Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [106]
The final issue of Jihad Recollections was published in September 2009. That’s when Samir Khan got the call to join the big leagues. In October he left the United States for Yemen, where he met with Awlaki. In November Nidal Hasan went on his killing spree at Fort Hood, and the backlash forced Awlaki underground.
Khan resurfaced in July 2010, when al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released Inspire, an English-language jihadist magazine whose design relationship to Jihad Recollections was unmistakable. Everyone who had read Recollections immediately concluded that the new magazine was the work of Samir Khan, and media reports soon confirmed it.54
The new magazine was nearly identical in format and content to the old one, with the exception of its official imprimatur and an original article written by Awlaki especially for Inspire. A page collecting memorable quotes featured Revolution Muslim cofounder Yousef Al Khattab and a quote by a counterterrorism analyst about the effectiveness of the Islamic Thinkers Society.55
As of this writing, Inspire had published two more issues, one very similar to the first, and a “special edition” commemorating an AQAP attempt to bomb two cargo planes bound for the United States. The special edition, which included a detailed description of the plot and its objectives, commanded notice from U.S. intelligence and terrorism analysts as conclusive evidence that Khan—and likely Awlaki—had direct access to AQAP’s operational team, and perhaps even full membership.56
BACK IN BOSTON
Tarek Mehanna was an American Muslim of Egyptian descent. He earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston and subsequently moved to nearby Sudbury, where he attended the Islamic Center of New England mosque in Sharon, Massachusetts.57
After September 11 Mehanna obsessively surfed the Internet looking for material related to the al Qaeda attack, referring to the hijackers as the “19 martyrs.” He shared videos and propaganda with friends, both online and in the real world. One of his childhood friends was particularly receptive. Ahmad Abousamra was the son of a local doctor and a Syrian American born and raised in Massachusetts.58
They tried to find other Muslims in the Boston area who would support their jihadist cause, but few were interested. Despite these frustrations, they kept trying and drew potential recruits aside for one-on-one talks, slipping them CDs with copies of al Qaeda recruitment videos.59
They had some successes amid many failures. Abousamra met a recent white convert to Islam from northern Massachusetts named Daniel Maldonado, whom he introduced to Mehanna.60
A friend recalled later, “I met Danny the week he converted. He was cool. He dressed in T-shirts and jeans and didn’t hide any of his tattoos. His hair was in dreadlocks. He was eager, and he had a lot of questions.”
Soon after his conversion, Maldonado became decidedly less cool. He adopted an increasingly strict view of Islam and, like many converts who become jihadist recruits, began to affect an Arab style of dress. His wife began to wear a full burka, and they covered the head of their baby daughter (which is not required in Islam).61
Mehanna and Abousamra filled Maldonado’s head with jihadist ideology, including justifications for killing civilians and suicide bombings, and the three would get together to devour hours of jihadist video propaganda found online.
Mehanna and Maldonado participated robustly in online jihadist communities, such as the Islamic Awakening forums, where both men were well known. Maldonado was also heavily involved with other sites, including the Islamic Network and Clear Guidance. They followed popular jihadist clerics such as Muhammad Al Maqdisi of Jordan and Anwar Awlaki.
The three young men talked incessantly about seeking out military training in Pakistan so that they could join the jihad overseas. But unlike many online jihobbyists, they took concrete steps to translate talk into reality, contacting an associate with connections for information