Adam Gadahn: California rocker turned Al-Qaeda mouthpiece
Washington (AFP) - Adam Gadahn, the Al-Qaeda spokesman believed killed in a US operation, was a teenage rock music fan who grew up on a Californian goat farm before he was drawn into radical Islam.
The White House announced Thursday that US intelligence thinks Gadahn died in January in a "counterterrorism operation" in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
The 36-year-old was apparently not deliberately targeted in the raid, but he has long been one of the most wanted jihadist figures on the US hit list, with a $1 million bounty on his head.
As an English speaker and senior Al-Qaeda propagandist, he was one of the most high-profile figures in the global jihadist movement and a regular online presence, taunting his homeland and inciting attacks.
After the death of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, he played a leading role in the movement's shift in focus to an effort to inspire "lone wolf" radicals to mount spontaneous attacks in the West.
In a two-part, 100-minute video released after Bin Laden's death, he said Muslims living in the West are "perfectly placed to play an important and decisive part in the jihad against the Zionists and Crusaders." ...
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