Jihad Joe_ Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam - J. M. Berger [56]
At one point, Jayyousi reached out to CARE officer Samir Al Monla to ask for financial help to move Abouhalima’s family out of the United States. Al Monla, suspicious that his calls were under surveillance, asked Jayyousi to use a false name when referring to Abouhalima, which prompted one of Jayyousi’s trademark nervous giggles. Al Monla finally agreed to provide $1,000 toward airfare for Abouhalima’s wife and four children and to try to raise funds for the remainder. However, he added, they should tell people that the money was “for helping the poor, or the needy or an orphan [ … ] without mentioning any names at all.”59
One of Jayyousi’s top deputies was an outspoken Palestinian activist named Adham Hassoun. A computer programmer who had moved to the United States in 1989 and illegally overstayed a student visa, Hassoun headed up an early office of the Benevolence Foundation. Soon after, he began to work closely with both CARE in Boston and AIG in San Diego from his home base in the South Florida town of Sunrise.60
Hassoun was a prolific jihadist recruiter, constantly working the phones and roaming the community in search of bodies and dollars to support the cause. Like Jayyousi, his definition of jihad was widely inclusive of terrorism and the killing of civilians. When talking to Jayyousi and other members of his jihadist network, Hassoun used simple codes to communicate, assuming (correctly, as it turned out) that the FBI might be listening in. “Terrorism” became “tourism,” and military jihad became “football” or “soccer.”61
Hassoun and Jayyousi helped move thousands of dollars and perhaps dozens of men to jihad fronts in Bosnia and Chechnya. They also worked to establish and financially support an active cell of jihadists in Somalia and neighboring Ethiopia.62
Some of their recruits ended up in al Qaeda, which was gearing up to begin its assault against the United States in earnest. The terror network was actively seeking U.S. citizens who were willing to go beyond the concept of defensive jihad and embrace an all-out war against a much broader array of enemies.
JOSE PADILLA
Born Roman Catholic, Jose Padilla grew up on tough streets in Chicago. As a young teenager of Puerto Rican descent, he became involved with a gang known as the Latin Disciples and soon wound up in prison after the kids he was running with pulled off a brutal murder. Worried about his downward trajectory, Padilla’s family moved to the Fort Lauderdale area to get away from the gangs, but Padilla’s temperament continued to sour, culminating in a 1991 incident in which he pulled a gun on a cop during a routine traffic stop.63
That got him ten months in a Florida prison, where he was impressed with Muslim prisoners who were serving time at the same facility. One prisoner in particular, a member of the Nation of Islam, debated with Padilla about Islam. Padilla later described this as the “turning point” of his life. After being put in solitary confinement for fighting, Padilla said he had a vision of himself floating in the air, wearing a black hood and a blue robe. The vision inspired him to learn more about Islam.64
After his release, he voraciously pursued information about Islam while working at a Taco Bell in Davie, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. His inquiries led him to Adham Hassoun.
Padilla soon converted and eventually changed his name to Abdullah Al Muhajir. Although by no means a bright student, he applied himself industriously to studying Islam and learning Arabic. He married a Jamaican immigrant, who also converted, and it seemed—all too briefly—that he had turned his life around. But Padilla embraced his new religion with a passion that frightened those closest to him. His mother told a neighbor that she feared he had joined a cult.65
Padilla began to adopt Arab garb and