American-Born al Qaeda Calls for Attacks in U.S.

CBS- A U.S.-born spokesman for al Qaeda called for Muslims living in the United States and Europe to carry out attacks there, CBS Radio reports.

In a 48-minute video posted today on militant websites, Adam Gadahn said that it is a duty and an obligation of Muslims to defend Islam.

"It is the duty of everyone who is sincere in his desire to defend Islam and Muslims today, to take the initiative to perform the individual obligation of jihad ... by striking the Zio-Crusader interests," he said, referring to Western and Jewish interests.

Gadahn, who has been hunted by the FBI since 2004, also tried to discredit attempts by moderate Muslim leaders to suppress the "jihadi awakening."

The video was made available by the U.S.-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity.

Gadahn grew up on a farm in California and converted to Islam before moving to Pakistan in 1998 where he reportedly attended an al-Qaida training camp.

Lawyer: Arkansas Shooter Tortured in Yemen

LITTLE ROCK (CNN) -- The Tennessee man suspected in Monday's attack on a recruitment center in Little Rock, Arkansas, was brainwashed and tortured while imprisoned in Yemen, his lawyer said Thursday.

"My client is a young man, I think, brainwashed," attorney Jim Hensley told CNN. "What else could be explained for a young man who's a true American, plays football, helps his grandmother and mows the lawns of his neighbors? Comes back and then finds himself in this situation? That is not a normal situation in my book."

Abdulhakim Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, is charged with killing Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and wounding Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The 23-year-old convert to Islam has pleaded not guilty. But, according to court records, he told police that he had "political and religious" motives for the shooting.

In September 2007, Muhammad left Tennessee State University in Nashville, where he was studying business, and traveled to Yemen to teach English to children and to learn Arabic.

There, "he felt at peace with these people," even marrying a Yemeni, Hensley said.

But things began to change when his client was detained for a minor visa violation in Yemen and sent to prison, where he was housed with radical Islamic fundamentalists, Hensley said.

In November 2008, Muhammad was arrested in the port city of Aden for overstaying his visa and deported two months later in cooperation with the U.S. Embassy, a Yemeni official said.

There is disagreement about the time he was incarcerated. The lawyer said Muhammad told him he had served four months in prison.

Hensley said Muhammad told him that, during the last two weeks he was held, he was deprived of sleep and food and "was slapped around a little bit," enduring beatings on the backs of his legs.

During Muhammad's time in the prison, an FBI agent visited him not as an ally but as an interrogator, Hensley said.

However, Mohammed AlBasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy, rejected Hensley's assertion. "It is understood that the process of radicalization can take a number of years, not a couple of weeks," he said. "So, the statement that his lawyer made, that he was brainwashed and tortured for weeks in Yemen, are baseless."

The FBI agent "believed that Carlos was some kind of hardened terrorist hellbent on doing violence to America," Hensley said.

After he was released in January, Muhammad returned to Nashville, Tennessee, where his parents noticed their son was "fidgety, frustrated, can't sit still," Hensley said.

The same FBI agent approached him and threatened to put him under surveillance, "to do everything we can to cause you trouble," Hensley said.

A federal law enforcement source told CNN that the FBI was investigating Muhammad, but FBI spokesmen would not confirm any contact they might have had.

Hensley added that Muhammad's parents told him that, once he returned to Nashville, "he was a different human," one who blamed the United States for the war wounds suffered by some of the children whom he had taught, children without arms or legs.

He also blamed U.S. immigration policy for his inability to bring his bride back to the United States with him, Hensley said.

"A first-year psychology student would be able to see that this young man needed some help, and that wasn't offered him by anyone," Hensley said.

Muhammad eventually moved to Little Rock to help his father's Memphis tour business expand into Arkansas.

Just before the shooting, he was working out of a Hilton hotel in Little Rock in the family business, driving a sightseeing van.

