Fox News, 26 July 2010: Within hours of his arrest, the Virginia man who allegedly threatened the creators of the television show “South Park” and then tried to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in East Africa told U.S. agents he wanted to help the FBI in their fight against terrorism, according to federal prosecutors and the man’s own defense attorney.
Federal agents arrested 20-year-old Zachary Chesser on Wednesday, after a months-long investigation into at least two alleged attempts to join the Somalia-based group al-Shabaab, which has been fighting to establish a strict Muslim state in Somalia and has pledged its allegiance to Usama bin Laden. Chesser is now charged with providing material support to a terrorist group.
On the day of his arrest, Chesser told FBI agents he was “willing to assist the FBI with a few things,” but in exchange he wanted the FBI to send him overseas, possibly to East Africa, Justice Department lawyer John Gibbs told a federal judge during a hearing on Monday. Public defender Michael Nachmanoff acknowledged that Chesser talked about “potentially working for” or “working with” the FBI.
Only months earlier, in a message posted online, Chesser denounced FBI Director Robert Mueller as the U.S. government’s “chief spy,” saying it is “both ironic and promising” that many Americans had already joined al-Shabaab.
“Robert Mueller said he is ‘absolutely’ afraid that more heroes like [them] … will answer the call of Jihad,” Chesser wrote in an online message posted April 1, according to charging documents filed in the case. “This is a call to action and a call to fulfill your obligation as a Muslim to defend your brothers and sisters.”
Chesser’s other writings were even more threatening, prosecutors told the judge on Monday as they urged that Chesser be detained until trial. During the FBI’s investigation, agents found a “hand-written document” titled “How to Destroy the West,” according to Gibbs. The document, allegedly written by Chesser, discussed ways of attacking the United States and other countries, including cyber-attacks, vehicles filled with explosives, and the bio-agent ricin, Gibbs said.
In addition, Chesser communicated several times with Anwar Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric tied to several recent terrorist plots inside the United States, prosecutors said. He also posted an array of “extremist” videos, “jihad propaganda” and other potentially dangerous materials online, including a leaked version of sensitive Transportation Security Administration guidelines and a message suggesting the creators of the show “South Park” could face death for their depiction of the prophet Mohammed, according to prosecutors. . . . .
♦ CI CENTRE COURSE: 362–Informant Development for Law Enforcement to Fight Terrorism
New Jersey Star-Ledger, 8 June 2010: On a calm May afternoon last year in suburban Elmwood Park, Carlos Eduardo Almonte started to preach to his younger brother, Elvin, in the middle of their family’s living room. The oldest son in a Catholic family from the Dominican Republic, Carlos Almonte had recently embraced Islam as his religion, and now he hammered away at his brother with all the fervor of a convert, according to details in a police report.
But Elvin, four years younger, stood his ground, saying he would not follow the religion. Soon, according to the report, a brawl broke out between the brothers. The clash is the first glimpse of the conflict in the Almonte home as it faced Carlos’ growing radicalization. In just five years, the eldest son turned from a delinquent busted for underage drinking into a bearded fundamentalist ready to fight his own brother over his new-found faith.
The fighting that May afternoon grew so intense, the brothers’ mother, Sabrina, tried to break up the fight and in the chaos was inadvertently bitten by Elvin, leaving a cut and a bruise on her left arm, the report said. An incensed Carlos Almonte — who at that time went by the name Omar — grabbed a glass picture frame from a table and smashed it across the back of his brother’s head, the report said. . . .
. . . . Alessa’s behavior also caused concern as he bounced from school to school as a teenager. An official at KAS Prep, an alternative school in Hudson County to which Alessa transferred in 2005, said Alessa talked about mutilating homosexuals, subordinating women in the name of Islam and bringing a gang of Muslims to blow up the school. . . . .
. . . . But troubling signs emerged after 9/11. “He was talking to the other kids, and he said, ‘Osama bin Laden is a hero in my family,’” Ferrer said. “He was saying things like, ‘I want to grow up to be a martyr.’” Alessa said he heard family members praise bin Laden, Ferrer said. . . . .
NPR, 19 May 2010: The man accused in the failed Times Square bombing attempt has been talking to authorities for more than two weeks. And one of the things he told them, according to people close to the case, is that he was inspired to act by two Internet clerics — one in Yemen and another in Jamaica. . . . The first cleric Shahzad cited is a familiar name: Anwar al-Awlaki. He’s the American-born imam who has been linked to an al-Qaida group in Yemen — the same imam who allegedly blessed the Fort Hood shootings and the botched Christmas Day bombing attempt of a U.S. airliner by a young man carrying explosives in his underpants.
The other cleric is a less familiar figure. His name is Abdullah Faisal, a 46-year-old convert to Islam who is from Jamaica. . . . He’s been linked to two of the men who blew up transportation targets in the U.K. in 2005. He was a mentor to a Jamaican convert, Germaine Lindsay, who died in that 2005 suicide bombing. He has also been linked to the man who wanted to set up a terrorism training camp in Oregon several years ago. He was an imam at the Brixton Mosque in London when Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, worshipped there. Zacharias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, was also a follower of his.
