The White House announced that American spokesman for Al Qaeda Adam Gadahn, was killed in a U.S. government counter-terrorism operation back in January. The 36 year wasn’t one of al Qaeda’s top leaders but was one the groups most known members. Gadahn converted to Islam in 1995, had left the U.S. in 1998 and joined al Qaeda. He had become its chief official English-language propagandist in the years after 9/11. In 2006 Gadahn was indicted for treason and material support to Al Qaeda, not to mention treason charges related to his involvement in terrorist activities which included “providing aid and comfort” to the enemy and other support to Al Qaeda. According to the FBI he was one of the “Most Wanted Terrorists.”
Gadahn has made many propaganda videos, however in his separate videos over the years he has criticized George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and he has called Obama “a devious, evasive and serpentine American president with a Muslim name.” Along with being a critic he also talked about his Jewish ancestry and tore up his U.S. passport on camera. Gadahn was featured in videos commemorating the attacks on the twin towers, some of those videos also included al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Basically Gadahn has praised pretty much any act of terrorism including the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009 and the 2012 killing of Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya.
Adam Gadahn’s last video in 2014 called for Muslims to work to overthrow governments in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Gadahn was playing a prominent role inside al Qaeda according to documents recovered from bin Laden’s compound in 2011. The documents included recommendations for al Qaeda’s media strategy. He was married to a Muslim woman from Afghanistan and had at least one child.
The death of Adam Gadahn is a good thing; he was propagating for al Qaeda when he was an American. He was a treasonous person going against his home country. It would have been nice and maybe even a more justified form of punishment for him to be captured and brought back to U.S. soil to be dealt with. Unfortunately it is not easy to capture a terrorist alive.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/23/world/adam-gadahn-al-qaeda/index.html