How Adam Gadahn, a heavy metal rock enthusiast from a small Southern California town, became Azzam the American, a leading propagandist and the highest-ranked American in al Qaeda’s terror hierarchy, is one of the stranger odysseys of the global war on terror, an odyssey that ended abruptly earlier this year when Gadahn was reportedly killed by a U.S. drone strike in the remote border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The 37-year-old Gadahn, the first American to be charged with treason in more than 50 years, was killed by an American drone strike, President Obama confirmed Thursday, in a January CIA attack that was not even targeting the long-wanted terrorist. At the time of his death, he was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and the State Department was offering a $1 million reward for his capture.
It was a long, strange journey that put Gadahn in the crosshairs of the U.S. drone.
He was born Adam Yahiye Gadahn in Oregon and reared in Winchester, California. His grandfather was Jewish and, as a boy, he displayed no signs he was attracted to a violently anti-American terror movement.
In 1995, at 17, he moved in with his grandparents in Santa Ana, California, and converted to Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County shortly afterward. He became radicalized while studying with a small group of young fundamentalists who targeted the mosque’s chairman, Haitham Bundakji, whom they referred to as “Danny the Jew” for his penchant for wearing Western-style clothes and being friendly with Jews.
Three years after his conversion, in 1998, Gadahn traveled to Pakistan and married a Muslim woman, who bore him at least one child. He told family and friends that he was going there to become a journalist in the Karachi region, but he was soon handling propaganda and media duties for al Qaeda, with his perfect command of idiomatic American English making him stand out clearly among the group’s senior ranks.
Serving Osama bin Laden through the turmoil of the September 11 attacks and their aftermath, Gadahn referenced the United States several times in al Qaeda videos over the years, referring to his native country in 2006 as “enemy soil” and calling the September 11 hijackers “dedicated, strong-willed, highly motivated individuals.”
He was also known for fusing American cultural references with militant Islamic theory, at one time lacing a religious threat with a reference to the board game Monopoly: “If you die as an unbeliever in battle against the Muslims, you’re going straight to hell, without passing Go.”
The FBI released Gadahn’s name in 2004 and acknowledged that he was part of an al Qaeda cell that planned attacks meant to disrupt the 2004 presidential election. And in 2006 the George W. Bush administration’s Justice Department formally charged Gadahn with treason, stressing that he had “made a choice” to throw in with America’s enemies.
“He chose to join our enemy and to provide it with aid and comfort by acting as a propagandist for al Qaeda,” Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty said at the time.
Gadahn appeared in a 2008 video renouncing his American citizenship, tearing up his U.S. passport and suggesting that “whoever takes over for Bush probably won’t have the guts to bring the troops home.”
Gadahn’s family background made his embrace of militant jihadism even more mystifying to many.
His grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a prominent urologist and served on the board of the Anti-Defamation League. Gadahn was raised a Protestant and home-schooled through high school by his parents, Phillip Pearlman and Jennifer Pearlman.
His parents, both born Jews, converted to Christianity prior to Gadahn’s birth.
The Gadahns became goat herders, built a cabin in rural California and pursued a minimalist lifestyle. They had no running water in their home and lived off the grid, powering their home solely with solar panels. Their son played Little League baseball as a boy and joined several Christian home-school support groups throughout his childhood.
Adam Gadahn’s aunt, Nancy Pearlman, recalled in a 2004 interview with ABC News that her nephew was a typical teenager with a range of interests.
“Adam was a very loving, caring, intelligent young man,” she said. “He was listening to hard rock music. He gave that up when he got religious.”
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