Al Qaeda suspect from N.J. worked at 6 nuclear plants

The plants are also checking areas where Mobley worked to ensure that everything is in order, said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci.

Mobley, a US citizen of Somali descent, has not been linked to wrongdoing at any of the plants. And officials said nothing he did when he worked there aroused suspicion.

Officials said Mobley passed the necessary screenings, which include criminal background checks, drug testing, psychological assessments, and identity verification.

Nevertheless, Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an industry watchdog, said the case raises questions about security at the nation’s nuclear plants.

“The real question is: Was there information that the NRC or utilities could have seen that would have led to his disqualification?’’ Lyman said.

Mobley, a Muslim who grew up in Buena, N.J., was among 11 Al Qaeda suspects rounded up earlier this month in Yemen. He was taken to a hospital there over the weekend after he said he was ill. Yemeni officials said he snatched a gun and shot a security guard to death while trying to escape the hospital.

He has not been accused of attempting to make a bomb or attack a nuclear plant.

His parents have said he is not a terrorist, though former friend Roman Castro said Mobley was becoming increasingly radical in his Muslim beliefs before he moved to Yemen about two years ago.

Mobley worked for contractors at the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear plants in New Jersey from 2002 to 2008; the Peach Bottom, Limerick, and Three Mile Island plants in Pennsylvania from 2003 to 2007; and Calvert Cliffs in Maryland for two weeks in 2006, operators said.

Company officials said most of his work came during periodic refueling outages, when hundreds of contract employees descend on the plants. The workers do “nothing technical,’’ said Curt Jenkins, business manager at Mobley’s union, Local 222 of the New Jersey Laborers Council.