Arkansas Recruiting Office Shooting: Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad - Research Paper Example

 June 1st 2009 Arkansas Recruiting Office Shooting AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad On June 1st, 2009, American AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad opened fire on soldiers from his truck at a United States military recruiting office located in Little Rock, Arkansas. The drive-by shooting killed Private William Long while, wounding Private Quinton Ezeagwula. Minutes later the gunman was caught by the police at a short distance from the shooting scene. Upon the arrest of the gunman, a SKS semiautomatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle as well as a handgun which were retrieved from his black Ford SUV were confiscated by police personnel (Barnes and Dao, 2009). The shooter was indicted on a first-degree murder charge and 15 counts of being a participant in terrorist acts. The soldiers, Private William Long aged 24 and Private Quinton Ezeagwula aged 18, targeted by the shooter both hailed from Little Rock and were in their hometown after the completion of a basic training course to promote a program created to attract potential enlistees at the recruiting office. The 23-year-old shooter identified asAbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, reportedly converted to Islam as a teenager. Preliminary interviews of the accused with the police suggested that the perpetrator had been angry and upset about the killings of Muslims in war torn countries of Iraq and Afghanistan which acted as a motive behind the shooting. The Chief of Little Rock Police Department, Stuart Thomas, released information about the arrest which reported that the shooter had acted without any help or assistance and that his movements and actions confirmed that he was indeed familiar with the area, specially the recruiting office which was located at a short distance from the shooter’s home. Initial witness report, of a man named Lance P. Luplow suggested that seven shots were fired at the soldiers, as those who were present inside the station rushed to provide medical assistance and perform CPR. Mr. Muhammad’s family background by no account could have predicted his actions. Born to Melvin and Linda Bledsoe in Memphis, Tennessee, AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad was raised as a Baptist, his personality was that of a lively, young boy who was an avid basketball player with a great sense of humor. After graduating from high school in 2003, Bledsoe enrolled in a business program at Tennessee State University but dropped out of the institution after three semesters. In Bledsoe’s first year at university, an illegal weapon found in his possession led to his arrest, even though the allegation was later dropped, it is understood that the arrest led Bledsoe to rediscover his religious ideology, a rediscovery that ultimately led to his conversion to Islam (Dao, 2010). Carlos Bledsoe’s journey to AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad took to him to Yemen in 2007, where he reportedly taught English in the city of Aden. Records show that he married a woman named Reena Abdullah Ahmed Farag while in the country - two months after his wedding on November 18th, 2008, Mr. Muhammad was arrested by Yemeni authorities in Sana for overstaying his visa and was deported from the country on January 29th, 2008. Mr. Muhammad’s sister, Monica Bledsoe noticed the sudden change in her brother’s personality as soon as he arrived from Yemen, his reaction to the news stories about wars in Afghanistan and Iraq invited anger and frustration on his face. In an interview, Mr. Bledsoe talked about how his son was subjected to radicalization by Muslim inmates.During his time in prison, the inmates possibly suggested to Mr. Muhammad that they shared a strong bond of brotherhood. In understanding the motivation behind the way that the incident was conducted, at the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Meeting in 2009 Commissioner Kelly focused on the growing trend of commando-style terrorist attacks that were previously observed in India and Pakistan (Lautenberg, 2011). Attacks such as the one conducted by AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad and the Fort Hood Shooting in 2009 by Nidal Hassan employ firearms, ammunition and guns that have high accessibility to cause as much damage as possible and the suspects are seen to turn themselves in without a specifically difficult or long pursuit, which is reflective of an extremist mindset that has evolved in brainwashed recruits over the years who carry no fear regarding the consequences of their actions and believe that their acts are justified. According to Rosler, as the threat of well-funded, well-trained and well-equipped Jihadist organizations looms over the United States, the result of an extended operation by such agencies specifically targets amateur, naïve and impressionable individuals who are radicalized to conduct attacks on their own soil (Rosler, 2010).Exploring the premise of the tactics and strategies employed by Jihadist organizations to attract their targets, investigation into the shooter’s stay in Yemen provides proof such as manuals on making explosives, works of fundamentalist cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki and information about the presence of Muslim soldiers in various parts of the world, all of aforementioned pieces of evidence indicate that AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad