Local Muslim leaders on Sunday applauded the arrest of Adam Gadahn, a U.S. citizen who worked as a propagandist for Al Qaeda.
“It’s good for us, good for the country,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, an umbrella group for mosques and Muslim organizations in the region. “Any person who is engaged in any unlawful and illegal activity needs to be held accountable.”
Syed said people who lack knowledge of the religion are easily manipulated and develop their own logic and ideology. “He has demonstrated to have mastered that twisted logic,” Syed said.
Gadahn’s path from Orange County to Pakistan, where he was arrested, makes the work of the council more important, Syed said. “It even further strengthens us to continue the work we are doing, which is to share objective information on our faith and our community with all people,” he said.
The head of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles said his organization welcomed the arrest of Gadahn, a Riverside County native who appeared in videos defending Al Qaeda, including the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
“We welcome the arrest,” said Salam Marayati. “This is one step closer to defeating Al Qaeda and defeating the mentality of death and despair, which is alien to Islam.”
Marayati said Gadahn ended up under the influence of the wrong Muslims and had used the religion to make political statements for Al Qaeda. “I don’t think that what he has been saying has any merit in Islam,” he said. “It is a political ploy.”
Gadahn prayed at the Islamic Society of Orange County mosque as a teenager but was barred in 1997 after hitting one of the organization’s leaders, according to Muzammil Siddiqi, religious director of the organization.
"We called Garden Grove police and we did not allow him to come back,” Siddiqi said Sunday afternoon. “This is very unfortunate that he came here and did not learn anything good.”
Gadahn pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to two days in jail and ordered to perform community service, which he did not complete, according to court records.
Siddiqi said Sunday that he didn’t know how Gadahn ended up with Al Qaeda but said he and the terrorist group have done a lot of harm to Islam, to Muslims and to the United States.
Siddiqi welcomed the arrest but said he hoped that the news would be confirmed. There were false rumors last year that he had been killed, he said.
“I hope they caught the right person,” he said. “Any success to eliminate the evil of terrorism from the world is welcome news.”
Gadahn is wanted in the U.S. for treason. He became a Muslim after he moved to Orange County.
Gadahn’s aunt, Nancy Pearlman, who is on the Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees, declined to answer any questions about Gadahn.
Told about the arrest, which was announced by Pakistani authorities Sunday, she said, “You know more than I do.”
[Updated at 8:30 p.m.: As of late Sunday, U.S. officials said
the reports could not be confirmed. American intelligence agencies
spent the day sorting out conflicting reports on the purported arrest
of Adam Gadahn of Riverside. By late Sunday night, U.S. officials said
the picture remained unclear.
“In terms of who may have been arrested, the Pakistani rumor mill
belched out three very different possibilities in about six hours,” one
U.S. official said. “That should tell you something right there. It’s
by no means clear who, if anyone, the Pakistanis may have captured.”]
— Anna Gorman
Related:
Al Qaeda agent from Southern California arrested in Pakistan