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I was Fort Hood killer’s confidant, says cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki says he did not order the killing, but that it was ‘permissable under Islam’
The radical American-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, long suspected by US intelligence of having direct ties with al-Qaeda, considered himself a "confidant" of the US Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, accused of killing 13 people in a shooting spree at the Fort Hood army base on November 5.
Al-Awlaki, tracked down to his new home in an extremist stronghold in southern Yemen, told a representative of the Washington Post: "It was clear from his emails that Nidal trusted me."
He said the emails had begun in December 2008 with Maj Hasan asking if Al-Awlaki remembered him from the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia where the cleric used to teach in 2001 and where Hasan and his family once worshipped.
Not recalling Hasan, al-Awlaki did not respond at first. But after Hasan sent two or three further emails, the cleric said he "started to remember who he was" and began to answer Hasan's correspondence.
It became clear from the emails that Hasan had become a devout Muslim and had a good knowledge of Sharia law. "Nidal told me: 'I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else.'"
However, al-Awlaki would not comment on whether Hasan had ever mentioned that he might target his colleagues at Fort Hood.
Al-Awlaki refused to be interviewed directly by an American journalist with the Washington Post but agreed to talk to a Yemeni journalist and terrorism expert, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, working on behalf of the paper.
Al-Awlaki insisted that he had not ordered the Fort Hood shooting nor put any pressure on Hasan to harm Americans.
Asked by Sheae why he had written on his website in the immediate aftermath of the killing that Hasan was a "hero," al-Awlaki said: "I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq."
He said Hasan's action was allowed under Islam because it was a form of jihad. "There are some people in the United States who said this shooting has nothing to do with Islam, that it was not permissible under Islam. But I would say it is permissible... America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries."
Given that al-Awlaki has been under observation by US intelligence since the time of 9/11 - he is known to have met with at least two of the hijackers at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque - and given the nature of the emails, more questions are likely to be asked as to why intelligence agents did not react with more urgency to the correspondence between the two men.
The FBI was recently reported to have concluded that the emails posed no serious danger and that an investigation was unnecessary. ·
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And as for the Jewish Religion, the Torah states that a Rabbi may marry a 3 year old girl. Religion is the plague here, no matter which. It can be used to justify anything, and has been used that way from the beginning of time. Stay as far away from it as possible as you would anything that corrupts natural morality. It was only invented for those that cannot accept death, or for those that wish to have power over others. Have the courage to live a good life without relinquishing anything to any so called higher power, be it the government, the church, the corporation, the man next door. Men are so weak and so afraid, it's sad in the end.
He does not speak for Islam, just as the Pope or David Koresh do not speak for Christianity, although both would claim they did.
Islam did not illegally invade Iraq and kill a million people, that was the so-called Christian countries of the USA and the UK; and the same axis of evil is now butchering civilians in Afghanistan. Good grief who would want to copy the Jewish religion look what they did in Lebanon and then Gaza this year and are now implicated in war crimes. Has the world forgotten the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camp massacres already?
A lot of the Islamic religion is copied from Jewish Religion. It is a shame they did not copy a bit more. For Example praying for the Government of the Land they live in and also the belief that the Law of the Land one lives in holds equal weight as ones own religous law.
We keep being told again and again that the 'real' Islam is a peaceful religion but we need to know how this can be reconciled with the sort of pronouncements made by the cleric in this article. If a Church of England vicar said something of the sort, using some of the more violent quotations that can be found in the Bible, then I feel sure that there would be an outcry against him by his own church and other branches of the christian organisation. He would be officially defrocked or struck off or excommunicated or whatever these people do. If Islam wants to be seen as a peaceful religion they have to instantly and effectively marginalize these 'rogue' clerics.
If that really was acceptable under Islam there is clear case to ban it in the UK. Even the BNP isn't as twisted as that. Freedom (religious or otherwise) cannot permit that. I would go further than Peter S. above. The stronghold mentioned should be sorted out.
This article highlights what a very sick, twisted religion Islam really is. In spite of all the talk of peace and understanding, those in power have been focussed on one thing since Islam started - death and destruction to anyone who disagrees with their warped view of life. The sooner the liberal element in the west wakens up to reality, the better for all of us. When I was a young boy growing up in the UK, Islam was completely unknown. Now that we have 'embraced' Muslims and Islamic culture, our world is no longer a safe place.
Astonishing how compacent the security services are considering all that's gone down. I'm surprised this piece of filth hasn't been removed from the planet already.