How a young Virginia man charged with supporting terrorists became my online pen pal — and why he is so dangerous
Zachary Adam Chesser, better known by his Internet sobriquet of “Abu Talhah al-Amrikee,” is the 20-year-old Virginia man who was indicted this month for supporting a Somalia-based al Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabab.
Most Americans learned of him in April 2010, when Chesser’s media stunt wishing death upon the creators of the South Park cartoon thrust him into the national spotlight.
I came to know him in a different, more personal way and believe that as frightening as the “American Jihadi” headlines surrounding him have been, the portrait that has emerged of Chesser in recent months is still a caricature that unfortunately obscures the very reason “Abu Talhah” was so dangerous.
If you look at the range, pace, and content of Chesser’s online postings, it becomes clear that he was trying to do more than simply issue idle threats. Under the banner of his “Abu Talhah al-Amrikee” brand, Chesser wanted to fundamentally transform English-language jihadist online activism. He was trying to narrow the gap between the rudimentary thinking of American jihadists and the more advanced thinking among Arab jihadists — a project that threatened to make the al Qaeda’s ideology more accessible to more Americans in more compelling ways.