Help
I’m the black one.
Can you guys help me to stop my son and make him not leave the country?
This is a story in three conversations.
Call - August 31, 2009
The first one began as summer ended in 2009, with a phone call to the FBI field office in Portland, Oregon by a Somali-American father named Osman Mohamud Barre. His teenage son, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, was not doing well. After years of acrimony, his parents had finally divorced despite their son’s many pleas. Mohamud stormed out of his mother’s house, picked up the phone and called his father to say he was moving to the Middle East.
Mohamud’s father called his ex-wife and told her to look for their son’s passport. It was missing. In a panic he called the FBI hoping they could stop his son from leaving the country: “Can you guys help me to stop my son and make him not leave the country?”
He had called a general number at the FBI, but an agent told Barre not to come to the office or wait at his house, but to meet him in a parking lot. The agent was from the FBI’s Counterterrorism Task Force. Barre was confused — why did they assume his son was a terrorist?
The agent listened but ultimately advised Barre that because Mohamud was 18 they could not intervene.
Mohamud’s parents found him at playground where he sometimes hung-out with friends. That night Barre told Mohamud about what he had escaped in Somalia, how hard he worked to bring his family to Portland from a refugee camp they fled to in Kenya . Mohamud admitted he had been in touch with a man in Yemen who invited him to come study Islam in the country, but he agreed not to go and instead to go to university.
Barre composed an E-mail to the FBI agent that night, including the E-mail address of the man in Yemen and telling them that everything was under control; his son would stay. The matter was closed.
Coffee - November 4, 2010
The second conversation takes place in a coffee shop in Corvallis, Oregon a year later, on November 4, 2010. Mohamud had moved to the college town to attend classes at Oregon State University. But this was no study session. Mohamud was meeting with two men from an ultra-secret extremist group that had selected him. He was special. Talented. Smart and faithful they told him. Hussein was the group’s explosive expert. Youssef was a recruiter for the group who told Mohamud that they had spent years looking for someone as unique as him.
They went over their plan.
The target: the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland.
The bomb: a fertilizer explosive hidden in a van.
The goal: 25,000 casualties.
Once they agreed on the details, the three drove to a remote location to test a smaller version of the bomb they would use. Success.
Mohamud, at the urging of the other men, recorded a video manifesto. Months before he had been depressed, emotionally unstable, drinking heavily. Now he had purpose.
But how exactly had the recruiter swayed Mohamud? The FBI opened a case immediately after his father’s phone call. They monitored his communication and even had agents trailing him in Corvallis.
They discovered a typical 18-year-old who sometimes got drunk and said some crazy things. His parents gave him $300 a month for rent, but his friends let him live rent free and used the money as their beer fund.
Here’s how the FBI described him at the time:
a confused college kid that talks mildly radical jihad out one ear, and typical 18-year-old college kid (drugs, sex, drinking) out the other.
But things changed after a particularly wild frat party where Mohamud brought a young woman back and the two began having sex on a top bunk with others still in the room.
The next day Oregon State Police were knocking on a hungover Mohamud’s door. The woman accused him of drugging and raping her. Mohamud and the other witnesses all denied this occurred and he even passed a polygraph test. Still, he felt terrible. Lost. He told the police that she was drunker than he thought and that even if it was not a crime — he was at fault.
He wrote on a forum:
I swear by Allah I have become so lost. And I want so badly to be in a muslim land. I keep telling myself that if I lived in a muslim land I would become so pious. ... Being in University and living on campus hasn’t helped me too much either. I have fallen into so many things (i.e. alcohol and women). ... All I need is some soft words to help my heart and supporting advice.
Soft words were coming.
Hotel - July 30, 2010
The third conversation was months in the making. It was after the party and before the coffee shop meeting — the key to this entire story.
Mohamud planned to spend the summer of 2010 with a friend working on a fishing boat in Alaska. He liked the sound of long days and fresh air. His concerned parents knew the structure and hard work would be good for him. He needed to get out of Corvallis and Portland, out of his rut and around new people.
But at the Portland airport he was informed he was on the no-fly list and questioned by the FBI. (The FBI put him on the list when they learned his parents purchased a ticket to Alaska for him).
Even though the FBI was privy to Mohamud’s conversations with his friend about their summer plans, the agency would later claim they feared Mohamud — a kid with no money and no ticket beyond the Alaska flight — would use the trip as a jumping off point to fly to the Middle East.
It was around the times his summer plans were ruined that Mohamud started receiving emails from Bill Smith, a recent convert to Islam from Idaho. Smith wanted to know how he could help the cause and combat the infidels.
Mohamud ignored Bill Smith, but Youssef, the skilled recruiter was able to breakthrough. Mohamed was suspicious and demanded to know how they got his email. He was flattered to learn he’d been recommended to the secret jihadi group ‘Ihata’ by a brother in Oregon because of his talents. Ihata was a jihadi super council. Basically, the Justice League of jihad and Ihata only wanted the best.
