Targeting Terrorism
Fox news reports a suspected Al Qaeda militant from Buena, N.J., is being investigated by the FBI after his arrest in the Middle East for allegedly trying to shoot his way out of a hospital in Yemen, WMGM-TV in Atlantic City reported.
Federal sources confirmed that 26-year-old Sharif Mobley is in custody after a shooting rampage in a Yemeni hospital that killed one guard and injured another.
FBI spokesman Rich Wolf in Baltimore said the agency is looking into the case. Mobley was reportedly being held prisoner in the hospital and was caught after a chase following the shooting.
Mobley’s mother told WMGM-TV the accusations are false but did say that when she last spoke to her son in late January he was in Yemen. She said the FBI had visited her for questioning but insisted her son has never been in trouble and is a good Muslim.
Mobley’s father, Charles, said the family was waiting for further information.
“We don’t know nothing, we’re trying to hear something,” Charles Mobley told WMGM-TV.
Mobley’s former classmates from New Jersey expressed shock at both his suspected Al Qaeda ties and his deadly escape attempt in Yemen.
From CBS NEWS
An American man from New Jersey is reportedly among 11 members of an al Qaeda cell arrested in Yemen last week in a security raid.
Several Arab newspapers and a local NBC television affiliate in New Jersey have reported that 26-year-old Sharif Mobley, of Buena Borough, New Jersey, is in Yemeni custody after killing at least one security officer while trying to escape from a hospital in the Yemeni capital.
NBC40 reports that U.S. government sources have confirmed Mobley’s arrest in Yemen, and say “federal investigators have an interest in Mobley and are waiting for more information to come out of Yemen.”
The Yemen Post reports that the suspect in the hospital shooting was a German-Somali dual citizen, but Yemeni foreign ministry sources confirmed on March 8, that the suspect was a U.S. national, not German.
Yemen’s Interior Ministry said last week it had arrested 11 suspected al Qaeda militants during a raid on one of their homes.
Read More
UPDATE: From AJC – Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.
Before that, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008, PSEG Nuclear spokesman Joe Delmar said. Mobley carried supplies and did maintenance work at the plants on Artificial Island in Lower Alloways Creek, and worked at other plants in the region as well.
He satisfied federal background checks as recently as 2008, Delmar said, adding that the plant is cooperating with authorities.
Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, said that his office had been told that Mobley was always supervised, caused no problems and was not believed to have breached security at the plants.
