Ever since Nidal Hasan went on his shooting spree last week, all of the focus has been on what a rather forgiving chap he was. Just ask ABC News. CBS News refers to government playing the “blame game.”

Little of the focus is being put on his influence for conversion, one Anwar Aulaqi, the imam who has already been linked with two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Midhar. He acted as a spiritual adviser to Hasan through the Internet, delivering online sermons describing the need for jihad against the West. How bad were they? The Washington Post deigned to call them “controversial“:

On Dec. 23, 2008, days after he said Hasan first e-mailed him, Aulaqi also posted online words encouraging attacks on U.S. soldiers, writing: “The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America,” according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist Web sites.

I would say that that kind of encouragement was a little more than controversial. I checked out what the NEFA had to report on Aulaqi, and apparently the plan went off without a hitch:

“Nidal opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? In fact the only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.”

Who knows how many more Muslim soldiers are corresponding with Aulaqi today? This chap has had a pretty illustrious career, rubbing elbows with the upper crust of the Islamic world. This includes:

- an associate of Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, mastermind of the original bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993;
- Ziyad Khaleel, a “procurement agent” for Osama bin Laden;
- Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, a Yemeni imam designated a terrorist in 2004;
- suicide bombers in Yemen in 2006, attempting to blow up oil and gas installations and likely influence Yemeni elections;
- Ali Timimi, charged with recruiting young Muslims to wage war against the United States.

Even though Aulaqi is concluded to be linked to Al Qaeda by the FBI, he still is not being sought for extradition from Yemen and is not on any most wanted list. He is also not simply denouncing US policies as anti-Muslim, as the Associated Press asserts; he actively corresponded with Maj. Nidal Hasan and convinced him to open fire on his fellow US soldiers. He was chauffeured around in a limousine in Washington DC while looking for new terrorism recruits, a true testament to the contemptible ego the limo had to carry.

The path of political surrender falls onto the US Justice Department, who were watching Hasan for over a year before he went on his shooting spree. One of the red flag e-mails was received from imam Aulaqi, which the FBI said was for the purpose of doing research:

Those messages were intercepted by a Joint Terrorism Task Force during an unrelated investigation and later referred to FBI and Army investigators in Washington, officials said.

But no alarm bells went off because the communications were consistent with Hasan’s research into how US combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan affect civilians, officials insisted. The e-mails never made explicit threats or discussed plots, they added.

(my bold)

The contact with a man who was a known terrorist should have been enough for a dismissal. This would not have prevented him access to guns, but it would have at least kept Hasan away from a military post. Aulaqi’s sermons have been banned from Britain. He has also been declared a known terrorist under UN 1267. He was also believed to be a procurement agent for Osama bin Laden himself. Why would this not have alarmed the FBI if they were so intently investigating Hasan?

If Hasan was to have “acted alone” as so many obsequious members of the antique media assume, he would have had to have completely forgotten all about the sermons that Aulaqi delivered to him in Virginia as he prayed alongside some of the 9/11 hijackers. Ignoring the issue of Islam is not just ignoring news but falsifying it to suit your own worldview. Shouts of “allahu akbar” don’t suggest a depression, and correspondence with a known terrorist, one Hasan knew for over eight years, does not suggest research. Aulaqi should be a big a part of this story as Hasan, and the media are being obediently silent on his complicity in the shootings.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Muslims. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.