More recently, Faisal was sentenced to prison in the U.K. for calling followers to kill Jews, Americans and Hindus in one of his CD lectures. He served more than four years, then ended up in Africa. He was just deported to Jamaica from Kenya a couple of months ago for allegedly trying to recruit people there for violent jihad — a charge he denies.
And now there appears to be a connection to the Times Square bomber. People close to the investigation tell NPR that Shahzad told investigators that Abdullah Faisal and Awlaki were, in his words, “the only two clerics out there who have got it right.” In fact, intelligence sources say Shahzad tried to contact Awlaki and Faisal ahead of his alleged attack. . . . .
CBN/Erick Stakelbeck, 21 April 2010: . . . . I have obtained court documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Ohio detailing the case of a 38-year-old Caucasian convert to Islam named Abdullah Mohammed Muslim (formerly known as Johnnie Clagg). He pleaded guilty on March 24th to charges of being a previously convicted felon in possession of a firearm, to possession of unregistered destructive devices and to charges related to attempted identity theft and Passport fraud.
Muslim’s attorney told a local Columbus TV station that his client had traveled to the tribal regions of Pakistan—where Al Qaeda operates tons of training camps–but had no connections to terrorist groups. Of course not. I guess North Waziristan is merely a new vacation hotspot for white Muslim converts from middle America (and Germany).
What follows are the details about Muslim’s case, including some exclusive new information that has been previously unreported. On October 19, 2009 federal agents found a large weapons arsenal in Muslim’s Columbus, Ohio home. According to court documents, the stash included:
- Enough material to make five pipe bombs
- Several smoke cannisters
- An AK-47
- An Arsenal 7.62 assault rifle
- A military/swat ballistic vest, plus one ballistic face mask
- A military flak jacket
- A 9mm semiautomatic rifle
- Over 1,000 rounds of ammunition
- A CD with digital images of The Anarchist Cookbook “and similar books”
- A CD with pictures of a small plane crash in Ohio
But the weapons stash was just the tip of the iceberg. Materials uncovered during the search of Muslim’s home confirmed that he was also trying to steal the identity of a wheelchair-bound man in West Virginia who suffers from cerebral palsy. Columbus ATF spokesperson Kimberly Riddell told CBN News that while ATF took the lead in the Muslim investigation, the State Department also became involved due to the identity theft/passport offenses. . . . .
STRATFOR, 18 March 2010: . . . In the message, which was titled “A Call to Arms,” American-born Al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn starts by telling jihadists to strike targets that are close to them. He repeats the al Qaeda doctrinal position that jihad is a personal, religiously mandated duty for every able-bodied Muslim. He then tells his audience that “it is for you, like your heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, to decide how, when and where you discharge this duty. But whatever you do, don’t wait for tomorrow to do what can be done today, and don’t wait for others to do what you can do yourself.”
As the message progresses, Gadahn’s praise of Fort Hood shooter Hasan continues. Gadahn lifts up Hasan as an example for other Muslims to emulate: “the Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers and yearns to discharge his duty to Allah.” He adds that Hasan was the “ideal role model” for Muslims serving in the armed forces of Western countries and of their Muslim allies. Gadahn’s message is clearly intended to encourage more jihadists to emulate Hasan and conduct lone wolf terrorist attacks.
Regarding the planning of such attacks, Gadahn praises Hasan for being a careful planner and for not engaging in a hasty, reckless or poorly planned operation. He states that Hasan clearly learned from the mistakes of others and did not repeat them. Although Gadahn does not specify particular plots in which he believes mistakes were made by grassroots jihadists, he is undoubtedly referring to cases such as the May 2009 arrest of a group of grassroots jihadists in White Plains, N.Y., who came to the attention of authorities when they sought help from a man who turned out to be an FBI informant.
Gadahn praises Hasan for practicing careful operational security by keeping his plans to himself and for not discussing them over the phone or Internet. He also notes that Hasan did not make the mistake of confiding in a person who might have been an FBI informant, as several other plotters have done. Gadahn also says Hasan “didn’t unnecessarily raise his security profile or waste money better spent on the operation itself by traveling abroad to acquire skills and instructions which could easily be acquired at home, or indeed, deduced by using one’s own powers of logic and reasoning.”
When discussing methods lone wolf jihadists can use to conduct their attacks, Gadahn notes that while Hasan used firearms in his assault at Fort Hood, jihadists are “no longer limited to bullets and bombs” when it comes to weapons. “As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a minimal budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon which can take the enemy by surprise and deprive him of sleep for years on end.”
Gadahn then turns his attention to targeting. He counsels lone wolf jihadists to follow a three-pronged target selection process. They should choose a target with which they are well acquainted, a target that is feasible to hit and a target that, when struck, will have a major impact. He notes that Hasan’s choice of Fort Hood fit all three criteria, but that jihadists should not think that military bases are the only high-value targets in the United States or other Western countries. “On the contrary,” Gadahn insists, “there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage.” . . . .
