Adam Yahiye Gadahn

On the same day, Gadahn was indicted based on the testimony of the FBI case agent E. J. Hilbert II, in the Southern Division of the United States District Court for the Central District of California by a federal grand jury for the capital crime of treason for aiding an enemy of the United States, the first such case since the 1950s.

Philip and his wife Jennifer legally changed their last name to Gadahn in the mid-1970s, after the Biblical warrior Gideon.

Philip Gadahn was involved in the counterculture movement at the University of California at Irvine, and before Adam's birth became a Christian.

Gadahn described his father as having been "raised agnostic or atheist, but he became a believer in One God when he picked up a Bible left on the beach."

His father's religious perspective was flexible and based upon his own spiritual needs and as a new convert to Islam, Gadahn portrayed his father in a manner sympathetic to his religion of conversion.

Gadahn was raised a Protestant Christian, and homeschooled through high school by his parents on an isolated farm in western Riverside County, California.

He played Little League baseball and participated in Christian homeschool support groups.

As an adolescent he became very involved in the death metal community, making contact with fans and musicians through alternative magazines.

Adam Yahiye Gadahn (آدم يحيى غدن, Ādam Yaḥyā Ghadan; September 1, 1978 – January 19, 2015) was an American senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Islamist group al-Qaeda, as well as prolific noise musician.

Gadahn was born on September 1, 1978, in Oregon, United States.

Gadahn's paternal grandfather, Carl Pearlman, was a Jewish activist, urologist and on the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League.

Gadahn's paternal grandmother, Agnes Branch, a Christian, was an editor for The Christian Family Chronicles (a genealogical publication for people with the surname "Christian").

Gadahn's father is Philip, a musician who grew up in Orange County, California.

He began supporting jihadi causes in the late 1990s.

In a short period of time, Gadahn became a senior advisor to bin Laden and was assumed to be playing the role of "translator, video producer, and cultural interpreter."

Gadahn declared his animosity towards the United States by declaring it "enemy soil" and praising the individuals responsible for the September 11 attacks.

During the summer of 1993, he formed an ambient noise project called Aphasia.

Gadahn contributed music reviews and artwork to a zine called Xenocide, and his comments were published.

A loyal fan of Carl Barks' tales of Scrooge McDuck, Gadahn submitted drawings of this character to Gladstone Publishing, whose editors did not publish them, but publicly thanked him for his efforts.

Gadahn, who converted to Islam in 1995 at a California mosque, was described as "homegrown," a term used by scholars and government officials for Western citizens "picking up the sword of the idea" (in the words of one FBI agent) to commit

attacks in the West.

In 1995, at age 16, Gadahn moved in with his grandparents in the West Floral Park neighborhood of Santa Ana, California.

Not long after, he converted to Islam and lamented the estrangement his musical interest caused between him and his family writing, "My relationship with my parents became strained, although only intermittently so. I am sorry even as I write this."

While living with his grandparents in West Floral Park, Santa Ana, Gadahn described himself as having a "yawning emptiness", and he sought ways "to fill that void".

He explored Christianity on the Internet, radio, and locally, but later said that he found evangelical Christianity's "apocalyptic ramblings" to be "paranoid" and hollow.

In 1995, at age 17, Gadahn began studying Islam at the Islamic Society of Orange County.

Members of Gadahn's study group were young fundamentalists who "targeted the mosque's chairman, Haitham Bundakji", for his practice of "wearing Western clothes and being friendly with Jews".

Gadahn converted to Islam later that year, and shortly thereafter posted an essay to the University of Southern California Web site describing his conversion, titled "Becoming a Muslim".

According to his parents, Adam was "arrested and convicted of assaulting his former mentor Haitham Bundakji in May 1997."

He served two days in jail, but his failure to perform 40 hours of community service left a warrant for his arrest active.

Gadahn reportedly moved to Pakistan in 1998, where he married an Afghan refugee and maintained intermittent contact with his family until March 2001, when all contact with his family stopped.

He told his parents he had been working as a journalist while in Pakistan—spending time in both Karachi and Peshawar—presumably a euphemism for his media propaganda efforts for al-Qaeda.

The first production of al-Qaeda's media division, As-Sahab, was believed to have been in 2001 with the involvement of Gadahn.

United States and British intelligence officials believe it to have been run by Gadahn, although it was reported that the media production of these messages had a notable decrease in quality, possibly due to Gadahn's involvement in other tasks for al-Qaeda.

Beginning in 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American" ('Azzām al-Amrīki, عزام الأمريكي, sometimes transliterated as Ezzam Al-Amrikee).

In 2004, he was added to the FBI Seeking Information – War on Terrorism list.

On October 11, 2006, he was removed from that list, and placed on the Bureau of Diplomatic Security Rewards for Justice Program list of wanted criminals.

American intelligence officials allege that he inspired the 2007 Osama bin Laden video.

On January 19, 2015, Gadahn was killed in one of a series of unmanned aircraft strikes in Waziristan, Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda confirmed Gadahn's death on June 25, 2015.