A Muslim convert was arrested today for allegedly making bombs in New York City after a year-long investigation.

According to initial accounts, Jose Pimentel, a loner who lives with his mother in the Bronx, was charged with making pipe bombs.

Monitor developments in this story with the Blogs of War Jose Pimentel Monitor at http://pimentel.blogsofwar.com.

Update

So it appears Jose is your classic half-witted lone wolf. The guy was under close watch for almost two years, was quite open about his intentions, and spewed pro-jihad chatter all over the web and YouTube.

In January of last year, Mr. Pimentel followed his former wife back to New York, and at some point began maintaining a Web site — www.trueislam1 — that contained bomb-making discussions taken from Inspire, the English-language magazine published online by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the branch of the terrorist network in Yemen.

Mr. Pimentel made incriminating statements to an informant who was working with the police, investigators said, and those conversations were recorded.

The bomb-making began in October, with trips to a Home Depot in the Bronx and a 99-cent store in Manhattan during which Mr. Pimentel was under surveillance, according to a criminal complaint. There he purchased a clock, elbow piping, work gloves and Christmas lights — all bomb-making parts, the complaint states. Mr. Pimentel kept the confidential informant up to date on his progress. On Nov. 16, Mr. Pimentel told the informant that he planned to borrow a drill from a neighbor to drill holes in the pipes, the complaint says.

Once again, we’re lucky. Props to the NYPD for catching this guy but it would have been more newsworthy if they hadn’t.

The alleged plot – directly from the department of Justice:

“The criminal complaint alleges that, from the spring of 2011 to October 2011, Arbabsiar and his Iran-based co-conspirators, including Shakuri of the Qods Force, have been plotting the murder of the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. In furtherance of this conspiracy, Arbabsiar allegedly met on a number of occasions in Mexico with a DEA confidential source (CS-1) who has posed as an associate of a violent international drug trafficking cartel. According to the complaint, Arbabsiar arranged to hire CS-1 and CS-1’s purported accomplices to murder the Ambassador, and Shakuri and other Iran-based co-conspirators were aware of and approved the plan. With Shakuri’s approval, Arbabsiar has allegedly caused approximately $100,000 to be wired into a bank account in the United States as a down payment to CS-1 for the anticipated killing of the Ambassador, which was to take place in the United States.

According to the criminal complaint, the IRCG is an arm of the Iranian military that is composed of a number of branches, one of which is the Qods Force. The Qods Force conducts sensitive covert operations abroad, including terrorist attacks, assassinations and kidnappings, and is believed to sponsor attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq. In October 2007, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the Qods Force for providing material support to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations.

The complaint alleges that Arbabsiar met with CS-1 in Mexico on May 24, 2011, where Arbabsiar inquired as to CS-1’s knowledge with respect to explosives and explained that he was interested in, among other things, attacking an embassy of Saudi Arabia. In response, CS-1 allegedly indicated that he was knowledgeable with respect to C-4 explosives. In June and July 2011, the complaint alleges, Arbabsiar returned to Mexico and held additional meetings with CS-1, where Arbabsiar explained that his associates in Iran had discussed a number of violent missions for CS-1 and his associates to perform, including the murder of the Ambassador.”

Tweets are flooding the Iran Saudi, Mexico, and Terrorism streams on the Blogs of War National Security Monitor but I’ve created a unified page dedicated to the plot at http://iranplot.blogsofwar.com. I’ll keep this page in the Alert section as long as this story is unfolding. I suspect that will be quite a while.

I’m not doing a page-by-page analysis but I’ll point you to three excellent posts:

Al Malahem’s Inspire 4: Crusades Rhetoric and Tactical Updates In A Feedback Loop by @crabbyolbastard

and

al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s al-Malahem Media releases Inspire Magazine Issue #4 by @Azelin

and

Awlaki Breaks Silence In New Issue Of Inspire, Builds Links To History Of Jihad by @IntelWire

There are a few interesting things to note about this issue. First, the production quality has improved significantly. This is looking less like your office newsletter and more like a professionally produced print publication every day. This is especially interesting when contrasted with the extremely limited thinking evident in their discussions about “Open Source Jihad”. In short, the strategic masterminds behind some of this content have more experience making things look FABULOUS than they do killing people. I’m reminded of this for some reason:

Now, I’m not minimizing the long-term threat of their approach here. There is reason for concern. I just continue to think that they are, thankfully, executing poorly. Declaring man will set foot on the moon is a visionary idea. Looking for the best horse to take him there is poor execution of that idea. This is the current state of open source Jihad.

