Hello and welcome to a reading from The Taliban – Afghanistan’s Most Lethal Insurgent Group, written by Mark Silinsky and published by Praeger, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing in New York, New York. This reading is brought to you by Kensington Security Consulting, where we bring education to national security. This reading will conclude chapter six and introduce Jihad Johnny Walker and Adam Gahdahn.
Profile 20: Jihad “Johnny” Lind Walker and Adam Gahdahn
The Taliban are mostly Afghan, but there are exceptions. In October 2001, an estimated 150 British-born Muslims fought alongside the Taliban. James McLinton was nicknamed the Tartan Taliban because the Scottish-born, Catholic-raised Briton moved to Pakistan and became involved in the insurgency. The British Tipton Taliban, or Tipton Five, were captured on Afghan battlefields. Raised in the English Midlands and committed to jihad in Afghanistan, they were sent to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation. There were other Westerners as well, but only one was known as Jihad Johnny.
Intelligent and self-motivated, the California boy John Phillip Walker Lindh converted to Islam at age 16 after reading Malcolm X’s autobiography. Coming from an upper-middle-class background with parents who described themselves as progressive and divorced when he was young, he wanted to learn to speak and read Koranic Arabic. This was unusual for a boy raised in the leafy suburbs of Washington, D.C. Few who knew Walker as a teenager would have predicted he’d join any militant organization. His father said, “John is a very sweet kid, devoted, and religious.”
Walker moved to Pakistan, enrolled in a madrassa, and immersed himself in Urdu, Pashto, and Islamic studies. He became valuable to Islamist groups because he understood American customs, ceremonies, and sensitivities, and his open dedication to Salafist Islam impressed fellow Muslims. His mother told Newsweek that his son was not “totally streetwise.” In a broad understatement, his father acknowledged that his boy “made a bad decision going to Afghanistan,” but added, “we love him unconditionally.”
Few Americans were sympathetic to him when he was caught, wet, simpering, and hiding in a cave. A December 2001 poll showed that 70 percent of respondents believed Walker should be jailed or executed. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he remains today. While John Walker is introspective and intellectual, his fellow Californian, Adam Gadahn, displays a foolish persona. Like Walker, he converted to Islam to find spirituality lacking in his countercultural lifestyle. His early religious background was eclectic and confusing. His grandfather was Jewish and married a Presbyterian, and his father is a self-described atheist. His mother is nominally Roman Catholic. Adam spent part of his childhood living with family on a California goat farm. Dissatisfied with farm life, he searched online for employment and found Islam instead. He embraced Islam after seeing videotapes of Muslims killing Americans and others. He joined al-Qaeda and acts as a propagandist of questionable effectiveness. For his numerous calls to kill Americans, Adam Gadahn is wanted for treason. However, he is mostly regarded as an embarrassment to al-Qaeda. Few non-Muslim Americans see his Jihadist bombast as anything more than tired chatter.
**Summary**
The Taliban’s fighting capabilities have significantly improved. They employ infiltration, ambushes, hit-and-run tactics, sniper strategies, roadside bombs, and other methods. Advocating a narrow, militaristic ideology, they are well-organized and often ruthless. Since 2001, the Taliban’s tactics and abilities have steadily grown, despite many international observers initially believing they had been defeated. Their more effective tactics include assassinations, roadside bombs, infiltration, impersonation, and suicide attacks. The Taliban are also skilled in offensive and counterintelligence operations. Two of the more colorful, if unbalanced, figures linked to the Taliban and al-Qaeda-supported insurgency are the Californians John “Taliban Johnny” Walker and Adam “Azzam the American” Gahdahn.
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