Yousef al-Khattab helped change the way young Muslims were radicalized by spewing extreme Islamist propaganda on a YouTube channel. Now al-Khattab, who was born Joseph Leonard Cohen and was brought up in New Jersey and in Brooklyn in a Jewish home, tells NPR he made a big mistake and describes himself as a "failure." He's scheduled to appear in a federal court in Alexandria, Va., on Friday to be sentenced on terrorism charges.
The case is significant because al-Khattab, now in his mid-40s, is one of the founders of a radical Islamist group called Revolution Muslim, which became a gateway for young jihadists in the U.S. looking to join violent Islamist groups overseas.
Revolution Muslim and al-Khattab ushered in a new era of jihadi radicalization. It used to be that young Muslims traveled to terrorist training camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Yemen after being radicalized by recruiters from terrorist groups. Revolution Muslim's YouTube channel and website made one-on-one recruitment unnecessary. The group could goad young Muslims to action with provocative posts on the Web. They put up videos of a radical cleric known as Sheikh Abdullah Faisal who, among other things, preached that it was good to kill those who don't believe in Islam. Faisal is now in Jamaica, where local Muslim groups have shunned him and his radical message. Revolution Muslim posted a video that championed Osama bin Laden and the 911 terrorists as heroes. After the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, in which Army Maj. Nidal Hassan killed 13 people, al-Khattab publicly lauded his actions. He and other members of Revolution Muslim demonstrated in support of Hassan and put the video of their protest up on the Web.