Muslim Little Rock shooter Abdulhakim Muhammad a part of Al Qaeda?

abdulhakim-muhammadPerhaps just another “isolated extremist” Mr. President? In a letter to the judge presiding over his case, the Muslim who killed a soldier outside a Little Rock, Arkansas military recruiting station named Abdulhakim Muhammad is now calling himself a soldier of Al Qaeda. Muhammad is also calling the shooting “a Jihadi Attack” in retribution for the killing of Muslims by American troops according to the New York Times.

“I wasn’t insane or post traumatic nor was I forced to do this Act,” Mr. Muhammad said in a two-page, hand-printed note in pencil. The attack, which he said did not go as planned, was “justified according to Islamic Laws and the Islamic Religion. Jihad — to fight those who wage war on Islam and Muslims.”

It remains unclear whether Mr. Muhammad really has ties to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which President Obama has said is behind the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American plane by a Nigerian man.

But if evidence emerges that his claim is true, it will give the June 1, 2009, shooting in Little Rock new significance at a time when Yemen is being more closely scrutinized as a source of terrorist plots against the United States.

Mr. Muhammad, 24, a Muslim convert from Memphis, spent about 16 months in Yemen starting in the fall of 2007, ostensibly teaching English and learning Arabic. During that time, he married a woman from south Yemen. But he was also imprisoned for several months because he overstayed his visa and was holding a fraudulent Somali passport, the Yemen government said.

Under pressure from the United States government, Yemen deported Mr. Muhammad in late January 2009. But just four months after his return, Mr. Muhammad used a semiautomatic rifle to gun down two soldiers — Pvt. William A. Long and Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula — while they were standing outside a military recruiting station in Little Rock, killing Private Long and wounding Private Ezeagwula.

After the shooting, Mr. Muhammad pleaded not guilty, but also took responsibility for the shootings in interviews with The Associated Press. But he did not acknowledge being part of an extremist group and some terrorism experts came to view him as a self-radicalized, lone actor.

In his letter to Herb Wright Jr., a Pulaski County circuit judge, Mr. Muhammad calls himself a member of “Abu Basir’s Army,” an apparent reference to Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, the Yemen group’s leader, who also goes by the name Abu Basir.

Mr. Muhammad’s father, Melvin Bledsoe, a Memphis businessman, said that while he believes his son may have been radicalized in Yemen, he doubts whether he has serious ties to the Qaeda affiliate.

He suggested that Mr. Muhammad might be trying to link himself to Al Qaeda because he believes it will lead to his execution and make him a martyr. Mr. Bledsoe added that he considers his son “unable to process” reality, describing him as “brainwashed.”

“I think a lot of this is make-believe,” Mr. Bledsoe said in an interview.

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January 22, 2010 · Filed Under muslims, Terrorism


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