[wvns] Yemen holds NJ man after al-Qaida sweep, shootout

Yemen holds NJ man after al-Qaida sweep, shootout
By WAYNE PARRY and GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writers
http://freedetainees.org/9114?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freedetainees%2FONEi+%28freedetainees.org%29

BUENA, N.J. – He was raised in New Jersey, where he was on the high school wrestling team and earned a black belt in karate. Nearly a decade later, Sharif Mobley is under arrest in Yemen, suspected of being an al-Qaida member and accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital.

While some acquaintances were startled by the news out of the Middle East on Thursday, a former classmate said that Mobley had strong religious views in high school, often trying to convert friends to Islam, and became increasingly radical, especially after they graduated in 2002.

Roman Castro, 25, who did a tour with the Army in Iraq, said the last time he saw Mobley, about four years ago, Mobley yelled, "Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!"

The FBI, the State Department and other authorities said they were trying to gather information about Mobley. But the allegations appeared to illustrate a phenomenon U.S. intelligence officials have warned about: American Muslims becoming radicalized and joining terrorist movements overseas.

Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was identified by Yemeni officials as a Somali-American. Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.

Before that, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSE&G Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.

He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that the plant is cooperating with authorities.

Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that his office had been told that Mobley was always supervised, caused no problems and was not believed to have breached security at the plants.

It's unclear whether Mobley worked at any of the region's other power plants. Joe Szafran, a spokesman for Exelon Corp., which owns nuclear plants at three facilities in eastern Pennsylvania, referred questions to the FBI.

An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call, but a law enforcement official told The Associated Press that authorities don't believe Mobley's job at the nuclear plant was related to his activities in Yemen. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Also, Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, said there was no immediate connection between Mobley's activities or capture in Yemen and his work at the plants.

Mobley was arrested in Yemen in a roundup of suspected al-Qaida members this month and was being treated at a hospital in San'a when he got into a shootout with guards during an escape attempt, killing one and wounding another, said Albasha.

U.S. officials worry that Yemen is becoming the next significant terrorist staging ground because of signs that lower-level al-Qaida operatives have been moving into the country from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

The al-Qaida branch in Yemen was linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner. Also, Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last year, had exchanged e-mails with an extremist cleric in Yemen.

In response to the threat, the Pentagon has proposed spending $150 million to help Yemen battle insurgents within its borders.

Somali-Americans have become a particular concern to American security officials. Young Somali-American men have been traveling from the U.S. to fight jihad in Somalia, raising fears they are receiving terror training and returning to the U.S. ready to launch attacks.

Americans are valuable to terrorist groups, in part because they can travel easily, without arousing much suspicion.

"The U.S. passport is the gold standard," said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counterintelligence agent who is now a vice president at STRATFOR, a global intelligence company in Austin, Texas.

Mobley was among 11 al-Qaida suspects detained this month in a security sweep in San'a, the capital, officials said. He was taken to the hospital over the weekend after he complained of feeling ill. He snatched a gun from a security guard and shot him, then got into a shootout that ended with anti-police terrorism capturing him, authorities said.

In Yemen, killing a guard during an escape attempt could result in execution by a firing squad.

Mobley graduated from high school in 2002 in the rural southern New Jersey town of Buena, and afterward lived in Philadelphia and Newark, Del. Castro said that in the past few years, Mobley organized religious pilgrimages to the Middle East for other Muslims.

Mobley's mother, Cynthia Mobley, told WMGM-TV in Atlantic City, N.J., that her son is "an excellent person who's never been in trouble" and "a good Muslim."

As his father, Charles Mobley, pulled out of the family's driveway on the way to see a lawyer Thursday, he said: "I can tell you this: He's no terrorist."

Abdel-Hadi Shehata, imam of the Islamic Society of Delaware, said Mobley used to live one floor below him in an aging apartment complex in Newark and occasionally visited the society's Newark mosque to pray. Shehata said Mobley, who had a wife and young daughter, moved to Yemen about two years ago.

"I think to learn Arabic or something like that … and to learn more about the religion Islam," he said.

Shehata said Mobley never discussed politics or his religious views with him, but sometimes would ask his advice about how to pray and how to cleanse himself.

Marisa Porges, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said many Arabic language scholars travel to Yemen to study the language because the dialect there is so useful. She said there is a risk that even those who travel there to study can become radicalized.

"It's often the case that their being there makes an individual more vulnerable to radicalization," she said.

Umar Hassan-El, assistant imam at the Islamic Society of Delaware's mosque in Wilmington, Del., said he roomed with Mobley during a 2004 pilgrimage to Mecca.

