Person of Interest

Abdulmutallab’s Lonely Online Posts

Was “lonely,” without a “true Muslim friend.”

Who was Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab? The Washington Post has reviewed 300 online posts believed to be made by Abdulmutallab under the name “farouk1986” between 2005 and 2007. "I have no one to speak too [sic]," he wrote in 2005 as a student at boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems." In June 2005, he wrote of a three-month Arabic course he took in Yemen, which he said was “just great.” He also wrote of wanting to attend Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, or the California Institute of Technology, but complained that his SAT scores were too low. He also wrote of the tension, as a Muslim, "between liberalism and extremism.”