There is another significant development in this issue that others have touched on but that I don’t want to elaborate on here. I will say that I will not be surprised if, eventually, elements of this production team are discovered and authorities (or perhaps some independent ethical hackers) credit this issue with the breakthrough.

Download: Inspire 4 (PDF)

Described as “a rising star in the counterterrorism community” by the International Herald Tribune, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is the Director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gartenstein-Ross’s writings have appeared in Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Review of Faith and International Affairs, and The Journal of International Security Affairs, among others. He has also written or edited seven books and monographs. The accolades that Gartenstein-Ross has earned for his policy work include being named a 2010 Senior Fellow at George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, and being selected for the Claremont Institute’s Lincoln Fellowship. You can follow him on Twitter @DaveedGR.

John Little: Let’s start with recent events – specifically the situation in Egypt where a Coptic Christian church was bombed and Christians there responded with quite a bit of understandable anger. Attacks on minority Christian communities seem to be on the rise. This is certainly not a completely new phenomenon but it does feel like there is additional momentum and purpose behind recent attacks and threats. Are we seeing a shift here? Is fueling inter-religious violence increasingly a priority for al-Qaeda?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: Yes, the targeting of Christians is increasingly a priority for al Qaeda affiliates and for the group’s sympathizers. As you mentioned, this is not a new phenomenon — which I emphasize because some commentators take an ahistorical perspective on these matters. Egypt’s Copts were frequent targets of Islamist attacks during the 1990s. Indonesian Christians have been periodically targeted for violent assault by Islamists. And sometimes the targeting of Christians has ranged into the West. For example, in January 2005 I exposed a radical Islamist web site called Barsomyat.com. This site was devoted to systematically tracking Christians who were active in debating Muslims on the Internet chat service PalTalk. One representative page from Barsomyat featured photographs of a Syrian Christian who then lived in Canada. Barsomyat’s users posted personal information about him and made clear that they were trying to track down his current address. Subscribers also posted explicit warnings, such as: “Laugh, oh Christian, and soon you will see a big hit.” To be clear, the targeting of Christians in the West has not been comparable to what Christians in Egypt, Indonesia, and elsewhere have been through; I raise the issue of Barsomyat primarily because it is some precedent, from six years ago, for the Shumukh al-Islam threats that I’ll discuss momentarily.

But though we have previously seen the targeting of Christians, it is in fact increasing. You will recall that on Halloween 2010, al Qaeda-linked militants seized a Baghdad church, an event which resulted in 58 deaths — one of a number of attacks on Christians in Iraq last year. The many attacks prompted Juan Cole to bluntly declare: “The attacks on Christians in Iraq are serious, and hold the danger of ethnically cleansing that community.” Not only did al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) threaten Christians in that country with more of the same carnage that we saw in the Halloween attack — saying “we will open upon them the doors of destruction and rivers of blood” — but it also threatened the Coptic Church in Egypt. Its threats against Egypt’s Copts were based on scurrilous rumors that the Coptic Church was holding Muslim women as captives. Thus, a statement from AQI declared that “all Christian centers, organizations and institutions, leaders and followers, are legitimate targets for the mujahidin wherever they can reach them.”

And now we’ve seen the Alexandria bombing, along with threats against Christians in the West. More than 100 Arab Christians living in the West (including in Canada, Germany, Austria and elsewhere) have ended up targeted by al Qaeda-affiliated web site Shumukh al Islam because they are allegedly attempting to convert Muslims. Officials are taking these threats seriously. One tragic irony I should point out is how Christians, living in the predominantly Christian West, are being targeted for death because of their efforts to convert Muslims — when Islam is also an openly evangelistic faith that targets Christians for conversion worldwide.

The question of why we are seeing this shift toward more attacks on Christians is harder to answer. Is it based primarily on anti-Christian animus, and religious intolerance more generally? Or is it serving another strategic goal? The answers are not crystal clear.

