Unwelcome Volunteer: Jihadist Groups Rejected Would-Be American Recruit

The arrest of a Sudbury, Massachusetts, man on charges of conspiring to launch terror attacks against U.S. shopping malls and other targets is the latest in a series of high-profile FBI busts that suggest Al Qaeda sympathizers are very much alive and well inside the country—even if their links to Al Qaeda's central leadership overseas are tenuous or nonexistent. The Feds allege that Tarek Mehanna, 27, who was born in the U.S. but holds dual U.S.-Egyptian citizenship, conspired with others from 2001 to 2008 to participate in violent jihad against American targets both inside and outside the U.S. A lengthy Federal complaint says that he and his alleged co-conspirators discussed obtaining automatic weapons and randomly shooting people in a shopping mall, citing the exploits of D.C.-area sniper John Allen Muhammad as a possible inspiration.

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials said that the Massachusetts case is a fresh example of a phenomenon that deeply concerns law enforcement and intelligence officials around the Western world, which is the self-radicalization of small cells of would-be jihadists using videos or other propaganda material they easily can find on the Internet. There is no indication of a serious connection between the Massachusetts suspects and the fugitive central leadership of Al Qaeda.‪ In the case of the Massachusetts defendants, they exposed themselves to government scrutiny by traveling to suspicious destinations such as Pakistan and Yemen. But more cautious suspects might be able to avoid detection.

The court documents do not explain precisely why or how Mehanna and his alleged co-conspirators became interested in becoming Islamic holy warriors. But the Feds indicate that a key figure in the alleged plot, who now appears to be cooperating with investigators, is Daniel Maldonado, another Massachusetts resident, who converted to Islam and who Mehanna and a co-conspirator named Ahmad Abousamra believed had gang connections through which they could acquire automatic rifles. The court documents say Maldonado, who was captured and imprisoned in the U.S. after a sojourn in Somalia, told the suspects that he could only get handguns; the Feds say Mehanna and Abousamra ultimately abandoned their shopping-mall plot because they couldn't get the automatic weapons they wanted. Mehanna had been arrested late last year and charged with making false statements to the Feds but had entered a not-guilty plea and had been free on bail before his arrest on Wednesday in connection with the new conspiracy charges. His lawyer, J. W. Carney, could not be immediately reached for comment. The court papers indicate Abousamra, who is not officially charged in the case, may presently be living in Syria.

The court documents allege that in April 2002, only a few months after 9/11, Abousamra took one of two trips he made that year to Pakistan seeking training for jihad. Also in 2002, the documents say, Abousamra at some point met Maldonado, the convert with alleged gang connections; subsequently, say the Feds, Maldonado, Abousamra, and Maldonado watched a jihadist video and discussed the "glory of dying for the sake of Allah." In 2004, according to the Feds, Abousamra, Mehanna, and an unidentified individual whom the government describes as a cooperating witness all allegedly traveled to Yemen in an effort to enroll themselves in a terrorist training camp. At one point in 2004, the Feds say they believe Abousamra visited Iraq for about two weeks. According to the feds, however, the alleged co-conspirators did not find themselves welcomed with open arms by the Islamic terror groups they tried to join. The court papers indicate that Abousamra told a cooperating witness after returning from one trip to Pakistan that he had made contact with both Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Taliban, two notorious jihadist militias, but that neither group would accept him: LeT rejected him because he was an Arab, not a Pakistani, and the Taliban turned him down because of his lack of experience. Abousamra told a witness that while in Iraq, he had met a group who were involved in attacks, but claimed they would not allow him to join in their fight because he was an American.