NEW BERN, N.C. — Before he became the Yemen-based editor of the English-language online magazine for al-Qaeda’s branch in the Arabian peninsula, Samir Khan was a radical young Muslim blogger in North Carolina.
Khan, 25, a skilled propagandist, wrote virulently pro-al-Qaeda blogs while a student at a community college in Charlotte. As a teenager, he posted blogs championing violent jihad from his parents’ home in a Charlotte subdivision.
Khan was one of two Americans killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, American and Yemeni officials said Friday. Along with Anwar al-Awlaki, 40, who also was reported killed, Khan parlayed his idiomatic American English and familiarity with U.S. culture to recruit converts for al-Qaeda throughout the English-speaking world.
Khan edited Inspire, an online English-language magazine that served as al-Qaeda’s propaganda arm. From his base in Yemen, Khan wrote stories with such headlines as “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” and “What to Expect in Jihad.”
In the bomb article, Khan wrote: “In one or two days, the bomb could be ready to kill at least 10 people. In a month, you may make a bigger and more lethal bomb that could kill tens of people.”
In late 2009, in an introductory interview article titled “I Am Proud to Be a Traitor to America,” Khan said he was “al-Qaeda to the core.”
Khan, of Pakistani descent, was born in Saudi Arabia and raised from age 7 in Queens, N.Y. He moved to Charlotte in 2004 when his father, Zafar, was transferred.
Khan was so radical that local Muslim leaders met with him and his father in an effort to persuade him to renounce violence in the name of Islam. The leaders rejected Khan’s views and banned him from speaking at local mosques, Jibril Hough, a spokesman for the Islamic Center of Charlotte, told the Charlotte Observer last year.
Hough told National Public Radio that Khan and his father met at Hough’s home with Muslim elders. The men sat in a circle and talked for hours.
Khan “mostly just listened,” Hough told NPR. “I think at one time during the conversation, he tried to give some kind of justification for killing innocent people, but it was a very short rebuttal. And that’s why it kind of gave me the idea that we were making progress.”
But Khan continued posting to his blog, and he told people that he planned to move to Yemen to teach English. In October 2009, he boarded a flight there and never returned.