John Little: Even if there wasn’t a greater strategic goal driving the recent attack on the Coptic church in Egypt it would seem possible that the cycle of retribution kicked off by that event would lead Islamists to re-focus their efforts in this area. Isn’t this cycle of violence an ideal outcome for them? If one relatively small attack contributes to the destabilization of the state, burdening it with expensive and impossible security challenges, and creates an engine for radicalization/recruitment you have to think we’re in for more of the same.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: First, to be clear: at this point we still do not know that the Coptic attack was perpetrated or inspired by al Qaeda (though there has been some suggestive evidence in this regard). Second, I disagree with the premise of this question that the attack has led to a “cycle of violence.” There were days of protests and riots, including some relatively minor violence between Christians and Muslims and Coptic vandalism of a mosque. (There has also been more positive news about Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt since.) Though that unrest could return, this isn’t like Iraq where some devious — but strategically useful — al Qaeda in Iraq attacks managed to set off waves of reprisal attacks between Sunnis and Shias. Christians represent only about 10% of Egypt’s population. To put it bluntly, if you had actual waves of reprisals as you did in Iraq, the Copts would get slaughtered.

Nor was I implying that there was no strategic purpose to this attack. One relatively small attack has indeed contributed to the destabilization of Egypt; to the perception that the state cannot protect its minority populations; to unrest by the Christian population; to deteriorating Muslim-Christian relations; and to increasing security expenditures. This may have been the precise strategic goal of the attack. The reason for my caution in saying that the strategic goal was not clear is that sometimes we assume the intention behind a terrorist attack before we have sufficient evidence to really determine that intention. I am well aware that, in this case, I have insufficient information.

John Little: I do think there is a tendency to assume strategic intent, or see signs of grand strategy, where there may be none. There are troubling signs here but, as you point out, evidence is lacking. Do you think there are parallels here to the fears about Mumbai style attacks? I know that I wrote about my concern that a simple swarming attack model would gain favor even before events in Mumbai. Analysts and pundits have written volumes on the subject since, warnings have been issued (as recently as this week for Europe), and security forces around the globe have trained and prepared for just that scenario. But while there’s no doubt that we’ll see the model employed with devastating results again in the future I think most analysts would have expected to see more examples of this over the past few years. Counterterrorism efforts deserve a lot of credit here but the bottom line is that any moderately competent individual or small cell could evade detection with this model so why aren’t we seeing more of this?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: To be frank, we would be far better off had we done more over the past decade to figure out what al Qaeda’s strategy is. Many of the U.S.’s policies designed to defeat al Qaeda have in fact played into the group’s hands, as I addressed in an article I wrote for Foreign Policy in November, precisely because we have not asked the right questions about the group’s strategy. So I’m not offering a generalized argument against looking for our opponents’ strategy. Instead, I’m being cautious about what I know with certainty, and what I don’t. For the record, if I were betting on this one, my money is on there being a strategic purpose to the Alexandria attacks.

As to Mumbai-style urban warfare attacks, I think you’re drastically overestimating the ease with which they can be executed (i.e. “any moderately competent individual or small cell could evade detection with this model”). First of all, the actual Mumbai attackers received training and gamed out the attack using models of the relevant geographic space. They did advance scouting, and put together a decent command-and-control capability. They weren’t just moderately competent, but rather were well prepared and well coordinated. Second, a number of attackers who appear to have been competent were thwarted late last year while planning to execute urban warfare attacks across Europe. In October, I wrote a lengthy analysis of how the Europe urban warfare plots indeed represented a real threat. The example of these European plots demonstrates that avoiding detection is more difficult than you’re giving credit, and also that there has been not just a clear terrorist intention to execute further Mumbai-style attacks, but actual efforts to do so as well.

John Little: I do not want to go too far down the road of publicly discussing how terrorists can do their job better but forget Mumbai specifically. With that event I thought we were witnessing a progression towards attacks that are simple, more immediate, and more likely to avoid sophisticated counter-terrorism measures. Mumbai, for the reasons you mentioned, seemed like a transitional event. I’m referring to attacks that do not require training in foreign locations, the assistance of subject matter experts (bomb making for example), exotic weapons, the transfer of significant funds, or sophisticated planning. Just killing people is, unfortunately, quite easy. Is the relative lack of effort in this area indicative of other priorities?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: I actually think we have seen a move in that precise direction. This is not just propelled by the example of the Mumbai attacks but also another factor: the September 2008 collapse of the American economy. The economic collapse fundamentally changed the jihadi war against the West, in my judgment, because it made the U.S. seem mortal. It created the appearance of a country teetering on the edge of a precipice, such that a smaller attack could finally push it over the edge. The rhetoric of jihadi spokesmen makes clear that they are in fact trying to encourage other Muslims to carry out smaller, more frequent attacks. For example, in a March 2010 video Adam Gadahn praised Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, and encouraged other Muslims to follow his example. “The mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, by the grace of Allah and with a single thirty-minute battle, singlehandedly brought the morale of the American military and public to its lowest point in years,” Gadahn said. “The mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, lightly armed but with a big heart, a strong will and a confident step, again brought into sharp focus the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of America.” Gadahn also put his finger on a point that many figures within the jihadi movement have noticed: even failed attacks can help the jihadis by “bring[ing] major cities to a halt, cost[ing] the enemy billions and send[ing] his corporations into bankruptcy.”

