US imam praises Detroit terror attack, says bomber was his student
An American-born, pro-jihad cleric has reportedly praised the failed Christmas airliner attack and claimed the alleged perpetrator was his student.
Anwar al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents. Before leaving the U.S. in 2002, he 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 stated 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 said to be active on social networking sites like Facebook.
Abdulmtallab allegedly 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 published on 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) the American 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, killing 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 of Muslims they have killed,” he said of the innocent civilians on the flight to Detroit.
But according to a recent study, the same could be said of al Qaeda.
A West Point study found that 85% of al Qaeda’s victims are in fact Muslims.