How a young Iraqi grew into a terrorist

Not long after, he left the KDP and his family noticed that he prayed with a new vigor. He tried to convince his sister to wear a veil, and tried to persuade Imad to leave the police academy. "He was not telling us his secrets," the brother says. "He pretended he was superior to us." Family members say they used to make fun of Khadir's newfound devotion, taunting him: "You were running after girls - now look at you!"

Gone were the days when Khadir used to have pictures of girls slipped inside his books. One day the young militant insisted that his mother bring the family photo albums to the Islamic institute where he was studying, so he could tear out every single image of himself. The Taliban, too, declared images of people un-Islamic.

"The Koran says: 'Start jihad from wherever you are,' " Khadir says. He never traveled to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda there. But he was in contact with Al Qaeda recruiters in Jordan and later in Kurdistan. He moved to Jordan to work and save money to go to study in Yemen under the radical Islamic scholars there. But when he got to Al-Iman University, he was told he didn't have a high school diploma and couldn't attend. Dejected, less than a week later, he returned to Jordan.

But the Jordanians didn't want him, either. He was deported back to Iraq after Jordanian police found radical Islamist tracts in his room and accused him of being an extremist operative. Back in Iraq, he joined Al Towhid, one of the most hard-line Islamist groups in the area. In February 2000, Al Towhid murdered François Hariri, the most prominent Christian politician in northern Iraq. Last year, Al Towhid joined the Al Qaeda-backed Ansar al Islam coalition.

While Khadir says he is "happy" that Sept. 11 was a "wake-up call for America, and for us," the US should not be the first target. "Jihad against Arab leaders should be done first, before the Americans," he says. Ties with Christians or Jews are easier for him, he says, than with "hypocrite" Muslims who profess faith, but don't believe.

"If the Americans came to attack Iraq, I would be happier to have an 'infidel' government, than the apostate government [of Saddam Hussein]," Khadir says. "In Palestine, I would rather give all to the Jews - let them come! - than that apostate Yassir Arafat."

These views are incomprehensible to members of Khadir's family, who have just one photograph left of their son - a sepia print of a four-year-old boy with big brown eyes. Family friends long ago drew a moustache on the photo, not as a joke, but to add age and wisdom to the last remaining image. But Khadir's mother is disgusted with her son, and offers the photo to a visitor. "I wish he had died" in the assassination attempt, she says, her eyes tearing up.

Though he remains behind bars, Khadir confidently predicts the assassination was only a prelude. "No matter who the US gets rid of [in the terror war], there will always be jihad - even if the group is small, and does small operations.

"Already, America is killing or arresting Al Qaeda's main leaders," he says. "But if they want to get rid of it, they must get rid of the factories that are creating them. And they can't do it, because that factory is the Koran."

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