gadahn',[47] although Associated Press reported that 'Pakistani news sources reported in February that Gadahn was killed in a missile strike, but the FBI has not received conclusive evidence of his death, Eimiller said.'[48] Mansfield wrote: "Normally important messages from Zawahiri contain linguistic indications that they were translated by Adam Gadahn. Gadahn’s translation style is noticeably absent from this video, giving more credence to open source reports from Pakistan regarding the possible death of Gadahn in an American air strike. (There are other plausible explanations for Gadahn’s absence from the scene—including his quip in his January video tape that ripping up his passport would not hinder his ability to travel.)"[49] On September 7, 2008, the Sunday Telegraph reported that Gadahn may have been killed by a Predator attack in January 2008 in Waziristan.[50] This was reported by The Orange County Register,[51] KABC TV in Los Angeles,[52] and other news agencies.On Saturday October 4, 2008, a video appeared on the internet by the As-Sahab Foundation for Media Production by Gadahn[53] entitled 'The Believer isn't Stung from the Same Hole Twice' [54]. Mansfield posted a video of Gadahn speaking about current affairs including the economic crisis in the US and the resignation of the President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf. In 2009, As-Sahab released a video entitled, Gaza, Not Again and in the same year, another video where Gahdan is speaking Arabic in an As-Sahab release entitled 'Let's continue our Jihad and Sacrifice' [55] this is his first video speaking only in Arabic. Reported capture On March 7, 2010, it was reported that Gadahn had been captured in Pakistan,[20] shortly after another video came out in which he called on Muslims serving in the US armed forces to emulate the actions of Nidal Malik Hasan in the Fort Hood shooting.[56] He was said to have been arrested in Karachi by Pakistani intelligence officers[57] during the course of a raid on a house located by the Super Highway.[20] As of March 7, 2010 (2010 -03-07)[update], his arrest had not been confirmed[57] and subsequent reports indicated the arrested American was Abu Yahya Mujahdeen Al-Adam who was born in Pennsylvania who may have been confused with Gadahn.[58] Pakistan's DawnNews reported on March 7 that Gadahn was likely detained in Sohrab Goth, a major Pashtun area in northern Karachi.[59] See also References
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Adam Gadahn aka Adam Pearlman - Austin Kelley - 08-03-2010 There seems to be doubts that the person apprehended was the same Adam Gadahn from California. I'd also like to add that I find his whole story rather bizarre. Perhaps he is sincere, perhaps not. Adam Gadahn aka Adam Pearlman - Ed Jewett - 08-03-2010 Shazam an al-cia-dan from the database of make-believe?! |