Fort Hood shooter was being 'monitored' for al Qaeda ties

Telegraph:

Hasan, who was shot four times during his attack, has been informed by doctors that he killed 13 people and injured dozens more.

FBI agents and military investigators were last night waiting to interview him.

Intelligence officers are said to have known months ago about Hasan’s attempts to reach the terror network through the internet but decided to monitor him, hoping it would lead them to al-Qaeda operatives. It was thought Hasan might lead them to a “big fish” and there was no indication he was about to carry out an attack of his own, one source said.

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It emerged on Monday that Hasan had been in contact with Awlak within the last year.

Communications, believed to be emails, were intercepted by US intelligence services. They were examined at the time but it was decided that they did not require following up.

The disclosure will open US authorities to criticism that they failed to recognise warning signs and fuel fears that Hasan was in contact with extremists abroad prior to the shootings.

In a posting on his website on Monday, headed “Nidal Hasan Did The Right Thing”, Awlak said Hasan had carried out a “heroic and virtuous” act and the only way a Muslim could justify serving in the US Army was to “follow in the footsteps of Nidal Hasan”.

He said: “Nidal Hasan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people.”

The CIA will preserve intelligence files it holds relating to Hasan’s attempts to contact al-Qaeda. Hasan, an army psychiatrist, is known to have posted comments about suicide bombers on the internet six months ago that were noticed by US intelligence agencies. A computer he used in the weeks before the massacre is being examined.

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The problem with the observation mode is that it was incomplete. If investigators had also talked with his colleagues and looked at his statements in a seminar, it would have given them a more complete picture of the danger he posed. Of Course the CIA cannot do that, but the FBI could have if they ahd been informed of his communications.