WASHINGTON (AP) - Carlos Bledsoe's transformation from Tennessee youth to an American-born Islamic extremist charged in a bloody rampage outside an Arkansas military recruiting station may signal an ominous new wave of violent homegrown jihadists, counterterror officials say.

National security officials have long feared the emergence of a new breed of American militants who would raise little suspicion as they move in and out of the country carrying out the aims of terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

"It's the manifestation of a problem that the counterterrorism community has been worried about all along," said Juan Zarate, a top counterterrorism official in the Bush administration. Their worries center on "a radicalized individual who decides to take matters into his own hands."

Abdulhakim Muhammad, who grew up in Memphis, Tenn., converted to the Islamic faith, changed his name from Bledsoe, and traveled to Yemen in 2007. He was later arrested for overstaying his visa and deported back to the U.S., where he slid quietly into life in Little Rock, Ark., apparently unnoticed by U.S. law enforcement.

Muhammad was charged with killing Pvt. William Andrew Long, 23, of Conway, Ark., who had just completed basic training and was volunteering at the west Little Rock recruiting office before starting an assignment in South Korea. He was shot dead on June 1 while smoking a cigarette outside the building. A fellow soldier, Pvt. Quinton I. Ezeagwula, 18, of Jacksonville, Ark., was wounded. And an FBI-Homeland Security intelligence assessment document suggested Muhammad may have considered targeting other locations, including Jewish and Christian sites in several eastern U.S. cities.