Gratitude: Mohamed Osman Mohamud came to the United States from Somalia and became a naturalized citizen, which entails taking this oath:
I hereby declare, on oath that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”
“Details emerge about Mohamud, Westview / OSU student,” by Frank Mungeam for KGW, November 27:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the suspect in Friday night’s plot to explode a car-bomb during Portland’s Christmas tree lighting celebration, is a naturalized American citizen who was born in Somalia in 1991.
During elementary school, Mohamud moved 9,000 miles from the war-torn streets of Mogadishu to the suburbs of Portland.
He graduated from Westview High School in 2009 and then enrolled at Oregon State University.
Westview classmates told KGW he often joked about being a terrorist, but no one took him seriously.
A classmate who didn’t want to be identified remembered Mohamud’s odd choice for a physics project. Mohamud detailed how a rocket-propelled grenade worked.
“It was just weird about how someone would choose that, you know,” the classmate said.
In an affidavit obtained by KGW, Mohamud recently told the FBI he had been thinking of committing some form of violent jihad since the age of 15.
Another of Mohamud’s former classmates remembered a fight the two had over a messy locker. “The main thing was, the way he said he hated Americans,” said Andy Stull. “It was serious. He looked me in the eye and had this look in his eye, like it was his determination in life – ‘I hate Americans!'”
Stull says he was scared enough at the time to get school counselors involved, but that was the end of it.
In the fall of 2009, Mohamud started his freshman year at O.S.U. He took classes part-time, with a focus on engineering.
He also attended the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center near campus. His Imam told KGW Mohamud did not voice any radical views. The Iman said Mohamud grew reclusive recently, and described the teen as “relaxed” in his religious practice.
“I had to say he did a number of things against the religion. He had a lifestyle that was against the religion. I can’t really say that he was in a position to represent Islam,” said Imam Yousef Wanly.
And Mohammed Atta drank like a fish. But we all know how that ended. The bottom line is that both took the commands and promises (see Qur’an 9:111, 56:12-40, including vv. 22-23, 35-37) of the Qur’an seriously in the matter to which it devotes so much of its space: waging war against unbelievers.