Since September 2008, we have in fact seen two successful jihadi attacks that employ the exact model you’re speaking of: the Fort Hood shooting, and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s fatal shooting at the National Guard recruiting station in Little Rock, Arkansas. (If you expand this to non-jihadi terrorist attacks, there have been even more, including Joseph Stack’s suicide plane attack on an IRS building in Austin, Texas; the June 2009 shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and now the reprehensible shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several bystanders at her “Congress on Your Corner” event in the Tucson, Arizona area.) So I think we have moved in that direction. But for a variety of reasons — including the relatively low pull al Qaeda has for American Muslims — this doesn’t mean that you’ll see someone get gunned down by Islamic militants every week.

John Little: So if American Muslims are overwhelmingly moderate, overwhelmingly good citizens, then aren’t we heading into dangerous territory with things like congressional hearings on Muslim radicalization and preemptive strikes on Shariah? Are we pushing American Muslims away when we should be more engaged than ever? Homeland security and counter-terrorism efforts obviously still need to proceed at a furious pace but should elected officials and concerned citizens be searching for more opportunities for positive engagement? Is the current landscape contributing to radicalization rather than preventing it?

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross: First, I don’t think we have proof that American Muslims are “overwhelmingly moderate.” I said previously that al Qaeda has a relatively low pull for American Muslims, but that’s a different conclusion. A couple of studies made the claim last year of overwhelming moderation. One of them, Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans, is one of the worst studies that I read all of last year, sloppily researched and either incompetently or else dishonestly argued. I did not have the same objections to the other study, Brian Michael Jenkins’s Would-Be Warriors, but it did overreach on this point, claiming: “There are more than 3 million Muslims in the United States, and few more than 100 have joined jihad — one out of every 30,000 — suggesting an American Muslim population that remains hostile to jihadist ideology and its exhortations to violence.” On this point, I agree with a thoughtful critique that Drew Conway provided when Jenkins’s study came out:

We know … that this final assertion is not true; specifically, with regard to the numbers. The numbers, at best, only support the claim that domestic radicalization is very rarely observed. It does not suggest anything about the internal disposition of American Muslims. While this may actually be the case, simply … not observing a phenomenon cannot support this claim. The cliché, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” is particularly applicable to small N problems.

So I think my initial claim that al Qaeda has a relatively low pull for American Muslims is accurate, but we don’t know that the community is “overwhelmingly moderate.”

I do think that American Muslims are currently facing an elevated level of societal discrimination, and this isn’t helpful to our counterterrorism efforts. With respect to preemptive strikes on sharia, I assume you’re referring to the legislation that passed in Oklahoma. That legislation is almost certainly unconstitutional, on both free exercise and equal protection grounds, as it prohibits Muslims from doing what adherents to other faiths are free to do: enter into marriage or other consensual contracts stating that the relationship should be governed by religious law. Of course, there are aspects of dominant interpretations of sharia — such as its non-recognition that there is such thing as marital rape — that would be disturbing to allow people to contract into. However, the court system would almost certainly find such contractual interpretations void as against public policy.

As to Rep. King’s proposed hearings, there is a right way and wrong way to investigate radicalization within the American Muslim community. To give a plug to my recent Bloggingheads appearance, Matt Duss and I just discussed this issue. I haven’t been fond of the optics surrounding this hearing thus far, but that doesn’t mean the subject should be off limits. I hope the hearing is sufficiently nuanced, and that it’s successful, because it’s likely to do a lot to set our nation’s CT priorities for the next couple of years.

