[Richard]

Lonely Trek To Radicalism For Terror Suspect
Adam Nossiter, NYT, 17 Jan 2010
Page 2 of 2

No Shield From Islamic Fervor

But as rich and shielded as Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family was, it was not quarantined from the Islamic fervor that has led to outbreaks of violence in Kaduna.

In 2002, Muslim youths rioted and clashed with Christians after a newspaper article suggested that the Prophet Muhammad might have been happy to choose his wife from among the Miss World contestants, who were set to compete in the capital, Abuja. About 220 people were killed, and mobs burned 16 churches, 9 mosques, 11 hotels and 189 houses, according to a local civil rights groups led by Mr. Sani, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s neighbor.

Though the violence did not touch the serene family compound, the radical views permeating society might well have. Mr. Abdulmutallab’s family attends one of Kaduna’s largest mosques, the Sultan Bello mosque, for Friday Prayer and sermons, said the imam there. Anti-Western and anti-Israeli sermons are staples within its walls, said Nasir Abbas, a local human rights advocate who attends the mosque. “You would hear about what Israel has been doing to Palestine, you would hear that, and also America’s contributions to the Israelis,” Mr. Abbas said. In fact, at “all of the mosques” in Kaduna it is possible to hear anti-Western preaching, he said.

Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father evidently did not share those views, since he was the first to blow the whistle on his son. Yet even Mr. Mutallab encounters people here like Imam Ibrahim Adam, who said he had been in the family home and had met with the father at “religious gatherings” and meetings for a proposed Islamic bank, of which Mr. Mutallab is chairman of the board, according to the bank’s Web site. “Yemeni Muslims should have been the ones to attack America, not a Nigerian,” said the imam, carefully adding that he did not personally support the attack.

Exactly what drove Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father to report his son is still a source of debate within the family. In telling the Americans, he “acted on the dictates of his religion,” said the uncle, Mr. Baba-Ahmed. The father later viewed his son’s arrest in much the same way. “He summed it up with a verse from the Koran,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed recounted. “ ‘This is a trial: your offspring can be a source of happiness and sadness.’ ”

But the cousin who asked to remain anonymous had a more nuanced explanation for Mr. Mutallab’s whistle-blowing. “This is somebody who has investments in the Western world since before the boy was born,” he. “He’s got a £4 million house in London. Now the boy is jeopardizing everything.”

While studying last year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Abdulmutallab did not appear overly restless, doing better than average in his classes and quietly reading the Koran on the shuttle bus from student housing to campus each day, according to a classmate and the school director. But inwardly, he was apparently chafing against the secularism around him, and he argued with his father over the graduate business program in which he was enrolled before abruptly dropping out. “His father wanted him to continue his studies,” said an Arab official with ties to Persian Gulf intelligence services. “He didn’t want to. It wasn’t the Arab world for him. It wasn’t the Muslim world.” That, the official said, is when Mr. Abdulmutallab became angry “and went to Yemen without his dad’s permission.”

He entered Yemen on Aug. 4, with a visa to resume his studies at the Sana Institute for the Arabic Language, where he had studied the language in 2004 and 2005. But this time his mind was elsewhere, and he offered excuses about why he was seldom in class. He said he had a throat infection and “and was thinking of going to Dubai to check it out, and we said that there are hospitals here,” said an American classmate of his, adding, “He’d even leave class in the middle to go to pray at the mosque.”

Investigators are now trying to piece together his movements, examining how he managed to slip out of sight after being driven to the airport on Sept. 21 with an exit visa. Yemeni officials have said he went to the remote, rugged mountains of Shabwa Province, where he met with “Al Qaeda elements” before leaving Dec. 4, a few weeks before his fateful journey to Detroit.

After the disappearance, Mr. Abdulmutallab’s father tried desperately to get him back. He enlisted one of his powerful friends, a retired national security adviser, to track his son down using the National Intelligence Agency, Nigeria’s version of the C.I.A. But the new director of the agency did not go along with it, officials here said.

“The impression he had was, they were using the service to locate the prodigal son of a rich man, who was off enjoying himself somewhere,” said a top Nigerian security official. “I don’t think he did anything. He didn’t have any idea about terrorism.”

Since his son’s arrest, Mr. Mutallab has remained out of public view. The father “is extremely worried,” Mr. Baba-Ahmed said. “Everybody is worried.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/wo...gewanted=print