Terror suspect a stranger at mosque he claimed as own

SOUTH FAIRMOUNT – One after another, members of the Masjid Abubakr Siddique mosque leaned close to the photograph of terror suspect Christopher Cornell and shook their heads.

"I have not seen this guy," said Gaye Soumare.

"I've never met him," said Tamba Traore. "We don't know him."

At least a half dozen others said the same Thursday when shown a photo of Cornell, the Green Township man accused of plotting to attack the nation's Capitol with guns and explosives. Cornell's family said the 20-year-old Oak Hills High School graduate "found peace" in the Muslim faith and worshiped at the Masjid Abubakr Siddique mosque in South Fairmount.

But those attending afternoon prayers said they'd never seen him before and questioned his recent conversion to Islam. They said Cornell, a young white man with a long beard, would have stood out among the regulars at the mosque because most are immigrants from West Africa and many speak little or no English.

Several said they pray at the small mosque, housed in a former thrift store off Harrison Avenue, almost daily and would have noticed a newcomer like Cornell, whose parents say he converted to Islam just six months ago.

"I don't know this guy," said Youssouf Diagouraga, owner of the African Store on Harrison Avenue, down the street from the mosque. "A lot of people say he's Muslim. If you're Muslim, you don't do any bad things to anybody. You don't do that."

Others echoed those sentiments, complaining that their place of worship had been dragged into a drama involving someone who claimed to attend their mosque. Cornell, who had adopted the Muslim name Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah, had told his parents he attended the mosque, though his parents also described him as "a momma's boy who never left the house."

If Cornell ever did attend the mosque, members said, he would not have heard talk of politics or radical ideas that would have encouraged him to plot an attack on the heart of the American government.

They said daily prayers at the mosque involve about a dozen people who stop by briefly for prayers and then go on their way, heading back to work or home. At services on Friday, they said, a visiting imam may speak to the group about living a good life or daily worries, but about little else.

"We talk about daily life," Traore said. "We never do politics."

He and others said they sometimes are frustrated that, to some Americans, terrorism has become synonymous with Islam. He said true Muslims want peace, and those attending the South Fairmount mosque are no different.

"People are more afraid of the Muslim people," Traore said. "You see it on the news. You hear about terrorists. We have nothing to do with that."

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