Mohamud indicated he’d like to go to Afghanistan to train and fight in the war there. Youssef encouraged him that since he was on the no-fly list his path lay in Portland, writing, “Allah I’m sure has good reason for you to stay where you are.”
Mohamud didn’t respond prompting Youssef to send another message saying he was in Portland and wanted to meet. Mohamud invited him to Friday prayers. But Youssef convinced him to meet instead on a street corner near Pioneer Square and then walked to an Embassy Suites. There Youssef asked, “So, what have you been doing to be a good Muslim?”
The teenager said that he had written religious poems and fitness articles for a small online magazine called Jihadi Recollections. He talked about his desire to go to Afghanistan.
Youssef said there were five things the young man could do to be a good Muslim: pray five times daily; become a doctor overseas; donate money to the cause; become operational; or become a martyr.
At trial, Youssef would testify that in this moment the teen who had never indicated a desire to commit terrorism stated he wanted to become operational and, “get a car, fill it with explosives, park it near a target location, and detonate the vehicle.”
The plan was in motion.
Youssef brought in a brother, Hussein, an explosives expert and they spent five months preparing Mohamud. They gave him small tasks and told him how brilliant he was. They even praised his writing saying that he could be a poet.
Mohamud selected the target, the Christmas tree-lighting, and on November 26, 2010, Hussein and Mohamud were in place.
Mohamud attempted to use a mobile phone to detonate the device, which was inside a large white van. It didn’t work. Hussein suggested he get out of the car for better reception. He tried again then heard the shouts of FBI agents telling him to “Get on the ground!”
In the commotion, as agents swarmed Hussein began yelling repeatedly, “Allahu akbar!” Then he broke into an uproarious laugh. He exchanged celebratory greetings with his fellow FBI agents. Hussein, Youssef, even Bill Smith from Idaho were all undercover agents. Well, Bill Smith was a rather lazy virtual creation of the FBI.
Everyone who emailed and spoke to Mohamud about Jihad since just before the FBI stopped his trip to Alaska was part of law enforcement. Ihata was their invention.
Tape
President George W. Bush secretly signed an executive order shortly after the September 11 attacks authorizing warrantless wiretaps on American citizens if they communicated with someone overseas. Many of the intelligence practices came under scrutiny as Obama took office. The government had swept up millions of hours of communications and the FBI chased thousands of leads with little to show. There were many ‘terrorist sympathizers’ but no actual terrorists.
The intelligence community needed to justify their unprecedented power.
Mohamud’s attorneys argued entrapment at trial noting that the FBI radicalized the young man. The government countered that it was Mohammad in the first meeting with Youssef at the hotel who suggested bombing a crowded location.
If the bombing was Mohamud’s idea entrapment could not be argued. If the FBI suggested it than everything that occurred after that meeting would be inadmissible.
Did he actually say the words?
get a car, fill it with explosives, park it near a target location, and detonate the vehicle.
The defense demanded the recordings from the Embassy Suites meet: the agent had forgot to put batteries in his recording device.
The defense demanded the undercover operative’s raw notes after the meeting: he had destroyed them.
It came down to the undercover agents word against Mohamud’s. The jury found Mohamud guilty of attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction.
Headlines
Hussein and Youssef drove Mohamud to his dorm after the second meeting where they operationalized the Pioneer Courthouse Square plan. Surveillance video shows Mohamud, who has just agreed to be a martyr, in tears as he exits the car and runs inside.
Just before the recording ends one agent looks at the other and says, “It’s almost too good to be true.”
It was.
The headline the morning after the fake bombing read: FBI thwarts terrorist bombing attempt at Portland holiday tree lighting, authorities say
The headline the next day read: Oregon mosque hit by arson after bomb plot
The mosque in Corvallis that Mohamud had attended was set ablaze. Turns out there was a terrorist in Oregon.
Black
Mohamud was well-liked and had plenty of friends by all accounts. They respected his moral compass. He was always trying to do good. His friend’s parents would implore them to be more like Mohamud. But as a refugee, Muslim and Black kid in one of the whitest cities in America he stood out. He seemed to struggle fully fitting in and finding his footing.
Mohamud’s former high schoolteacher recounted a project he assigned to Buzzfeed news. Students were working on a magazine and instructed to draw a self-portrait, giving it a short caption describing who they are, what makes them special.
Mohamud’s entry reads:
Mohamed Mohamud
I’m the black one.
Cody Crawford, who firebombed the mosque was given five years probation. The judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation for the troubled young man and mental health support. The mosque leaders publicly forgave him, which helped reduce his sentence. The system worked to support him, unlike a refugee kid on the margins.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud is currently in a federal prison where he will remain until 2037.
Beyond the Margins
Did the FBI Transform This Teenager Into a Terrorist After Reading His Emails | Buzzfeed News
Convicted 2010 tree-lighting ceremony bomber seeks new trial | Portland Tribune
Pioneer Courthouse Square bomb plot: a timeline | The Oregonian
Oregon Mosque Arsonist Sentenced to Five Years Probation | The Southern Poverty Law Center