And guess who it was…
Whilst Sunny, Harry’s Place and many more speculate about what lay behind Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s murderous rampage in Fort Hood, the Huffington Post carries a piece written by Kamran Pasha, who has a Muslim soldier friend, Richard, who knew Hasan. It contains a fascinating and troubling detail.
As Richard got to know Hasan better over the next several months, he found the major to be a pious man who was at the mosque daily. But Richard also began to garner a sense of Hasan’s political views that troubled him. A black-and-white outlook on Islam and life that had no room for nuance or debate. Hasan had apparently attended a mosque led by an imam named Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemeni scholar whose political views Richard disagrees with.
Awlaki is a controversial figure among Muslims, and has been accused by the Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 of serving as a “spiritual advisor” to two of the September 11 hijackers. While Richard is careful to say that he respects much of Awlaki’s historical scholarship, he rejects his political ideology, which posits a black-and-white, us versus them, view of America’s relationship with the Islamic world. [...]
Richard does not know how heavily Hasan was influenced by fundamentalist thinkers like Awlaki. But the major’s views were definitely troubling. Richard described an incident where Hasan made some anti-Semitic comments about Jews as a nation being “cursed by God” in Islam. Richard responded that the Qur’an does not condemn any group of people collectively, and that no one is born “cursed” by their ancestry.
That would be the same mosque that some of the 9/11 hijackers attended and the same Awlaki whose support of an al-Qaeda style ideology has long been documented. Wikipedia steps in:
9/11 hijackers Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi came into contact with al Awlaki at the Rabat mosque in San Diego, though The 9/11 Commission Report notes that “We do not know how or when Hazmi and Midhar first met” him.
According to The 9/11 Commission Report, the two “may even have met or at least talked to him the same day they first moved to San Diego.” Al Midhar and al Hazmi “reportedly respected al Awlaki as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.” The Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 labels al Awlaki “their spiritual advisor” and asserts that there were reports of “closed-door meetings” involving the three.
In January 2001, al Awlaki moved to Virginia and became the imam at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, a mosque with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. In April 2001, al Hamzi and fellow hijacker Hani Hanjour showed up at Dar al Hijrah. The 9/11 Commission Report asserts that al Hazmi’s “appearance may not have been coincidental. We have unable to learn enough about al Awlaki’s relationship with Hazmi and Midhar to reach a conclusion.”
The Toronto Star recently had this to say about Awlaki:
Anwar al Awlaki preached in perfect Arabic and flawless English about the need to fight in the name of religion, because the “world is united in fighting Islam.”
The time for jihad is now, no matter your training, he told members of the group that would later become known as the Toronto 18. Six months following that “training camp,” those youths were rounded up in Canada’s largest post-9/11 terrorism investigation and charged with plotting to blow up downtown Toronto and military targets.
Zakaria Amara, the leader of that group, entered a surprise guilty plea earlier this month. A date for his sentencing is to be set on Tuesday.
Awlaki’s role in allegedly inciting “homegrown terrorism” was just a footnote in the volumes of evidence submitted in the Toronto case.
But in recent months, as Awlaki’s name has popped up in terrorism cases in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, intelligence services are closely monitoring the U.S.-born cleric.
“Awlaki is an exceptionally smart person,” says FBI consultant and terrorism researcher Evan Kohlmann, who has studied the 38-year-old for years. “He has the strongest statements of any English-language site.”
And this, from a New York Times article about Somalis from America being recruited to fight for al-Qaeda allies al-Shabab:
Mr. Hassan’s interest in the Islamist movement dovetailed with his own religious transformation, friends said. In the fall of 2007 he began downloading sermons onto his iPod and soon was attending the Abubakar mosque.
By then, Mr. Hassan had become upset by the reports of rapes in Somalia and set out to learn more about the insurgency, one friend recalled. He began talking of joining the movement as early as February 2008, around the same time that a friend from the mosque — Mr. Maruf, the former gang member — left for Somalia.
“I wanted to go, so I got to know him,” Mr. Hassan said in a recent telephone conversation from Somalia with a Minneapolis friend.
That May, he was incensed by a United States military air strike that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a leader of the Shabaab, along with at least 10 civilians. “How dare they?” Mr. Hassan demanded one afternoon at the student center. “Who is the terrorist?”
Mr. Hassan and another university student searched the Internet for jihadist videos and chat rooms, the friend said. They listened to “Constants on the Path to Jihad,” lectures by the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is suspected of inciting Muslims in the West to violence.
Whether Major Hasan’s actions were motivated by insanity or a jihadist ideology is a debate which will no doubt play out for a while, but his connection to Anwar al-Awlaki could well be a crucial detail casting light on this terrible affair.
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UPDATE:
The Telegraph has picked up on this story.
Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.
The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.
Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.
As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.
Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.
Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.
24 Comments
Gotta love the spin on the left.
And lo, we have now seen the debut of, ahem, Pre-Trauma Stress Disorder, the really real PTSD.
Pure tabloid hackery. I saw this line being pushed on Fox News which is where you probably got it.
“Shared an Imam”? Do you know anything about Muslims? The Imam is the person who leads prayers in the mosque . He is not a pope figure or parson responsable for the pastoral care of the people who go there or who they have to affiliate themselves with and follow
In the west, particularly in America, Muslims simply dont have a choice which mosque to go to. There is usually only one in the vicinity.
