Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Making of an American Jihadist

"My son was programmed and trained to kill by radical Islam." Jihadists "stole my son. They raped his mind. They changed his thoughts, they changed his behavior…and they manipulated him. He is no longer Carlos; he is Abdulhakim. I ask God to give me my son back."

– Melvin Bledsoe, describing the radicalization of his son Carlos (AKA Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad)

He is still trying to understand how it happened. How his son went from a happy young man with a bright future to an accused murderer who claims it was an act of jihad and that he would have killed more people if could have.

Melvin Bledsoe isn't hiding from his son's path to violence. He testified about it on Capitol Hill, drawing dismissive comments from members of Congress, including one who all but blamed him for his son's actions. In an interview with the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Bledsoe details his son's spiral into radical Islam and his family's efforts to thwart it.

The Bledsoe family wasn't thrilled when their son Carlos gave up being a Baptist and converted to Islam in 2004. He changed his name to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad and engaged in a series of behavioral changes. He saw his family less. He set his dog free in the woods because he believed Islam regarded dogs as unclean. He tried to remove a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King from the wall of the family home on grounds that Islam prohibits "worshipping" anyone but Allah.

Then, Carlos/Abdulhakim dropped out of Tennessee State University in Nashville about a year after enrolling. He had planned to major in business and take over the family's tour business when his parents retired.

His son's decision to drop out or college "was against all the things that we stood for as a modern African-American family," Bledsoe said. He had been unable to attend college because his parents couldn't afford it and he wanted to make it possible for his son to achieve his dreams. But "that picture of his dreams turned into a nightmare for us," he added.

He also was troubled by the fact that, despite dozens of trips to Nashville to see his son, he was never able to meet any of the imams or other local Muslim leaders who were having such a transformative effect on his son's life. "These people would never show up or never be found when we visited Nashville," he said.

Looking back, he suspects that his son's religious mentors wanted "to separate him from his family and friends." These people wanted him to regard his family as "non-believers" with the understanding "you must do everything possible to recruit your family to be converted to Islam," he said. His son unsuccessfully tried to convert members of the Bledsoe family. Bledsoe said he reacted angrily because "I didn't want anyone to take away my understanding of Jesus Christ."

Things went from bad to worse when Muhammad traveled to Yemen in 2007 for the stated purpose of teaching English. Relatives tried to talk him out of it. But when that didn't work, they made him promise that he would avoid any involvement in radical activity. He agreed.

Bledsoe believes his son may have planned to do that, but had no idea that in going to Yemen he was being "set up" by jihadist recruiters (he calls them "hunters") intent on radicalizing him. The hunters confiscated the video camera his family gave him, and he kept losing his cell phone, Bledsoe said.

Details of his time in Yemen remain murky. He may have studied under a radical imam. In September 2008, Muhammad married one of his students in Aden. Two months later, he was arrested for overstaying his visa and carrying a fake Somali passport. Muhammad said he was carrying it because he planned to go to Somalia to fight a jihad against Jews and Americans.

Bledsoe told the Investigative Project on Terrorism that he only learned his son was in jail because his Yemeni wife searched frantically through his belongings where she found the Bledsoe family's telephone number in Memphis.

Over the next few months, Melvin Bledsoe embarked on an intensive lobbying campaign to win his son's release. An FBI agent from Nashville traveled to Yemen to interview his son in jail. Eventually, State Department officials persuaded Yemen's interior minister to free Abdulhakim Muhammad. In January 2009, he was released from jail and, against his wishes, deported from Yemen to the United States.

The Road to Murder in Little Rock

During his time in a Yemeni prison, Muhammad seethed with rage at what he regarded as American and Jewish persecution of Muslims. He wanted revenge..........

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