(PJMedia) -- New evidence pried from the government under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) proves the point I have posited here at Ordered Liberty: The federal government willfully intervened on behalf of al Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on October 10, 2002, undoing his arrest on felony fraud charges when he was detained at JFK International Airport in New York, and allowing him to walk away with a Saudi handler. As I argued over two years ago, the government’s story to the contrary – viz., that it was moved by sheer coincidence on the eve of Awlaki’s arrival to pull the plug on a weak case – does not pass the laugh test.
Twelve years ago, when the FBI intervened to “un-arrest” Awlaki despite the pendency of a valid felony warrant, he was a suspect – or, at the very least, a highly material witness – in the 9/11 conspiracy that resulted in the killing of nearly 3000 Americans. He went on to become one of al Qaeda’s most effective operatives. Awlaki is suspected of involvement in or incitement of the 2009 Fort Hood jihadist attack in which 13 U.S. soldiers were killed and many others wounded; the attempt to bomb a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009; the attempted bombing of Times Square in 2010; and the modernization of al Qaeda’s international recruitment practices.
In 2011, he was finally killed as an enemy-combatant by an American drone strike in Yemen.
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