Guest Post: Regional Command South Public Affairs and Sgt. Jerry Wilson, TF Dragoon/CTZ Public Affairs

ZABUL, Afghanistan- Soldiers from the 2ndStryker Cavalry Regiment working alongside their Afghan National Police partners at the Police Training Center in Qalat started the New Year right Monday, Jan 3 by graduating a class of 134 new recruits. Class 1101 had the distinction of not only being the first class of 2011, but also the first class to include volunteers from the Commerce Stability Program and five female recruits.

The CSP is a village-level security program similar to a neighborhood watch. The program hires men from each village and pays them to man observation posts alongside ANP officers. In addition to the CSP, class 1101 also included the first female candidates to be inducted within the Zabul Province.

Five courageous women stepped up and despite fear of retribution toward their families and vowed to support and defend their homes. Due to the predominately male environment at the PTC and the lack of the women instructors, the female recruits were unable to engage in many of the practical exercises with the men. To compensate for this, the female recruits were given a more extensive overview of procedures during their classroom training.

Dragoons conduct a six-week long training course where students were taught techniques and law enforcement skills that will help them in their mission to provide security and stability to the citizens of Zabul Province. The training is separated into classroom and hands on exercises. Instructors teach basic skills like weapons handling, weapons maintenance and first aid. In addition, recruits were also taught room clearing, traffic control point operations and team leading procedures.

“They went through the basic classroom training such as first aid, the constitution, tactics and techniques, checkpoint operations and security operations,” said Capt. Vinh Bui, the Provincial Logistical Advisor for PTC. “They also went to the range and qualified with both rifle and pistol.”

“The intent is for them to have a basic understanding as police officers,” Bui explained, “what they need to know, in order to influence the locals as well as be effective members of the force.”

Graduation Day: A female ANP officer receives her diploma upon completion of the basic
Police training course . (Photo by Sgt. Jerry Wilson)

Bui stated that graduating these women from the program is a great step towards progress in Zabul and they will face many restrictions due to the current cultural standards.

“Because they are female,” Bui said, “there will always be a fear of retribution towards their families so they will always be covered up.” Bui stated that wearing the full traditional burka, female officers will not be as intimidating as their male counterparts wearing their body armor and weapons.

Bui did state they will face many challenges in their careers, these five officers have essentially contributed towards a mile-stone in progress resulting in a more stable secure and diverse Afghanistan.

“They give females a voice within the ANP,” Bui said. “They make it more diverse and well- rounded.”

Inspired by the Twitter hashtag #awlakifacts

Giyus.org: What’s Syria role in the region and how is it impacted by the rising power of Iran?

Professor Zisser: Syria has a central role in the Middle East. First of all, it has a central geographic location practically at the heart of the region. Secondly, Syria borders Israel and plays a major part in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its conflict with Israel allows Syria to maintain close relationship with Hamas and Hezbollah and help them out.

The Assad family has been in power since 1970. During this period Syria became a stable country, strong from the military and political perspective. Syria is involved in Lebanon and with the Palestinians, but most of the attention it gets from the Western world is due to its close ties with Iran.

This Syria-Iran alliance allows Iran to benefit from Syria’s central location and provides a gateway for Iran to Israel’s immediate vicinity. Syria, on the other hand, benefit from the rising power of Iran. By partnering with Iran, Syria seems stronger in the eyes of the West.

Read the rest of the interview.

A 52-year-old American citizen who said he was searching for Osama bin Laden was detained in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan this week, Pakistani police said Tuesday.

The Californian named Gary Brooks Faulkner was carrying a pistol, a sword, night-vision equipment and Christian religious books, said Mumtaz Ahmed, a police chief in the area.

Mr. Faulkner is just lucky to be alive. Chitral Today has more:

He went missing on Sunday night after duping a police constable deployed for his security.

Mohammad Jafar, DPO, said that a heavy contingent of police rushed to the valley from Chitral and spotted him in the forest of Shiekhandeh after a hectic search of about 10 hours.

He was brought to Chitral city.

During initial interrogation, the American national said that he was going to Nooristan on a ‘mission to decapitate Osama bin Laden’ and his four accomplices who posed a constant threat to America.

I guess that explains the sword…

Update:
As details emerge the story gets even crazier but Gary’s brother insists that he’s not insane:

Dr. Faulkner said his brother is not crazy, no matter how improbable his quest may appear to those outside the family.

