Muslim who shot soldier in Arkansas says he wanted to cause more death

Big Don

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Muslim who shot soldier in Arkansas says he wanted to cause more death

Memphis man drifted to the dark side of Islamic extremism and then plotted a one-man jihad against his homeland

Kristina Goetz, Commercial Appeal/KnoxNews EXCERPT:

Saturday, November 13, 2010

What I had in mind didn't go as planned but Allah willing He will reward me for my intentions.
He planned for weeks, buying guns secondhand to avoid the FBI.
Then, to test whether the feds were watching, he bought a .22-caliber rifle over the counter at Walmart. He stockpiled ammo and practiced target shooting at empty construction sites.
By his own account, he was preparing for jihad.
From a black Ford Explorer Sport Trac, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native, watched two soldiers in fatigues smoking outside a military recruiting center in Little Rock. He aimed an assault rifle out the window and fired.
Muhammad sped away, hoping to flee 150 miles to Memphis where he would switch cars. But a wrong turn in a construction zone led him to police.
He stepped out of the SUV wearing a green ammo belt around his waist.
"It's a war going on against Muslims, and that is why I did it," an officer heard him say. "You see how I gave up with no problem."
Much of this account emerges from police reports and an 18-page mental-health evaluation contained in court files. But Muhammad tells a far broader, detailed story in seven handwritten letters to The Commercial Appeal. Taken together, those letters are not just an admission of guilt but a profession of failure for having not caused more death and destruction.
The letters, written in pencil between May and October, provide a rare glimpse into the thoughts of a self-described jihadist, according to one national security expert. Muhammad describes in his own words how he took his declaration of Muslim faith in a Memphis mosque; his motives for moving to Yemen and his attempt to travel to Somalia for weapons training; how and why he planned multiple attacks in the U.S, including ones in Nashville and Florence, Ky., that didn't go as intended; and how he allegedly executed the Little Rock assault.
In his own words:
It's a war out against Islam and Muslims and I'm on the side of the Muslims point blank ... The U.S. has to pay for the rape, murder, bloodshed, blasphemy it has done and still doing to the Muslims and Islam. So consider this a small retaliation the best is to come Allah willing. This is not the first attack and won't be the last.
Muhammad is yet to convince U.S. authorities he's anything other than the murderer of Pvt. William A. Long of Conway, Ark. He's being held on state charges, awaiting a February trial.
But one senior consultant to the U.S. government on global terrorism believes Muhammad's self-described attack in June 2009 and others like it - lone gunmen with no formal al-Qaida training or direction - illustrate the new nature of an old enemy.
Al-Qaida has shifted from a far away, tough-to-join group to a social network that almost anyone, anywhere can join. Even a middle-class, Baptist kid from Memphis, born Carlos Bledsoe, who played youth basketball and worked at Chuck E. Cheese's.
"It's a massive red flag for me about the way al-Qaida has changed its perspective in saying, 'We don't need impressive attacks. We need you guys to go pick up a gun and kill somebody,' " said Jarret Brachman, author of "Global Jihadism."
"Like they understand this is the trend and that they're trying to get back out in front of it. And then they can claim credit for all the next Bledsoes."
***
Carlos Leon Bledsoe was born July 9, 1985, to Linda and Melvin Bledsoe. He wouldn't change his name to Muhammad until years later.
"Regarding my pre-Islamic past … I don't like to talk about it," he wrote to the newspaper. "… I was known as Bledsoe in the neighborhood and did things most teenagers do."
A mental-health evaluation performed at the Arkansas State Hospital provides a glimpse. <<SNIP>>>

