Lindh, John Walker (1981–)

A U.S. youth who, during the War in Afghanistan in 2001, joined the Taliban in its fight against the United States. Most Americans were baffled by the revelation of Lindh's journey from an average middle-class upbringing in California to militant Islamic fundamentalism.

Born in 1981, the son of a corporate lawyer and a commercial photographer, John Walker Lindh grew up in a suburb in northern California. Little distinguished him from other teenagers until, at age 16, he apparently was inspired to convert to Islam by the autobiography of Black Muslim leader Malcolm X and by Muslim Web sites. Adopting the name Suleyman, Lindh began to attend a mosque and to wear a long white robe and a turban.

In 1998, Lindh traveled to Yemen to study the Arabic dialect used in the Koran. He later enrolled at a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan. In May 2001, Lindh joined a paramilitary training camp organized by Kashmiri extremists in Pakistan, who wanted a separate Muslim state in the Indian region [Page 434]of Kashmir. During the seven-week training, Lindh learned to use maps, weapons, and explosives. He also met with al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and pledged to wage jihad, or holy war, against those identified by al-Qaeda as supposed infidels.

In late November 2001, two months after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, pro-U.S. Northern Alliance forces captured Lindh after the suppression of a prison mutiny near the Afghan town of Mazar-i-Sharif. He was among a group of Taliban who supported al-Qaeda terrorists. Wounded by a bullet in the right thigh, Lindh had been hiding for a week in the basement of a prison fortress as the United States waged war in Afghanistan against the Taliban.

Northern Alliance forces flooded the basement of the prison, prompting Lindh and other survivors to emerge and surrender. Lindh was handed over to CIA operatives, who initially refused him a lawyer and allegedly mistreated him during an interrogation to obtain intelligence about bin Laden's whereabouts. Lindh was later taken to the United States, where he was officially charged with conspiring to kill U.S. citizens and aiding al-Qaeda.

In July 2002, Lindh's lawyers reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. Lindh agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges and to drop claims that U.S. personnel had tortured him. A few months later, in October 2002, Lindh was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Dubbed “the American Taliban,” Lindh baffled the U.S. public with his unlikely conversion to militant Islam. His case also foreshadowed problems in the legal prosecution of U.S. citizens and others in the war against terrorism.