Hensley said he was speaking to the news media because Muhammad had asked him to. "His agenda is different from mine; he wants to be a martyr," the lawyer said.

The case has attracted high-level attention, with President Obama saying Thursday in a written statement that he was "deeply saddened" by the shootings.

Federal agents said Wednesday that they were looking into whether Internet searches of various locations in several other U.S. cities were a sign that Muhammad was seeking "additional targets." The cities investigators included Atlanta, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; New York; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee, where Muhammad grew up.

Hensley told CNN that his client was not the only person who was using the computer.

Muhammad is being held on a state count of capital murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act by firing into an occupied building.

Man Pleads Not Guilty In Deadly Recruiting Center Shootings

(CNN) -- An Arkansas man suspected in a shooting that killed one soldier and wounded another at a Little Rock military recruiting center was angry over the treatment of Muslims, authorities said Tuesday.

Abdulhakim Bledsoe, 23, of Little Rock, also told police he recently watched a video "pertaining to subversive activities which spurred him to commit this act," according to court documents.

Bledsoe pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday and was ordered held without bail.

He faces one count of capital murder and 16 counts of engaging in a terrorist act, said Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas. The terrorist counts stem from the shots fired at an occupied building.

Before the not guilty plea, authorities said Bledsoe waived his Miranda rights after the shooting Monday and gave a video statement indicating that "political and religious" motives were involved.

He "stated that he was a practicing Muslim ... that he was mad at the U.S. military because of what they had done to Muslims in the past," homicide detective Tommy Hudson said in a police report.

Bledsoe told police "he fired several rounds at the soldiers with the intent of killing them," according to Hudson's report.

The suspect is a Muslim convert who has also gone by the names Carlos Bledsoe and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad. He changed his name from the latter April 23, citing religious reasons, court records show.

A leader of the Muslim community in Little Rock said he did not know Bledsoe.

The suspect had been under investigation after visiting Yemen, a federal law enforcement official said. The official declined to provide further information.

Police believe the shooter acted alone "with the specific purpose of targeting military personnel," Thomas said.

CNN has been unable to reach Bledsoe's attorney.

Residents left flowers and miniature American flags outside the recruiting center after the shooting. A lone candle burned on the sidewalk next to bouquets of white and red roses. A note that said "Thank you for your service" was attached to the flowers.

The shooting Monday killed Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway, Arkansas, and wounded Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Arkansas, who were outside the military recruiting center.

Bledsoe told police he was driving around and saw Long and Ezeagwula smoking outside the building, according to Hudson's report. He said he pulled into the parking lot and shot the two soldiers and added that "he would have killed more soldiers if they had been on the parking lot," according to the report.

Ezeagwula was in stable condition Tuesday, the police chief said.

The soldiers were part of a recruiting program called "hometown recruiting assistance," said Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis, commander of the Oklahoma recruiting battalion that oversees the Little Rock Army-Navy recruiting center.

Under the program, soldiers tell their stories to potential recruits. It's a volunteer position taken while soldiers are visiting or based back in their home region, Artis said.

"I'm relieved there's a suspect in custody," said Capt. Matthew Feehan, commander of the recruiting center. He said several people were in the building at the time of the shooting, but nobody else was injured.

Bledsoe was arrested after officers on Interstate 630 pulled over his car, which matched witnesses' description of a black Ford sport utility vehicle seen leaving the scene of the shooting.

Police recovered three guns from the suspect's vehicle -- an SKS semi-automatic rifle, a .22-caliber rifle and a .380-caliber automatic pistol, Thomas said.

The victims were shot with an SKS rifle, according to the police report.

Police also seized from Bledsoe's vehicle and apartment several rounds of ammunition, two homemade silencers, handwritten notes in Arabic, CDs with handwritten Arabic labels, a computer and cell phones, according to court documents.

Melvin Bledsoe of Memphis, Tennessee, was listed on the police report as Bledsoe's father. He declined to comment, referring questions to Little Rock police.