From instructor to high-value target.
John Hayward
Human Events
11/9/2010
Terrorism expert Patrick S. Poole at Big Peace reports that Anwar al-Awlaki, recently named as the first U.S. citizen to be included on a CIA kill-or-capture order in the War on Terror, was formerly an instructor with the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America. The IIASA was a branch of the Ibn Saud Islamic University of Riyadh, and was certified to train Muslim chaplains for the Pentagon through 2003. The Institute was raided by every government agency prone to raiding institutes – FBI, IRS, and U.S. Customs – in 2004, then shut down for good.
Awlaki worked hard to earn his kill-or-capture order. Newsweek once asked if he was “the new bin Laden.” He’s not much of an improvement over the old bin Laden. He spent a lot of time with three of the September 11th hijackers in 2001, including the man who flew American Flight 77 into the Pentagon. He was spiritual guru to Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, and endorsed his killing spree as “heroic and great.” He also counted the Underpants Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdumutallab, as a student. Faisal Shahzad, the man who tried to bomb Times Square, cited Awlaki as an inspiration. The would-be Metro bomber in Washington D.C. was reading his biography. Some say his role in al-Qaeda is primarily as a figurehead. The CIA is right to think it’s time to open a vacancy in the figurehead position.
Read the rest at Human Events