Youd really have to tie yourself in knots to come to that conclusion. Hasan attended the mosque in 2001 . Why would he wait 8 years to do this act?
Awlaki believes the US army is at war with Islam and it is forbidden to join th US army. . So how would anyone who joined the US army, as Hasan did, be following him?
If you want Hasans motive its poltical and psychological not theological
It is strongly recommended of all Muslims, anywhere, that they attend their most local mosque. However, it is simply untrue to suggest that in US bigger cities there is a limited number of mosques. San Diego, in particular, has a number of mosques – most of them, thankfully, not the dens of screaming clerical fascists like Al-Awlaki. Odd, then, that the Mad Major should have chosen Al-Awlaki as his spiritual guide.
Classic comedy gold. For an Islamist these issues are one and the same.
Abu Faris
So how on earth do you know Awlakis mosque wasnt Hasans local ?
If you want Hasans motive its poltical and psychological not theological
An Islamist would never in a million years join the US military. Youre a feckin idiot blinded by dogma.
Nidal Hasan was very possibly radicalised by his exposure to Al-Awlaki by visiting his mosque.
When he was in the UK, Al-Awlaki was backed by the MAB.
Other organisations who have shown a partiality to Anwar al-Awlaki include JIMAS, YMO and IFE.
Go on ‘winter’, try and explain this bit:
This is just because Hasan attended his most local mosque, right?
And no, I didn’t get this from Fox News. I don’t think I have ever watched Fox News. You can see what my sources were in my original article.
Try re-reading what I wrote before you launch into another bout of vituperative abuse, winter.
Here is an account from Naveed Ali Shah, a public affairs specialist in the U.S. Army:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/06/AR2009110602783.html?sid%3DST2009110603664&sub=AR
I’m, obviously, no fan of Awlaki but to single him out for blame seems a bit harsh. Awalaki, after all, left the US in 2002 – a whole seven years before this shooting. Although Malik may have followed Awlaki’s teachings online since them there will have been a whole range of other influences at play here – as will no doubt come to light in coming months…
al-Qanaas,
My aim was not to single out Awlaki for blame, indeed I do not believe I did that, it was to highlight an interesting detail.
Another person testifies about Hasan’s views:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aJ02vIcX4hTM&pos=8
Yossarian
يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإٍ۬ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ
Faisal
In other words Spittoon is responsible for all the words and actions of the unsavoury anti-Muslim characters it associates with.
Oh look, Munir’s back.
Yawn.
In other words Spittoon is responsible for all the words and actions of the unsavoury anti-Muslim characters it associates with.
When you say the The Spittoon “associates” with – which ones are you referring to? And of them, which are responsible for radicalising individuals or for justifying the murder of innocent individuals? Which of these have we sponsored and arranged to be flown over from Southasia or the Middle East, to preach hate and religious supremacism to our co-religionists?
If you’re going to use feeble whataboutery and cretinous moral relativism (but then what other kind is there?) to justify the actions of a clerical fascist and his British Muslim backers in the UK, beware where it takes you.
Yossarian asked Winter:
Winter replies, in Arabic, with the following entirely irrelevant ayat:
Qur’an 49: 6
Best to learn Arabic before you start slinging it about, Winter.
يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓاْ إِن جَآءَكُمۡ فَاسِقُۢ بِنَبَإٍ۬ فَتَبَيَّنُوٓاْ
This does have some relevance.
But the crucial word is the final one (tabayyanuu) meaning that, even if you consider me/the Telegraph to be faasiq, you should not simply reject the naba’ (information) which we provide, but should attempt to determine its value/distinguish truth from falsehood.
Yossarian its wonderful you see the wisdom of the Quran.
Isnt it time you accepted it as the word of God and that Muhammed (peace be upon him) was indeed a true messenger from God ?
Given that you have completely missed Yossarian’s point, perhaps it is you who should look past your own self-worship, and at the wisdom of the Quran, “winter”.
Ai
Absolutely. We all need to learn from the wisdom of the Quran and accept it. And thats what all the Muslims on Spittoon wish for Yossarian (and banana brain and others), that he/she comes to Islam , no matter how our own understanding of this perfect deen may be lacking.
I think it’s more important that you look to yourself first before you force your deen, lacking and self-referential that it is, upon others.
plus, i already have my own deen:
“Torah tsiwa lanoo Mosheh, morasha qehillath Ya’aqob” : the Torah commanded us by moses, an inheritance for the community of jacob – deuteronomy 33:4.
“Torathekha darkhei no’am we-kol nethibothekha shalom. Ets hayyim hi la-mahaziqim bah, wethomekhekha me-ushar”: [the Torah's] ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life for those that embrace her and all that hold on to her are happy. – proverbs 3:17-18
in other words, we remain as we have always remained and insha’Allah will always remain, the jewish people, striving to be a “light to the nations”.
b’shalom
bananabrain
There is a code word “Anaara Media” which is a global recruiting network for Islamic militants. This network is run by a gentleman by the name of Fuad Kamal, who is a trained munitions and explosives expert. Fuad Kamal is to radical Islam what Mickey Mouse is to the advent of cartoons. Mr. Kamal is a man to be watched and watched carefully.