“I’m a physician — I would know if my brother was schizophrenic or bipolar,” he said. “He’s very passionate,” he added, describing his brother’s 8-year hunt for the terror chief as “pretty bold.”

“I think more people wish they had that kind of passion in their lives.”

How long do you think it will take for someone to pitch this guy a reality show?

Details are pretty light but all ended well and with the pair in custody:

All gates at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida will be open Tuesday after being temporarily closed after a heavily armed man and woman were taken into custody when they tried to enter the facility without authorization, an Air Force spokeswoman said.

They were stopped at a gate at the base that houses the headquarters for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan early Monday evening after they could not show proper identification, Senior Airman Katherine Holt said. A search of the vehicle after they were detained found military-style uniforms and gear and several “rifle-type” weapons, Holt said.

Related Links
MacDill Air Force Base
GlobalSecurity.org entry
Wikipedia entry

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has more:

Neighbors offered diverging descriptions of Shahzad but agreed that he kept to himself. One, Brenda Thurman, said Shahzad had told her husband he worked on Wall Street, while another neighbor, Audrey Sokol, said she thought he worked in nearby Norwalk.

Thurman, 37, said he lived in Shelton with his wife and two small children until last year.

“He was a little bit strange,” she said. “He didn’t like to come out during the day.”

Sokol, a teacher who lives next door to Shahzad’s old house, said that he would wave and say hello and that he seemed normal to her.

Female suicide bombers detonated explosions that rocked two subway stations in central Moscow during rush hour on Monday morning, killing at least 35 people, officials said.

“It was a terrorist act carried out by the female suicide bombers,” said Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, citing Russia’s intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service. “They were specifically timed — for … the train was nearing the station — to make the most damage.

“The blast was caused by 300 to 400 grams of explosives,” he said.

A Web site associated with Chechen separatists claimed responsibility for the attacks. Chechnya is located in an area of Russia known as the North Caucasus, located between the Black and Caspian Seas.

Follow the conversation on Twitter.

Update:

The New York Times has photos.

Update:

It looks like Gadahn is still on the run:

“Our initial impression was that the guy was Adam Gadahn but that information now looks incorrect,” a security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

The arrested man was believed to be an American who goes by the alias of Abu Yahya. Gadahn is known to have used a similar alias. “Probably the name and his origin caused the confusion,” the official said.

Original Post:

Some reports say he is in custody:

After some confusion in the intial reports, the Associated Press quoted Pakistani officials confirming the arrest of Osama bin Laden’s mouthpiece.

The Dawn, Karachi’s English-language newspaper, broke the news with a photo of a man being taken away with a bag on his head.

Gadahn was bagged just hours after releasing a new internet video urging American Muslims to go on shooting sprees like Maj. Nidal Hasan’s at Fort Hood last year.

He is the first American to be charged with treason since World War II.

If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

While others aren’t so sure:

A senior Pakistani government official told CNN that Gadahn was arrested Sunday in Karachi, but a U.S. intelligence official said there appears to be no validity to reports of Gadahn’s arrest. Other U.S. officials also said they have no indication that Gadahn has been captured.

CNN also has some background on the traitor:

Gadahn grew up on a California farm, and was home-schooled until age 17. A year later he moved in with his paternal grandparents, who were secular Jews. He converted to Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County, California, but was banned from the mosque two years later after hitting its chairman, Haitham Bundjaki.

In 1997 Gadahn began working for a California charity suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. He moved to Pakistan in 1998.

His family has said they last heard from him in 2002. In 2004, the FBI identified him as part of an al Qaeda cell that was planning attacks aimed at disrupting that year’s presidential election in the United States.

In October 2004, he began appearing in disguise in al Qaeda videos. Gadahn dropped the disguise in 2006.

In 2008, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and destroyed his passport in another al Qaeda video.

Of course, his FBI most wanted page has more information as well.

Related:
al Qaeda’s Adam Yahiye Gadahn Warns of Attacks Worse Than 9/11
Al Qaeda Web Ad Promises a Big Surprise
Adam Gadahn Threatens Bush in New al Qaeda Video
American al Qaeda: Adam Gadan Video Coming Soon
Adam Yahiye Gadahn (Azzam the American): al Qaeda Targeting U.S. Embassies

Exercise Total Shield is designed to test the readiness of Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. Pfc. Tony Orth shows us how the provost marshall and Explosive Ordnance Disposal offices are teaming-up for the training.

