CSO

In a recently released video, Adam Yehiye Gadahn (Azzam the American) tries very hard to disparage

President Obama indicating that he approved genocide against the Palestinians, claiming as well that he supports Muslim Palestine being Judaized. Very worried they are losing ground in the information war, Al-Qa’eda has resorted to using an American born, former Jew, former Christian, converted Muslim (at age 17) to communicate their messages of Jihad.  http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/gadahn_a.htm

From his safe perch possibly somewhere in the Hindu Kush Mountains, he urges Palestinians to continue their Jihad and heroics against the invaders. An American from California, Gadahn rails against his Zionist grandfather who helped raise him calling him a member of Zionist hate organizations who at one point in his life urged him to visit Tel Aviv where Gadahn has relatives. Gadahn discusses that as a grandson of a Jew he could without question gain Israeli citizenship, but “isn’t it bad enough to carry American citizenship, the symbol of tyranny and oppression and advocate for terror?”

Gadahn references President Obama’s inaugural speech and his most recent speech in Turkey calling his words of endearment and respect as deceptive, sugar coated and false. (Looks like the video was finalized on May 29, 2009, a few days before President Obama’s speech in Cairo http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/newbeginning/transcripts/).

Gadahn, a 'reformed' heavy metal rocker has perfected his Arabic over the years and is rumored to be the technical expert behind As-Sahab Media (The Cloud) and the translator for many previous videos and MP3s from Zawahiri and Bin Laden.

Gadahn's Jewish paternal grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a prominent surgeon and on the Board of Directors of the Anti-Defamation League; his paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, was an editor for The Chronicle Christian Newspaper.

Gadahn's father, originally Phil Pearlman, grew up in Orange County, California. He was involved in the counterculture movement at the University of California at Irvine, and before Adam's birth became a self-styled religious Christian. He and his wife Jennifer changed their name to Gadahn, after the Biblical warrior Gideon.

Gadahn was born in Oregon and raised and home schooled through high school by his parents on an isolated f arm in Southern California. He played Little League baseball and participated in Christian home school support groups. As an adolescent he became very involved in the death metal community, making contact with fans and musicians through alternative magazines. During the summer of 1993, he formed his own one-man band called Aphasia. Gadahn contributed music reviews and artwork to a zine called Xenocide.

In 1995, at age 16, Gadahn moved in with his grandparents in the Floral Park neighborhood of Santa Ana, California, where he worked in a computer store and explored the Internet.

While living with his grandparents in West Floral Park, Santa Ana, Gadahn described himself as having a "yawning emptiness", and he sought ways "to fill that void." He explored Christianity on the Internet, radio, and locally, but later said that he found evangelical Christianity's "apocalyptic ramblings" to be "paranoid" and hollow.

In 1995, at age 17, Gadahn began studying Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County. Members of Gadahn's study group were young fundamentalists who "targeted the mosque’s chairman, Haitham 'Danny' Bundakji," whom they referred to as 'Danny the Jew' for his practice of "wearing Western clothes and being overly friendly with Jews."

Gadahn converted to Islam later that year, and shortly thereafter posted an essay to the USC website describing his conversion, entitled "Becoming a Muslim."

According to his parents, Adam was "arrested and convicted of assaulting his former mentor Haitham Bundakji in May 1997", he served two days in jail, but his failure to do 40 hours of community services leaves a warrant for his arrest active. (Searching for an idealistic world, Adam slips into the despair of reality, embracing his anger in the form of revolt against his family and country. He fashions himself as a warrior by name and eventually in his acts going from one religion to another until he finds what he believes is one that suits his level of twisted anger)

Gadahn reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghan refugee and maintained intermittent contact with his family.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Yahiye_Gadahn