From Chicago to bin Laden's tent
Round Trip
Last March, as U.S. interrogators questioned Abu Zubaydah, the newly captured al Qaeda leader offered up a tip both curious and alarming: A South American al Qaeda operative was intent on exploding a device packed with radioactive material--a so-called dirty bomb--somewhere in America. That slightly inaccurate tidbit and other leads eventually pointed to an unlikely suspect: Jose Padilla, a former Chicago street gang member of Puerto Rican descent with a long record of violence and armed robbery.
The 31-year-old Muslim convert now goes by the name Abdullah al-Muhajir (Abdullah the Immigrant). Exposed to Islam while in a Florida jail, Padilla married an Egyptian and grew close to Islamic radicals after moving to Cairo in 1998, officials say. He made repeated trips to Afghanistan but appears to have joined with al Qaeda only after 9/11. An al Qaeda document dated from last fall, found by U.S. troops in Afghanistan, referred to "al-Muhajir" as a promising recruit, according to intelligence sources. The new recruit allegedly studied explosives and surfed the Internet for tips on crafting a dirty bomb.
Investigators were taking no chances as Padilla left Pakistan for America in April. After tracking him across three countries, agents grabbed him on his arrival May 8 in Chicago. As customs inspectors confiscated $10,526 from his pockets, a hazmat team gingerly took apart his luggage but found nothing. "He truly didn't know what he was doing," says a top government expert on dirty bombs.
If that was good news, other reports gave more reason for concern. Word of Padilla's detention came amid sketchy reports that other U.S. citizens may be in Pakistani jails, nabbed by troops in a crackdown on Islamic militants. As U.S. News revealed this month ("Made in the U.S.A.," June 10), up to 2,000 jihadists--Islamic holy warriors--have left America in the past 20 years to fight overseas, and dozens may remain active and tied to al Qaeda. For years, Osama bin Laden's network has shown interest in recruiting Americans, whose U.S. passports allow them to slip easily from country to country--and, indeed, back into the United States. Predicts a top counterterrorism agent: "Padilla won't be the last American we grab."
With Kevin Whitelaw, Jeff Glasser, Arnold Markowitz and Michael Reynolds
This story appears in the June 24, 2002 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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