Houston jihadi took wife, 3 kids to terror camp

Houston Chronicle:

Daniel Joseph Maldonado told authorities he was ready to kill Americans for his political beliefs. But the true casualty of his jihad may have been his own wife.

Maldonado, the first American to be charged with training to fight with al-Qaida in Somalia, took his wife and three children with him. There, Tamekia Cunningham succumbed to a high fever that likely was caused by malaria. U.S. officials flew the couple's three children home to their grandparents in New England after Maldonado was captured in Kenya.

And Maldonado, who survived the war and his own bout with malaria, now sits in a jail in Houston facing up to life in prison, accused of studying with a bomb maker.

A Muslim convert who goes by Daniel Aljughaifi, Maldonado was "Danny" to his high school classmates in Pelham, N.H., a snow-covered land of white pines and sugar maples, where the Revolutionary War more than two centuries ago seems far closer to home than war-torn Africa. Even as a teenager, Maldonado was known for his strong beliefs.

"He was very into his views and political stands," Jessica Gillis, a classmate at Pelham High School, said via e-mail to the Houston Chronicle. She stressed that he never talked about religion. "He was not at all violent and only debated his views and stood up for them when in political debates during history class."

Gillis added that she remembers Maldonado as "friendly, smart, intelligent and outgoing."

Dorothy Mohr, an English teacher when Maldonado was at the school and now the principal, agreed that he was talkative and opinionated.

"He always had something to say about whatever," she said. "Danny was a nice kid. He probably wasn't as into his studies as (most)."

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There is much more on his back ground. He got to Somalia by first going to Egypt. Dragging a wife and babies into a al Qaeda training camp puts him into the extremely weird class. He can thank Rachel Carson for the death of his wife. She was the environmental wacko who got DDT banned. Since that happened the mosquito born disease has killed thousands in Africa.