An amazing portrait of Azzam al-Amriki (AKA Adam Gadahn), a Muslim convert now working PR for al-Qaeda. While the whole article is an intriguing biography, the last section detailing how individuals end up being recruited into revivalist and extremist groups, is especially poignant.

Quoted: Adam Gadahn, the first American to be charged with treason in more than fifty years, was born in Oregon, grew up in rural California, and converted to Islam at the age of seventeen. He is now twenty-eight. No one who knew him before his religious awakening ever thought that he would join Al Qaeda, and many people who knew him after he did are still perplexed. And yet, in a short time, Gadahn has become one of Osama bin Laden’s senior operatives. (He is believed to be hiding in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.) He is a member of Al Qaeda’s “media committee,” and his responsibilities are thought to include those of translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter.