U.S. citizen held in Yemen

U.S. citizen held in Yemen after shootout with hospital guards

By Geoff Mulvihill and Wayne Parry
Friday, March 12, 2010; A07

Yemeni counterterrorism authorities captured a U.S. citizen of Somali origin after he shot his way out of a hospital in the Middle Eastern country, where he was being held after a mass arrest of al-Qaeda members, authorities said Thursday.

Yemeni officials were holding Sharif Mobley, 26. He was being treated at Republican Hospital in Sanaa when he got into a shootout with guards, killing one, as he tried to escape, said Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy.

Mobley graduated from high school in 2002 in the southern New Jersey town of Buena, and records show he had previously lived in Philadelphia and Newark, Del. It wasn't clear when he went to Yemen, although his mother told WMGM-TV in Atlantic City that he was there when she talked to him in January.

His father, Charles Mobley, said outside the family home: "I can tell you this: He's no terrorist."

Mobley's capture is the latest in a string of Yemeni counterterrorism efforts aimed at disrupting al-Qaeda. The al-Qaeda branch there has been linked to the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner and is a growing concern for U.S. authorities.

Mobley was among 11 al-Qaeda suspects detained this month after a security sweep in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, officials said. He was taken to the hospital over the weekend and was apprehended after he attacked the guards in an escape attempt and barricaded himself in a hospital room, Albasha said.

Officials said he snatched a gun from a security guard and shot him, then made his way from his fifth-floor room to the ground floor. Witnesses said he got into a shootout with hospital security guards, who pinned him down until a unit of the antiterrorism police apprehended him.

Working with U.S. intelligence officials, Yemen has stepped up its counterterrorism efforts, particularly since the attempted jetliner attack. The suspect in that case, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, spent weeks in Yemen before the failed attack and has been linked to the country's al-Qaeda branch.

FBI spokesman Rich Wolf in Baltimore confirmed that the agency was investigating Mobley's case but wouldn't comment further. It wasn't clear why the Baltimore office was investigating, but it covers Delaware.

Michael Brothman of Vineland, N.J., said he graduated from Buena Regional High School with Mobley. He said that Mobley was competitive in gym class and that he had said he had a black belt in karate. Mobley was also a member of his high school's wrestling team.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/11/AR2010031104014_pf.html