The worst Mobley did, Hassan-El said, was forget to pick up his clothes or interrupt discussions among older Muslims.

"He gave no indication that he would join a group that he's alleged to be a part of right now," said Hassan-El. "I never heard that boy ever talk about shooting anybody, killing anybody."

As a teenager, Mobley studied martial arts at Yi's Karate Institute in Sewell, N.J., earning his black belt after three years, according to the master of the dojo, Chom Sam Kim.

"He was very athletic, and had a good respect and attitude," Kim said. Kim said he was surprised to hear the allegations against Mobley: "I never saw anything abnormal about him during the time he was here."

Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Lolita Baldor in Washington; Randall Chase in Newark, Del.; Aaron Morrison in Trenton; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; and Ahmed al-Hajj in San'a.

===

Al-Qaida suspect from NJ worked at 6 nuke plants
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100312/ap_on_re_us/us_yemen_hospital_clash_nj

N.J. man held in Yemen as al-Qaida suspect .
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press
Fri Mar 12, 2009

HADDONFIELD, N.J. – An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists.

Sharif Mobley, 26, worked for contractors at plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland from 2002 to 2008, mostly hauling materials and setting up scaffolding, plant officials said.

Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said Friday that investigations are under way into which areas Mobley entered. But he noted that areas containing nuclear fuel are tightly controlled, and that a laborer typically would not have access to security information or other sensitive matters.

The plants are also checking areas where Mobley worked to ensure everything is in order, said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci.

Mobley, a U.S. citizen of Somali descent, has not been linked to any wrongdoing at any of the plants. And officials said nothing he did when he worked there aroused any suspicion.

Officials said Mobley passed the necessary screenings, which include criminal background checks, drug testing, psychological assessments and identity verification.

Nevertheless, Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an industry watchdog, said the case raises questions about security at the nation's nuclear plants.

"The real question is: Was there information that the NRC or utilities could have seen that would have led to his disqualification?" Lyman said.

Mobley, a Muslim who grew up in Buena, N.J., was among 11 al-Qaida suspects rounded up earlier this month in Yemen. He was taken to a hospital there over the weekend after he complained of feeling ill. Yemeni officials said he snatched a gun and shot a security guard to death in an attempt to escape from the hospital.

He has not been accused by authorities in the U.S. or Yemen of attempting to make a bomb or attack a nuclear plant.

His parents have said he is not a terrorist, though former friend Roman Castro said Mobley was becoming increasingly radical in his Muslim beliefs before he moved to Yemen about two years ago.

Mobley worked for contractors at the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008; the Peach Bottom, Limerick and Three Mile Island plants in Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2007; and Calvert Cliffs in Maryland for two weeks in 2006, operators said.

Company officials said most of his work came during periodic refueling outages, when hundreds of contract employees descend on the plants. The workers do a variety of jobs, but "nothing technical," said Curt Jenkins, business manager at Mobley's union, Local 222 of the New Jersey Laborers Council.

Mobley had "vital access" that allowed him into any area of the plants where he worked in New Jersey, Jenkins said. But guards were posted in the most sensitive places, and "anywhere that you might be able to do anything, they pretty well got that pretty secure."

Every worker entering a plant has to clear security, explosives and radiation checkpoints, and that information is recorded, the NRC's Sheehan said. The plants also teach employees to recognize and report suspicious behavior.

Jenkins said that he never saw any sign of trouble from Mobley and that he was a union member in good standing. "He always treated us with respect," he said. "Very well-mannered."

Mobley's work came during a period in which nuclear plant security was increased in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the industry group the Nuclear Energy Institute, said that before regulations changed in 2003, workers could gain temporary access to plants before their screening was complete. It was not immediately clear whether Mobley had access before he was completely cleared.

"To the best of our knowledge, with the regard to this individual, there was nothing to suggest any kind of problem with him," Kerekes said. "We have a personnel database that's in place that lets all our companies across the industry know instantaneously if someone is for some reason denied access or flagged for some other kind of reason related to their behavior."

However, the information shared between nuclear power companies is sometimes incomplete, said Lyman, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

A law enforcement official says Mobley traveled to Yemen with the goal of joining a terrorist group. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still going on.

A second official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, says the U.S. government was aware of Mobley's potential extremist ties long before his arrest. The official did not say how long the government had been paying attention to him.

Contributing to this report were AP Business Writer Sandy Shore in Denver and Associated Press writers Eileen Sullivan and Devlin Barrett in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., and Ben Nuckols in Baltimore.

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