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Terror Suspect Has Tucson Connection

By Chris Francis, News 13 Producer
Posted: 5/26/04

One of seven suspected terror suspects named by the FBI on Wednesday has spent time in Tucson.

Yahiye Adam Gadahn grew up in Riverside County, California. But a search on the Internet reveals he also worked in Tucson as a student reporter for a TV news magazine called "EcoNews."

Gadahn helped cover a story on a garbage project at the University of Arizona, but he never attended college.

The FBI says Gadhan did attend Al-Qaida training camps. He and six other suspects may be plotting an attack on the U.S. sometime this summer, according to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Gadahn was raised in a Christian home but converted to Islam as a teenager. His story of his conversion is on numerous Internet websites. In part, it reads: "Having been around Muslims in my formative years, I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and televangelists paint them to be."

However, Gadahn's beliefs became radical, according to a Muslim cleric who knew him. He was expelled from a mosque in Orange County, California after attacking an employee there.

His family says they last heard from him five years ago, when he was working in Pakistan as a writer and expecting a child.

"My nephew is a very loving, caring young man," says Nancy Pearlman, Gadahn's aunt. "I grew up seeing him regularly and he is a very sweet person. We certainly don't believe in any kind of terrorism, so I'm really shocked by the news."

Gadahn's brother Omar was also shocked, saying the person he knew wasn't radical. "He's a cool brother. He left when I was eight. I didn't really know him that well. He was a lot older than me."