US imam praises Detroit terror attack, says bomber was his student

US imam praises Detroit terror attack, says bomber was his student article URL:  http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=3341	Chris Carter Contact Details: ccarter@victoryinstitute.net Website: http://www.victoryinstitute.net/blogs/utb
Article posted 05 Feb 2010 on The International Analyst Network by Chris Carter:
An American-born, pro-jihad cleric has reportedly praised the failed Christmas airliner attack and claimed the perpetrator was his student. Anwar al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen – born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents – and before leaving the U.S. in 2002, served as an imam in Denver, San Diego, and the Washington, D.C. area. While in San Diego, he became the “spiritual advisor” for two of the 9/11 hijackers (and had contact with a third). He also admits to having advised the man who gunned down 14 unarmed Americans at Fort Hood, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Al-Awlaki now lives in Yemen, and counter terrorism experts believe that he works for al Qaeda. In a recent Al Jazeera interview, al-Awlaki states that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23 year-old Nigerian student who attempted to detonate a bomb on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, was in fact a student of his. Al-Awlaki's pro-jihad internet lectures and materials are very popular, and he is even active on social networking sites like Facebook. Abdulmtallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in December while en route from Amsterdam to Detroit by hiding a bomb in his underwear. He has stated that more attacks are planned, that his is the first of many forthcoming plots. He is currently in federal prison in Milan, Mich. “Brother mujahed Umar Farouk — may Allah relieve him — is one of my students, yes,” said al-Awlaki in the interview, which published Tuesday. “We had kept in contact, but I didn't issue a fatwa (religious ruling/declaration of war) to Umar Farouk for this operation.” Al-Awlaki expressed his support of the failed Christmas attack, but said that he would have preferred a military target. “I support what Umar Farouk did after seeing my brothers in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan being killed,” al-Awlaki said. “If it was a military plane or a U.S. military target it would have been better...(but) theAmerican people have participated in all the crimes of their government.” The other two known terrorism cases that he had ties to were indeed military targets: the victims in Maj. Hasan's Fort Hood massacre were mostly soldiers, and Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar – the 9/11 hijackers that al-Awlaki mentored – were two of the five operatives who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon, which killed 64 passengers and 125 people in the Pentagon. Hani Hanjour – another Flight 77 hijacker – attended services at the Dar al Hiraj mosque in Falls Church, Va. while al-Awlaki was an imam there. “Some 300 Americans are nothing compared to thousands Muslims they have killed,” he added of the innocent civilians on the flight to Detroit. But according to a recent study, the same could be said of al Qaeda. 85% of al Qaeda's victims are in fact Muslims. The handful of Westerners killed by al Qaeda attacks pale in comparison to the thousands of their own people the terrorist group has killed.  [Originally published at The US Report]

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