
Friends and family describe Sharif Mobley as a "good Muslim" who never displayed any violent tendencies. He held down a job and has a wife and a daughter.
But authorities tell a different story. They say Mobley, 26, was recently picked up in Yemen and is a suspected member of the same al-Qaida group that tried to blow up an airliner in Detroit on Christmas Day. And there are more and more Americans joining overseas terrorist groups. According to the Associated Press:
His case surfaces days after charges of terrorist connections were brought against Colleen LaRose, an American-born woman known as "Jihad Jane" who lived for years in Pennsylvania.....U.S. officials fear 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, and the Pentagon has proposed spending $150 million to help Yemen battle insurgents....Americans are valuable to terrorist groups, in part because they can travel 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 graduated from high school in 2002 and organized religious pilgrimages to Mecca. Mobley's former high school friend, Roman Castro, said he knew something was awry when, after returning from the army, Mobley said: "Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!"
Mobley's parents deny the charges against their son.





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