BUENA, N.J. — He was raised in New Jersey, where he was on the high school wrestling team and earned a black belt in karate.
Nearly a decade later, Sharif Mobley is a former nuclear plant worker under arrest in Yemen, suspected of being an al-Qaeda member and accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital.
While some acquaintances were startled by the news out of the Middle East on Thursday, a former classmate said Mobley had strong religious views in high school, often trying to convert friends to Islam, and became increasingly radical, especially after they graduated in 2002.
Roman Castro, 25, who did a tour with the Army in Iraq, said the last time he saw Mobley, about four years ago, Mobley yelled, “Get the hell away from me, you Muslim killer!”
The FBI, the State Department and other authorities said they were trying to gather information about Mobley.
Mobley, a 26-year-old natural-born U.S. citizen, was identified by Yemeni officials as a Somali-American.
From 2002 to 2008, Mobley worked for several contractors at three nuclear power plants in New Jersey, 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.
Mobley moved to Yemen about two years ago, supposedly to learn Arabic and study Islam, a former neighbor said.
Mobley was arrested in Yemen in a roundup of suspected al-Qaeda members this month and was being treated at a hospital in Sana when he got into a shootout with guards during an escape attempt, killing one and wounding another, said Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington.
U.S. officials worry that Yemen is becoming the next terrorist staging ground because of signs that lower-level al-Qaeda operatives have been moving there from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
The al-Qaeda branch in Yemen was linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner. Also, Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood last year, had exchanged e-mails with an extremist cleric in Yemen.
In response to the threat, the Pentagon has proposed spending $150 million to help Yemen battle insurgents.
Somali-Americans have become a particular concern. Young Somali-American men have been traveling from the U.S. to fight in Somalia, raising fears they are receiving terror training and returning to the U.S. ready to launch attacks.
Americans are valuable to terrorist groups, in part because they can travel easily.
“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.
