Adam Yahiye Gadahn
Adam Yahiye Gadahn was an American senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Islamist group al-Qaeda, as well as a prolific noise musician. Beginning in 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American". Gadahn, who converted to Islam in 1995 at a California mosque, was described as "homegrown," a term used by scholars and government officials for Western citizens "picking up the sword of the idea" to commit
attacks in the West. American intelligence officials allege that he inspired the 2007 Osama bin Laden video.
In 2004, he was added to the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list. 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. 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, the first such case since the 1950s. On January 19, 2015, Gadahn was killed in one of a series of unmanned aircraft strikes in Waziristan, Pakistan. Al-Qaeda confirmed Gadahn's death on June 25, 2015.
Early life and education
Gadahn was born on September 1, 1978, in Oregon, United States. Gadahn's paternal grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a Jewish activist, urologist and on the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League. Gadahn's paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, a Christian, was an editor for The Christian Family Chronicles. Gadahn's father is Philip, a musician who grew up in Orange County, California. Philip and his wife Jennifer legally changed their last name to Gadahn in the mid-1970s, after the Biblical warrior Gideon. Philip Gadahn was involved in the counterculture movement at the University of California at Irvine, and before Adam's birth became a Christian. Gadahn described his father as having been "raised agnostic or atheist, but he became a believer in One God when he picked up a Bible left on the beach." His father's religious perspective was flexible and based upon his own spiritual needs and as a new convert to Islam, Gadahn portrayed his father in a manner sympathetic to his religion of conversion.Gadahn was raised a Protestant Christian, and homeschooled through high school by his parents on an isolated farm in western Riverside County, California. 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. During the summer of 1993, he formed an ambient noise project called Aphasia. Gadahn contributed music reviews and artwork to a zine called Xenocide, and his comments were published. A loyal fan of Carl Barks' tales of Scrooge McDuck, Gadahn submitted drawings of this character to Gladstone Publishing, whose editors did not publish them, but publicly thanked him for his efforts. In 1995, at age 16, Gadahn moved in with his grandparents in the West Floral Park neighborhood of Santa Ana, California. Not long after, he converted to Islam and lamented the estrangement his musical interest caused between him and his family writing, "My relationship with my parents became strained, although only intermittently so. I am sorry even as I write this."
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. 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", for his practice of "wearing Western clothes and being friendly with Jews".Gadahn converted to Islam later that year, and shortly thereafter posted an essay to the University of Southern California website describing his conversion, titled "Becoming a Muslim". 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 perform 40 hours of community service left a warrant for his arrest active.
Gadahn reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghan refugee and maintained intermittent contact with his family until March 2001, when all contact with his family stopped. He told his parents he had been working as a journalist while in Pakistan—spending time in both Karachi and Peshawar—presumably a euphemism for his media propaganda efforts for al-Qaeda. He began supporting jihadi causes in the late 1990s.
Al-Qaeda affiliation
In a short period of time, Gadahn became a senior advisor to bin Laden and was assumed to be playing the role of "translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter." Gadahn declared his animosity towards the United States by declaring it "enemy soil" and praising the individuals responsible for the September 11 attacks. The first production of al-Qaeda's media division, As-Sahab, was believed to have been in 2001 with the involvement of Gadahn.United States and British intelligence officials believe it to have been run by Gadahn, although it was reported that the media production of these messages had a notable decrease in quality, possibly due to Gadahn's involvement in other tasks for al-Qaeda.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it wanted Gadahn for questioning in 2004, and 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.
In a 2005 video, Gadahn threatened to attack Los Angeles, for which the United States Department of Justice "indicted him under seal for providing material support to Al Qaeda". As an introduction to the "An Invitation to Islam" video in 2006, Zawahiri encouraged westerners to heed Gadahn's message and praised Gadahn as "a perceptive person who wants to lead his people out of darkness into the light"; "Al Qaeda had never before given one of its members, let alone an American, an endorsement so intimate and direct." As a result of the contents of the "Invitation" video, he was charged with treason because "e chose to join our enemy and to provide it with aid and comfort by acting as a propagandist for Al Qaeda," as Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty explained. He was also placed on the FBI's most wanted list and a million dollar reward was offered for his capture. McNulty explained the severity of Gadahn's crimes: "Terrorists create fear and intimidation through extreme violence. They want Americans to live and walk in fear. They want to demoralize us. That’s why propaganda is so important to them, and why facilitating that propaganda is such an egregious crime."
On propaganda and terrorism, Gadahn criticized specific "jihadi" groups, such as Tehrik-i-Taliban, al-Shabaab, and the Islamic State, for the killing of Muslim non-combatant civilians, which he believed undermined Al-Qaeda's media strategy and objectives.
Appearances in al-Qaeda videos
2004–2006
In late October 2004, ABC News broadcast a 75-minute videotape of a masked man who identified himself as "Azzam the American" threatening the United States with terrorist attacks. 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.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" 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 and Melbourne: "Yesterday, London and Madrid. Tomorrow, Los Angeles and Melbourne, God willing. At this time, don't count on us demonstrating restraint or compassion."
Around the same time, he appeared in an al-Qaeda-produced English-language documentary film Knowledge is for Acting Upon—The Manhattan Raid, a film which traces the organization from its genesis among the anti-Soviet Mujahideen 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. On the tape he denounced the United States military presence in Iraq as well as rapes and murders 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 respond to the new tape.
On September 2, 2006, a video called "An 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. 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."