Homegrown Campus Jihadist?

By Robert Spencer

Houssein Zorkot, a third-year medical student at Wayne State University in Michigan, was arrested on September 8 at Hemlock Park in Detroit. He was wearing camouflage makeup, black clothes, and carrying an AK-47 assault rifle; he reportedly had to be tasered by police when he was arrested. His website features photographs of the Ayatollah Khomeini and a great deal of pro-Hizballah material. Most ominously, on the day he was arrested he uploaded onto his site an image that included a photo of a soldier holding a rifle, with the caption, “The Start of My Personal Jihad (in the US).” Underneath in Arabic was Qur’an 9:20: “Those who believe, and have left their homes and striven with their wealth and their lives in Allah’s way are of much greater worth in Allah’s sight. These are they who are triumphant.” The Arabic for “striven…in Allah’s way” is jahadoo fi sabil Allah, which in Islamic theology refers in particular to jihad as warfare.

The start of Zorkot’s personal jihad will have to wait; he is being held on $1 million dollar bond. But his case carries some troubling implications. According to Michigan’s WLNS, police say that on his website Zorkot claims to be a member of Hizballah. If that claim is true, was his abortive personal jihad in Hemlock Park ordered by Hizballah leadership? If so, and if Zorkot had succeeded in murdering anyone in the park, his attack would have been the first known strike by Hizballah on U.S. soil. Even though unsuccessful, Zorkot’s attack, if it was a Hizballah project, would signal an end to the terror group’s policy of not staging attacks in America because the reaction to such an attack would hinder the group’s freedom of action here. Last April, Thomas Fuentes, special agent in charge of the FBI’s International Operations, explained that Hizballah wants to “maintain a low profile by engaging in criminal activity [but] not direct attacks….They’ve not been enthusiastic about doing it on US soil because of the attention and reaction that would occur.” But if Zorkot went to Hemlock Park on Hizballah orders, those days are over -- and Americans can brace themselves for more Hizballah operations here. CONTINUED