The incident profoundly affected Muhammad. He changed his lifestyle, his friends and began to study religion.
He evaluated Christianity and realized he didn't believe in the faith of his youth. The doctrine of the trinity was incomprehensible to him.
So he turned to Judaism because he was attracted to monotheism. He visited a couple of orthodox synagogues and was given pamphlets but was turned away and stared at because he was black, he said.
"But that religion seem(ed) to me like too much of racial pride and not for other people," he wrote. "It seem(ed) to be all about 'the Jews' or 'children of Israel.'"
That's when Muhammad turned to Islam.
During a visit to a Nashville mosque, he watched the synchronized movements of 50 to 75 people as they bowed and prostrated themselves in prayer. He was amazed.
"So I attempted to join and after realizing I didn't know what I was doing, somebody (asked) when did you become Muslim? I said I'm not just interested in it? And when I said that the whole place lit up. I mean brothers shouted 'Allahu Akbar'!! (Allah is the greatest) and embraced me like I was a long (lost) brother."
A man from the mosque explained the religion's fundamentals - belief in one God, angels, the revealed scriptures, the prophets, predestination and the day of judgment. He also gave Muhammad a copy of the Quran.
END EXCERPT
"But that religion seem(ed) to me like too much of racial pride and not for other people," he wrote. "It seem(ed) to be all about 'the Jews' or 'children of Israel.'"
What? Judaism all about Jews? I am SHOCKED. I am shocked that someone could be so ignorant as to be surprised by that.
In his own words:
It's a war out against Islam and Muslims and I'm on the side of the Muslims point blank ... The U.S. has to pay for the rape, murder, bloodshed, blasphemy it has done and still doing to the Muslims and Islam. So consider this a small retaliation the best is to come Allah willing. This is not the first attack and won't be the last.
Lone nutcase, nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, nothing to see here, move along. This is not the Jihadi you are looking for, move along.
 

Bruno@MT

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He is a lone nutter.

If a christian declares christianity as the reason for bombing an abortion clinic, does that make Christianity a problem or a violent religion?
And before you say that those are isolated incidents that have nothing to do with the majority of that religion :rolleyes: how about the IRA?
They were most certainly terrorists, and devout Catholics. And the other side were just as bad and protestant. Both would consider themselves true Christians
 

WC_lun

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Yes, yes, fear the Muslim. He wants to kill us all. It is a good thing that we have such a sane source as this guy to tell us the motivation of all Musims. Otherwise I wouldn't know that I should fear Muslims! Oh wait, this guy is an extremist radical and like all extremist radicals of any faith or belief, he doesn't represent the vast majority. That doesn't fit into the narrative that I should fear Muslims though.
 

billc

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Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that as a muslim in the United States, the individual above could have peacefully practiced his religion to the end of his days. On his understanding of that religion he decided to kill people. The Irish problem was interwoven with, from my understandin, Irish desire for independence from British rule, which also happened to be Protestant in its religion? I cannot say for sure about the Irish example but there were no external stressors on this mans religous practice.
 
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Big Don

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If a Baptist blew up an abortion clinic there would be undercover FBI in Baptist churches.
If a Muslim kills an American Soldier because he wanted to be on jihad, his church had NOTHING to do with it...
 

WC_lun

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If a Baptist blew up an abortion clinic there would be undercover FBI in Baptist churches.
If a Muslim kills an American Soldier because he wanted to be on jihad, his church had NOTHING to do with it...

Wow, this post is so full of crap flies are circling. Yes, if a member of a church comitted a crime in the name of a religion or a particular church, the authorities would probably take a look at the church that the criminal attended. That's common sense. However, if a Christian comitted a crime, even under the guise of religion, Christianity as a whole would not be put under investigation. All Christians would not be persecuted because of a extremist calling himself a Christian. However, for many this seems perfectly acceptable to do if the nutcase is Muslim.
 

Tez3

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Wow, this post is so full of crap flies are circling. Yes, if a member of a church comitted a crime in the name of a religion or a particular church, the authorities would probably take a look at the church that the criminal attended. That's common sense. However, if a Christian comitted a crime, even under the guise of religion, Christianity as a whole would not be put under investigation. All Christians would not be persecuted because of a extremist calling himself a Christian. However, for many this seems perfectly acceptable to do if the nutcase is Muslim.

Don't you find people recognise there are many, many (many manys!) different forms of Christianity but find it hard to believe there are different form of Judaism and Islam? A person is rarely just a Muslim, they could be a number of different 'flavours' of Muslim yet threads like this paint them all as the 'west hating, terrorist type'.
 

MA-Caver

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A lone nutter... right lets move on... and let the anti-gun folks add this to their growing arsenal to why our rights to carry guns need to be taken away altogether.
Just one more to add on.
Going to make buying guns second hand a LOT more difficult I would think.
 

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