Wikipedia Bio: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh
Mahmoud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhouh (February 14, 1960 – January 19, 2010) was a senior Hamas military commander and one of the founders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in the Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai on January 19, 2010, having arrived in the country earlier that day from Syria. It is suspected by Dubai police that he was murdered in his own hotel room, with accounts of the cause of death ranging from suffocation to electrocution. A controversy over the murder has arisen over speculation that it was an Israeli government sanctioned assassination

Israeli Envoys Meet British, Irish officials over Dubai Killing
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the government was determined to get to the bottom of the passport issue in the international murder mystery, in which the official was killed last month in his Dubai hotel room.

Miliband Denies Going Soft on Israel over ‘Mossad’ Killing
The Foreign Secretary insisted today that Britain was not “going through the motions” over the cloning of six British passports in a suspected Mossad assassination after Israel’s Ambassador denied he was rebuked by the Government.

Miliband: Israel Must ‘Cooperate Fully’ in Fake Passport Probe
Israel’s ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, Zion Evroni, said Wednesday that he too had received a summons from the country’s Department of Foreign Affairs and would be meet Minister Michael Martin on Thursday. In Jerusalem, Foreign Ministry officials declined to comment on the matter, but an Israeli diplomat said on condition of anonymity that the government has decided to withhold a public statement until the British message is received, and would then choose how to respond.

Six More Hunted in Dubai Assassination
The identities of the new six have not yet been made public, but among the group there is thought to be at least one more female in addition to the woman originally identified as “Gail Folliard from Ireland”, until the Irish authorities said that no such person existed. The second, as yet unnamed woman, was caught on CCTV camera following al-Mabhouh to his hotel room and identifying him at close quarters, before other members of the team moved in for the kill. She had arrived at the hotel dressed as a tourist and wearing a large summer hat and was accompanied by a large man in a Panama hat and beard.

France Demands Israel Explain Dubai Passport Affair
“We are asking for explanations from Israel’s embassy in France over the circumstances of the use of a fake French passport in the assassination of a Hamas member in Dubai,” the Foreign Ministry said in an electronic news briefing.

UK, Ireland Envoys: ‘Nothing to Add’
Ambassador Zion Evrony said after the hour-long meeting he had nothing useful to tell Ireland because he knew nothing confidential about the Dubai assassination.

Analysis: Dubai Hit Was Not a Botched Job
Irrespective of who carried out the January 19 assassination of senior Hamas terrorist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai, the operation was meticulously planned and successfully executed, and despite a surprisingly impressive investigation by Dubai police, the hit cannot be considered a botched job.

Analysis: Long-Term Fallout with UK from Dubai Hit Unlikely
While the British government (and the governments of France and Ireland, whose passports were also reportedly used in the operation) will be understandably angry, past experience shows that disputes in this area tend to be treated as belonging to the special, sealed-off category of ‘national security.’ Where states have good reasons to maintain healthy ties with one another, such incidents are rarely allowed to muddy the waters for long.

‘Israelis with Names on Assassins’ Passports not Protected’
Israeli law protects citizens from privacy violations, but not necessarily that of the seven Israelis whose names appeared on passports allegedly used by the team that assassinated Mabhouh.

Worth Watching: haaretzonline

Taliban’s Most Senior Military Commander Captured by the CIA in Pakistan Raid
Baradar heads the Taliban’s military council and was elevated in the body after the 2006 death of military chief Mullah Akhtar Mohammed Usmani. He is known to coordinate the movement’s military operations throughout the south and southwest of Afghanistan. His area of direct responsibility stretches over Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar: Are other Taliban leaders hiding in Karachi?
According to a police investigator with the Special Investigation Unit, tasked with counterterrorism operations, not only leaders but also other militants are present in Karachi. “There is a network of [Pakistani] Taliban fighters scattered across the city,” the SIU officer says, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He estimates that about 150 Taliban militants from the tribal region reside in Karachi. They include recruiters and financiers, who coordinate with local criminal gangs and sectarian groups to smuggle arms to the tribal areas and arrange funding, he says.

Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban’s Top Commander
The New York Times learned of the operation on Thursday, but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials, who contended that making it public would end a hugely successful intelligence-gathering effort. The officials said that the group’s leaders had been unaware of Mullah Baradar’s capture and that if it became public they might cover their tracks and become more careful about communicating with each other.

