A radical Islamic imam says Fort Hood terror attack suspect Nidal Malik Hasan asked him, in an exchange of e-mails, about the Muslim perspective on killing U.S. soldiers.
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan |
The report comes from the Middle East Media Research Institute, which cited statements imam Anwar al-Awlaki made to the Aljazeera news agency.
Al-Awlaki told the interviewer Hasan initiated the e-mail exchange, and he "was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not," he said, according to the report.
Hasan has been charged with multiple criminal counts, including murder, for the Nov. 5 attack in which he reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" and starting shooting at soldiers at a processing center at Fort Hood.
Thirteen adults and one unborn baby were killed in the attack, and several dozen more were injured. Hasan himself was shot and remains hospitalized. He reportedly was paralyzed from his injuries.
President Obama has encouraged Americans not to jump to conclusions about the attack by the radical Muslim who had lectured fellow Army officers on the need to submit to Islam.
Al-Awlaki told Aljazeera he wondered why U.S. intelligence agencies didn't pick up on Hasan's statements.
"I wondered how the American security agencies, who claim to be able to read car license plate numbers from space, everywhere in the world, I wondered how [they did not reveal this]," he said.
Along with asking for an edict regarding the possibility of a Muslim soldier killing his Army colleagues, Hassan clarified his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians," al-Awlaki said.
"He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities," he said.
MEMRI reported the Aljazeera interview was conducted by Abd al-Ilah Heider Shane in Yemen.
It continues with al-Awlaki's affirmation of the attack as "courageous."
"My support to the operation was because the operation that brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one, and I endeavored to explain my position regarding what happened because many Islamic organizations and preachers in the West condemned the operation. So it was necessary for me [to raise] a voice that is [myself] connected to the Muslims in America and the West, while at the same time is independent and explains the truth regarding what Nidal did, especially since the media tried to connect him to me from the very beginning," he told the interviewer.
He said he "blessed" the attack "because Nidal's target was a military target inside America, and there is no question about this. Then, also, those members of the military [i.e. the victims] were not regular soldiers; rather they were prepared and preparing themselves to go to battle and to kill downtrodden Muslims and to commit crimes in Afghanistan," he answered.
As WND reported, al-Awlaki previously praised Hasan as a "hero."
There were unconfirmed reports today that al-Awlaki had been killed in a military strike in Yemen. The reports said the head of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wahishi and his deputy, Saeed al-Saudi Shahrani, also apparently were killed.
Al-Awlaki was once the imam at Dar al-Hijrah Mosque in Virginia. The FBI has claimed he had a close relationship with two of the 9/11 hijackers through the mosque, but he fled the U.S. in 2002.
WND also reported a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence questioned why President Obama apparently is suppressing information from an investigation into the Nov. 5 attack.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., expressed concern in a recent commentary of a "troubling refusal by Obama officials to acknowledge that the shooting likely was an act of homegrown terrorism."
"How can it be that the House Committee on Homeland Security has launched an investigation and called hearings within a week to look into the couple who crashed a recent White House state dinner, yet a month after Fort Hood there has yet to be a single congressional hearing into the Fort Hood attack?" Hoekstra said. "I fear that our nation is returning to the naive security outlook of Sept. 10, 2001, when radical Islamic terrorist attacks were considered law enforcement and criminal problems and not threats to our national security."
Hasan, a Muslim of Palestinian descent, allegedly entered the Soldier Readiness Center at Fort Hood about 1:30 p.m. Nov. 5 and, according to witnesses, took a seat at a table, bowed his head for a few seconds, then stood up and started shooting.
Hoekstra said U.S. officials "need to understand how homegrown terrorism works if we are to identify and stop homegrown terrorists before they carry out acts of violence."
"How are al-Qaida leaders and other radical jihadists recruiting and radicalizing homegrown terrorists? A principle route seems to be the Internet," he said. "We know that Maj. Hasan was in contact via the Internet with radical Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and that Mr. al-Awlaki's sermons have influenced would-be homegrown terrorists in the United States and the terrorists who launched the deadly 2005 London subway bombings."
Jamal Ware, a spokesman for the GOP members of the intelligence committee, told WND the problem is while the investigation apparently has produced a report about Hasan, it's being suppressed by the White House.
Hoekstra "had issued a call for the intelligence community to preserve all records relevant to looking at what happened at Fort Hood," Ware said, so that the committee could review and determine what changes should be made to prevent a recurrence.
"Several days after [that], President Obama issued an order to all in the intelligence community, asking them to bring together all of their records and produce a report related to Fort Hood," he said.
The report apparently was completed by Nov. 30, but committee members still have been given no information to review, he said.
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