Ex-Sailor Charged With Spying For Al Qaeda

From ABC News:

March 7, 2007 — A former U.S. Navy sailor has been charged with allegedly passing military secrets about U.S. Navy movements through waters in the Middle East to al Qaeda-related Web sites during the spring of 2001, just months after the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen.

Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, allegedly passed information about U.S. Navy warship movements in the Straits of Hormuz in April 2001 while he was a member of the Navy. The information passed along contained details about vulnerabilites of U.S. vessels — including susceptibility to small boat attacks by terrorists.

Abujihaad has been charged, not convicted, and I won't pull a Murtha and claim he's guilty without due process. I will say that the spooks had better step up to the plate. If they have the resources to periodically question the employees of defense contractors working with classified material (and they did in the nineties when I was working in that industry) then they should be paying attention to major life changes among serving members of the armed forces with access to important classified tactical information. A sudden name change might be a clue.

Also interesting in this story, especially in light of Dr. Shackleford's recent emphasis on electronic jihad, is this:

Abujihaad's arrest arises out of the investigation of Babar Ahmad, who is suspected of developing radical Islamic Web sites popular with members of al Qaeda and other mujahedeen. Ahmad was indicted in the United States in 2004 for allegedly providing material support to Chechen terrorist groups and the Taliban.

ABC notes further that Ahmad was said to have received information from a sailor, apparently using al Qaeda recruitment web servers based in Connecticutt.

Via Howie at The Jawa Report.