Implications Of Arrest Of Taliban Leader Mulla Baradar
One question is, nevertheless, whether this arrest will disrupt and weaken the Taleban’s ability to act in the long term. Without question, it is a serious blow to the Taleban. But on the other hand, neither the arrest of Obaidullah nor the killings of leading commanders like Mulla Dadullah, Akhtar Usmani and others have done so. The Taleban movement has been growing from year to year, not abruptly in 2005 or 2006 as many claim but rather continuously after their regime’s downfall. And it was apparently able to fill in vacant command posts with ease and without much loss of effectiveness.

Interview Met Mullah Beradar, de #2 Van de Taliban
Text of interview of the esteemed Mullah Beradar Akhund, Deputy Ameerul Mo’mineen of The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan With the “ SARK ” magazine.

Why Taliban Leader’s Arrest Matters
“This is a significant blow to the Taliban. In the past they have been able to replace leaders, and no doubt they will replace him, but there are not many members of the Quetta Shura who can step into his role,” Mir told CBS News producer Ben Plesser in Kabul, referring to the Afghan Taliban by its traditional name.

Baradar Arrested at Roadside Checkpoint
“At times, it was difficult to hunt him because we had reports of his movement, but no confirmation if the figure riding in one of the vehicles among a few was in fact Mullah Baradar,” said a second senior Pakistani security official. “We had trailed him closely, but our priority was hunting him alive. It was easy enough to start a bloodbath but with no assurance of catching him alive”.

Sr. Official: Top Taliban Operative Captured, Providing Intel
A senior official tells ABC News that “several days” ago U.S. and Pakistani intelligence captured the Taliban’s Number 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, and he is providing intelligence. “This operation was an enormous success,” the official told ABC News. “It is a very big deal.”

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar
Mullah Baradar may know where Osama bin Laden is or at least have information that could help find him. (I’m assuming the Pakistanis don’t know already — not sure that’s true. I don’t think Osama is living in a cave. I think he’s in a quite comfortable villa.

Taliban Military Commander Captured; will it Impact Reconciliation Talks?
I’m similarly unconvinced that the manner in which Baradar is questioned will have any impact on reconciliation efforts. The U.S. shouldn’t torture him, because torture is morally and legally abhorrent. But I don’t think there are too many Taliban commanders in Quetta who will read the papers and say, hey, Mullah Abdul was treated nicely! We should turn ourselves in, too.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Captured as Pakistan’s ISI Change Tack: Analysis
The biggest significance of the joint raid by US and Pakistani agents lies in what it may say about the changing position of Pakistan’s powerful ISI military intelligence service.

ISI Leads the Way?
Today, Pakistani and US folks captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, apparently the most senior military commander of the Taliban. And the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence service led the way. I am confused since the ISI has long been an obstacle to any success against the Taliban. So, does this mean the ISI is now fighting the Taliban? Does it mean that Baradar has simply outlived his usefulness to the ISI? Is there a split in the ISI? I have no clue as I am not an expert on Pakistan, but I doubt that these folks have a strong grasp on this either.

Are Pakistan’s Top Spooks Finally Playing Ball?
“If the arrest of Mullah Baradar heralds a change in the ISI position towards its former protégés rather than being a one off, it will be a landmark event in the counter insurgency,” he writes. “It follows the ISI’s declaration earlier this month that it wished to play a significant role in Hamid Karzai’s attempts to reconcile with senior insurgent leaders.”

Worth Watching: themajlisblog

A bomb blast outside the main gate of a court building in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar has killed at least five people.

Follow the #pakistan hashtag on Twitter for the latest.

U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

I don’t think we can assume that the ball was dropped just yet – there’s certainly more to this case. However, there is a disturbing pattern to these revelations.

A pilot reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that at about 8:15 p.m. Friday, an object passed within 150 feet beneath the aircraft, sheriff’s officials said.

The aircraft was near the southern edge of the county, flying at about 13,000 feet, officials said.

“The pilot, from what we understand, was former military. He was able to get the coordinates down real quick,” said Cpl. Hugh Bishop with the Liberty County Sheriff’s Department.

13,000 feet is definitely an altitude within reach of a high-powered model rocket but flights to that kind of altitude are far from common. If there’s someone in the area with the hardware and experience to build that kind of rocket investigators should be able to locate and interview them relatively quickly.