Anwar Al-Awlaki may be the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, but he was also a lunch guest of military brass at the Pentagon within months of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Fox News has learned.

Añadir leyenda

Documents exclusively obtained by Fox News, including an FBI interview conducted after the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009, state that Awlaki was taken to the Pentagon as part of the military’s outreach to the Muslim community in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

...According to the documents, obtained as part of an ongoing investigation by the specials unit "Fox News Reporting," there was a push within the Defense Department to reach out to the Muslim community.

"At that period in time, the secretary of the Army (redacted) was eager to have a presentation from a moderate Muslim."

In addition, Awlaki "was considered to be an 'up and coming' member of the Islamic community. After her vetting, Aulaqi (Awlaki) was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army's Office of Government Counsel."

Awlaki, a Yemeni-American who was born in Las Cruces, N.M., was interviewed at least four times by the FBI in the first week after the attacks because of his ties to the three hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour. The three hijackers were all onboard Flight 77 that slammed into the Pentagon.

Nidal Hassan

Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups ... are hailing Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, as a hero worthy of emulation. Though the Nov. 5 shooting was not on the scale of a 9/11-style attack, it served the same purpose: to terrify "the Crusader West" and shake America off kilter, according to an Al Qaeda spokesman.

"Hasan has become almost everything they've been hoping … he's legendary now within their movement," says Jarret Brachman, an expert on international terrorist groups and author of "Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice."

Nidal Hassan - Al-Awlaki

Hasan's ties to US-born Muslim cleric and terrorist recruiter Anwar Al-Awlaki have given rise to the theory that Hasan carried out the first international terrorist attack against America since 9/11.

In the months after the shooting, Al Qaeda doubted that line of reasoning, because a minor online essay about martyrdom was all that could be linked to Hasan. More recently, however, the international jihadist group has sought to portray Hasan as a terrorist "trailblazer" who conducted a "historic and trend-setting" operation, though some say Al Qaeda's embrace of the Fort Hood incident indicates that it is now willing to settle for inflicting damage that, while deadly, is much less spectacular than a 9/11-style attack.

The US government placed Anwar al-Awlaki, a key leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, on its list of terrorism supporters, froze his financial assets and banned any transactions with him.

The measures were outlined in Executive Order 13224 issued Friday by the US Treasury Department.

"Anwar al-Awlaki has proven that he is extraordinarily dangerous, committed to carrying out deadly attacks on Americans and others worldwide," said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey.

"He has involved himself in every aspect of the supply chain of terrorism -- fundraising for terrorist groups, recruiting and training operatives, and planning and ordering attacks on innocents."

Awlaki, now based in Yemen, rose to prominence last year after it emerged he had communicated by email with Major Nidal Hasan, a US army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

The imam has also been linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight with explosives in his underwear on December 25.

From beyond our shores and without setting foot on our soil, the jihadists have invaded our country and taken the life of one of our citizens. Norris is still alive, but the woman as she was known is gone. She has lost her life in the legal sense: new birth certificate, school records, life story. For anyone who knew her, it is as though she is dead. But it is not just one life the jihadists have taken. To the former Molly Norris, it is as though all the people she has known are also now dead. They have been torn from her life because she has been torn from theirs.

A random attack—an exploding SUV in Times Square or a suicide bomb on an airplane—would spur us to retaliation. Be this is worse. Al-Awlaki targeted Norris in particular because she exercised her right to free speech in America in a way that displeased him and those who share his political religion on the other side of the world. The result: American blasphemer successfully neutralized. This is cause for national alarm.

President Obama has been quite vocal about standing up for the First Amendment rights of the Muslims who want to build a mosque near Ground Zero. But as that is an issue that involves local government, popular opinion, and private enterprise, it is actually none of his business. By contrast, as this involves foreign threats against an American citizen in her own country, the matter is central to his business. President Obama should call this what it is: an act of war. He should make full use of his armies and agencies to protect this woman’s life and liberty, and should defend her as he would defend our borders. But he has been completely silent.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Friday that President Barack Obama should denounce the fatwa issued by a Muslim-American cleric that has sent an American cartoonist into hiding. He also said that there is a double standard at work; that insults to Islam are treated differently than insults to Christianity.

AN AL-QAEDA recruiter, described as the No. 1 terrorist threat to America, was engaged by a Sydney youth group to address hundreds of young people - a decision that has caused deep divisions at one of Australia's largest mosques.
At the same time as Anwar al-Awlaki was advising the extremist later charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, he was in talks with a group, Sydney Muslim Youth, about delivering a sermon to young Australians. He was already well known to security agencies as the spiritual guide to three of the hijackers on September 11, 2001.
''Anwar al-Awlaki is like a virus produced by the body wanting to fight a microbe,'' said Taj el-Din al-Hilaly, condemning the sermon, which was delivered at his mosque by phone link from Yemen.

The guy himself... who can be found really easily in Youtube, speaking against freedom of speech and about "the global conspiracy against the Islamic truth".