Would-Be Portland Bomber Hated Americans in High School
11/29/2010
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On Friday, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized citizen who was born in Somalia, dialed a cell-phone number he thought would detonate a car bomb in the midst of Portland’s festive Christmas-tree-lighting ceremony and kill dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Americans. Fortunately, the FBI had interceded into his terror plot and gave him a fake car bomb. When a supposed confederate remarked that the event would include many children, Mohamud responded, ”Yeah, I mean, that’s what I’m looking for.”

Mohamud came from Somalia as a school-aged boy, but he didn’t seem to like his new home much, at least by high school, where he decided at age 15 that he wanted to pursue jihad. He is another example of how Muslim immigration is a very bad idea and should stop.

Details emerge about Mohamud, Westview / OSU student, KGW News Channel 8 Portland, November 27, 2010

PORTLAND, Ore. – Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the suspect in Friday night’s plot to explode a car-bomb during Portland’s Christmas tree lighting celebration, is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Somalia in 1991.

During elementary school, Mohamud moved 9,000 miles from the war-torn streets of Mogadishu to the suburbs of Portland.

He graduated from Westview High School in 2009 and then enrolled at Oregon State University.

Westview classmates told KGW he often joked about being a terrorist, but no one took him seriously.

A classmate who didn’t want to be identified remembered Mohamud’s odd choice for a physics project. Mohamud detailed how a rocket-propelled grenade worked.

”It was just weird about how someone would choose that, you know,” the classmate said.

In an affidavit obtained by KGW, Mohamud recently told the FBI he had been thinking of committing some form of violent jihad since the age of 15.

Another of Mohamud’s former classmates remembered a fight the two had over a messy locker. ”The main thing was, the way he said he hated Americans,” said Andy Stull. ”It was serious. He looked me in the eye and had this look in his eye, like it was his determination in life — ”I hate Americans!’”

Stull says he was scared enough at the time to get school counselors involved, but that was the end of it.

In the fall of 2009, Mohamud started his freshman year at O.S.U. He took classes part-time, with a focus on engineering.

He also attended the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center near campus. His Imam told KGW Mohamud did not voice any radical views. The Iman said Mohamud grew reclusive recently, and described the teen as ”relaxed” in his religious practice.

”I had to say he did a number of things against the religion. He had a lifestyle that was against the religion. I can’t really say that he was in a position to represent Islam,” said Imam Yousef Wanly.

In possibly related news, the mosque Mohamud attended was hit by arson early Sunday morning. The act may be seen as a hate crime by some, although the fire was set in the mosque’s office, not its worship area. Who ever commits an anti-religion hate crime by setting the office on fire? It just seems unlikely.

Perhaps the mosque leaders set the fire to kill two birds with one stone: get rid of unpleasant evidence and portray themselves as victims. Hate crime hoaxes are actually quite common, so it’s not crazy to consider that possibility.

Update: Fire was intentionally set at Islamic Center in Corvallis where alleged bomb plot suspect attended, The Oregonian, November 28, 2010

The fire was contained to one room in the mosque, an office, which was 80 percent damaged and there were no injuries. It took firefighters about 10 minutes to put out the fire.

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