On November 26, Mohamed Mohamud was arrested for allegedly attempting to trigger a bomb at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon. This was chilling news for Portlanders, and the chill quickly spread across the nation. Since his arrest, there has been much discussion about the nature of his motives, and legal experts have raised concerns about entrapment.
Mohamud is a 19-year-old Somali-born American citizen from a highly educated family that fled the civil war in the early 1990s. According to his arrest warrant, Mahamud complained about American Muslims, who “reside amongst the [infidels]… What has stopped you from fighting in the cause of Allah?” He even complained about his parents to undercover FBI agents for preventing his “passage from the lands of the polytheists.” The New York Times reported that in recent months “he dropped out of school and stopped attending mosque.” Given these statements, it would seem that Mohamud is a disaffected youth who had withdrawn from his family and local community well before the tree lighting ceremony.
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