Adam Yahiye Gadahn
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Adam Yahiye Gadahn (born September 1, 1978) is a suspected member of the Al Qaeda organization.
On May 26, 2004, he was listed along with six others by United States Attorney General John Ashcroft when he announced that Al Qaeda members were planning a terrorist attack during the summer or fall of 2004. The attack, purportedly designed to affect the US presidential election, never materialized. Gadahn's name was the only new name released by Ashcroft in this warning; the others; Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Amer El-Maati, Aafia Siddiqui, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Abderraouf Jdey, and Adnan Gulshair El Shukrijumah had all been on FBI wanted lists for some time.
Adam Gadahn's grandfather was a prominent Jewish surgeon named Pearlman but Gadahn's father converted to Christianity and changed his name to "Gadahn", derived from the name of the Biblical figure "Gideon". The Gadahn family raised goats on a farm in Riverside County, California and butchered the goats in accordance with halal food requirements for sale to Muslim groceries. As a teenager, Adam was fond of heavy metal music and later briefly sought spiritual guidance from evangelical Christian radio stations before converting to Islam. In 1995, Adam Gadahn posted an essay to the USC website describing his conversion to Islam, entitled "Becoming a Muslim (http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/newmuslims/yahiye.html)."
In late October 2004, ABC News acquired a 75-minute videotape of a man identified as "Azzam the American" threatening the United States with terrorist attacks.[1] (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=206661) After the network played excerpts of the video, Haitham Bundjaki, the mosque chairman who served as a witness during Gadahn's conversion to Islam, told law enforcement officials that he believes the man in the video is Gadahn.[2] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137087,00.html)
External links
- RFJ page on ADAM (http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/english/recent_campaigns/index.cfm?page=gadahn)
- Adam Yahiye Gadahn, "Becoming Muslim (http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/newmuslims/yahiye.html) (1995)
- A long way from Calif. goat farm (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/197314p-170427c.html) (New York Daily News)
- Muslim Teen Made Conversion to Fury (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26447-2004Dec1.html) (Washington Post)
- An Overreaction? (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5069746/site/newsweek)
- Annette Stark, "Peace, Love, Death Metal (http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1212&IssueNum=66)," L.A. City Beat 66 (9 September 2004)
- Annette Stark, "Threats, Lies, and Videotape (http://lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1357&IssueNum=74)," L.A. City Beat 74 (4 November 2004).