was targeted to brainwashing during his time in Yemen, an assertion that was later accepted by the shooter himself when he claimed to be a part of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an organization which has a very strong presence in Yemen. AQAP’s most influential fundamental cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki who is now deceased was an integral operative known to have had links with Nidal Hassan who was involved in the Fort Hood Shooting of 2009, Awlaki’s works also appear to have been a common factor in the radicalization of the majority of “homegrown” terrorists in countries as diversified as England and Singapore (Bergen, 2011). Abdulhakim Muhammad’s claims of an affiliation with Al-Qaeda have been refuted by his father and have not been confirmed by investigators, even though, reports from the shooter’s time in Yemen strongly suggest that he may have been influenced by fundamentalists. The premise of the perpetrators defense team from the beginning of the trial had been that the accused was suffering from a delusional disorder. In the legal proceedings of the State of Arkansas vs. AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad, the shooter was charged with capital murder, attempted capital murder along with another charge of 10 counts of unlawful discharge of a weapon.In a letter received by the court on January 14th, 2010 written by the perpetrator to Judge Herbert Wright, Abdulhakim Muhammad pleaded guilty to all the allegations charged against him, taking responsibility for all his actions from the period of May 29th to June 1st. The two page letter also included a request to discontinue any further financial assistance for his defense. Abdulhakim Muhammad also admitted to having an affiliation with Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claiming to be a fighter of Abu Basir’s Army, followed by a proclamation that the shooting had been a “Jihadi Attack on infidel forces” based on the principles of Islamic law that permit war against those who wage war against the religion. The shooter went on to clarify that he had conducted the shooting as a result of his freewill with a state of mind which was not clouded by insanity or post traumatic stress. The prosecutor accepted AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad’s guilty plea, and he was sentenced to life in prison on July 25, 2011. In assessing the ideology that drives individuals such as AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad, agencies are examining the incidence of Americans who have become impressionable to Jihadist ideology. Despite of the fact that the FBI had been investigating the shooter following his trip to Yemen and he was under surveillance the question arises as to how the shooter was able to acquire the guns and ammunition that were found under his possession. Another interesting point to note in examining the shooter’s beliefs and ideas prior to the execution of his murderous plot, is a rather uncommon name that he took up after his conversion to Islam which is Mujahid meaning “holy warrior” (Bergen, 2009). The Arkansas Recruiting Office Shooting of June, 2009 is similar to a massacre of a larger magnitude that took place a few months later in November, 2009 that is the Fort Hood military base shooting in Texas. The incidents have compelled all divisions of intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism authorities to investigate the rise of ‘lone wolf’ terrorism or jihadism, in which a perpetrator acts alone, independently from a more formal or wider terrorist organization and without any direct cooperation from other fundamentalists or warriors in terms of financial assistance or provision of strategic assistance and ammunition. The common factor in ‘lone wolf’ shootings in fact is the transfer of extremist religious ideologies from one entity to another that is the key motivator for any act of terrorism to take place. The categorization of such terrorist attacks can be defined from the assessment of 48 plots that have taken place in the US since 1977 all of which do not suggest direct external involvement of strong jihadist organizations (Jasparro, 2010). The shooting also draws focus on the growing international concerns about the rise of fundamentalism in Somalia and Yemen, both of which are becoming important bases for the radicalization of impressionable individuals (Khalil, 2011), the former being a country whose fake passport the shooter was supposedly carrying when he was first arrested by Yemeni authorities for overstaying his visa and the latter being the nation where AbdulhakimMujahid Muhammad is said to have undertaken an ideological change in religious and political affiliations because of a possible influence of the American-born cleric Awlaki who was incognito in Yemen until his death in 2011. REFERENCES: Barnes, S. Dao, J. (June 1, 2009) Gunman Kills Soldier Outside Recruiting Station Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/us/02recruit.html?_r=0 Dao, J. (Februaury 16th, 2010) A Muslim Son, a Murder Trial and Many Questions Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/us/17convert.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 Lautenberg, F. R. (Ed.). (2011). Firearms, Explosives and Terrorists: A Looming Threat, a Major US Vulnerability. DIANE Publishing. Rosler, A. (2010). Devolving Jihadism. Journal of Strategic Security, 3(4), 9. Bergen, P. (2011). Assessing the terrorist threat. DIANE Publishing. Read More