Adam Gadahn, Al Qaeda agent from Southern California, is arrested in Pakistan
Gadahn is wanted by the U.S. on charges of treason. In his apparent primary role as propagandist for the terrorist network, Gadahn appeared in videos. The latest praised the accused Fort Hood shooter.
 Gadahn appears at left in an undated handout photo, and at right in a video released by Al Qaeda in 2006. (EPA; AFP/Getty Images) |
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan - Security forces in the southern port city of Karachi have arrested Adam Gadahn, a Southern California native who became a top propagandist for Al Qaeda and is wanted by the U.S. on treason charges, Pakistani intelligence sources in Karachi said Sunday.
The capture of Gadahn becomes the starkest signal yet that Pakistan has decided to ratchet up its cooperation with the U.S. in hunting down Islamic militants. In the last two months, Pakistani security forces have seized several top Afghan Taliban commanders, including the insurgency's second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
Baradar's arrest and the capture of other Taliban leaders also have occurred in Karachi, which increasingly has become a favored sanctuary for Pakistani and Afghan Taliban leaders and militants. Gadahn's arrest took place on the city's outskirts, intelligence sources said, on a highway near where Baradar was believed to have been arrested.
Gadahn, whose most recent video, posted Sunday, praised the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, was arrested in a pickup truck with a driver Saturday night, the sources said. The sources requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on such issues.
Pakistani police and intelligence agents said they collaborated on the arrest after receiving information about Gadahn's whereabouts, but the sources would not say what the source of the information was.
A U.S. counter-terrorism official said Sunday the CIA and other agencies were "looking into reports" of Gadahn's capture but could not yet confirm his arrest. "If reports of a major terrorist capture are true, it would signal the Pakistanis' continuing commitment to fighting extremism," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject.
Gadahn is on the FBI's list of most wanted terrorists, accused of treason and "providing material support to Al Qaeda." The U.S. government has offered a $1-million reward for information leading to Gadahn's arrest.
The head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles commented Sunday on the reported arrest, saying it was "welcome."
"This is one step closer to defeating Al Qaeda," said Salam Marayati, "and defeating the mentality of death and despair, which is alien to Islam."
Marayati said Gadahn ended up under the influence of the wrong Muslims and had used the religion to make political statements for Al Qaeda.
"I don't think that what he has been saying has any merit in Islam," he said. "It is a political ploy."
Gadahn, 31, is the first American since the World War II era to be charged with treason. In 2006, a federal grand jury in Orange County indicted him for allegedly providing material support to Al Qaeda by appearing in videos on five different occasions between Oct. 27, 2004, and Sept. 11, 2006, with the intent "to betray the United States," the indictment stated.
His principal role with Al Qaeda appears to have been as a propagandist who tried to reach and lure other Americans and Westerners into the terrorist network. In some of his videos, he has appeared alongside Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman Zawahiri.
In the first video he made, he appeared with a head scarf masking his face and said he had "joined a movement waging war on America and killing large numbers of Americans."
He added that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks "notified America that it's going to have to pay for its crimes, and pay dearly."
Gadahn was raised on a goat farm in the hills of southwestern Riverside County by parents with eclectic religious tastes. At age 14, he fell under the influence of two radical Muslims at an Orange County mosque and later journeyed to Pakistan.
source latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-al-qaeda-arrest8-2010mar08,0,2316889.story
video of him
