Ali Muhammad Brown: American Terrorist

Chances are, you've never heard of Ali Muhammad Brown, even though he has confessed to multiple "revenge killings" as retaliation for American aggression in Muslim lands. Though Brown carried out his attacks months ago and claimed to be a jihadist back in July, the national news networks are just now drawing attention to this case. Apparently, an American Muslim slaughtering people in the name of Allah just isn't important news.

Ali Muhammad Brown

Washington (CNN)—Ali Muhammad Brown was focused on one thing, authorities say.

"My mission is vengeance. For the lives, millions of lives are lost every day...[in] Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, all these places where innocent lives are being taken every single day. ... So, a life for a life."

That is what law enforcement say Brown told a police investigator in New Jersey when he was interviewed in July.

The U.S. government was doing "evil" within its own borders, too, Brown told law enforcement, according to court papers.

Brown, a 29-year-old from Seattle, is the prime suspect in a killing spree stretching from New Jersey to Washington state.

Brendan Tevlin

Between April and June, police say, Brown killed three people in Washington state, allegedly shooting them at close range late at night in quiet locations.

Also in June, 19-year-old college student Brendan Tevlin was found inside an SUV in West Orange, New Jersey, dead of multiple gunshot wounds, authorities said. Police say they traced the gun used in all of the killings to Brown.

Brown confessed, according to court documents, telling investigators he strictly follows the Muslim faith and had become angry with what he believed the U.S. was doing abroad.

Sources tell CNN that Brown was born in the United States and has family in New Jersey.

He was convicted of bank fraud in federal court in 2005 and served time in jail. The FBI tried unsuccessfully to link that case to fundraising for terrorists in Africa, said a former FBI official in Seattle.

Authorities say one of Brown's co-defendants in that case fled to Somalia to fight with the militant group Al-Shabaab. (Continue Reading.)

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