Awlaki played supporting role in 9-11 according to new book

Eli Lake:

American-born jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki likely played an important support role in the Sept. 11 attacks nearly 10 years ago, according to a new book that examines the threat of home-grown terrorism.

The book, “The Next Wave,” by Fox News national security reporter Catherine Herridge, reveals new documents that find al-Awlaki was nearly arrested after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon for providing false information on his passport application. Today, al-Awlaki is one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the only known American citizen on a U.S. hit list in the global war on terrorism.

“I believe the evidence supports the conclusion that Anwar Awlaki was an overlooked key player in the 9/11 plot itself, and his contacts with the hijackers were not coincidences but evidence of a purposeful relationship,” Ms. Herridge told the Washington Times in an interview Friday.

Ms. Herridge found that two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, first went to a San Diego neighborhood where al- Awlaki was living. Later, al-Hazmi came to the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Falls Church, where al-Awlaki became an imam in January 2001. A third 9/11 hijacker, Hani Hanjour, also came to al-Awlaki’s mosque in this period.

Ms. Herridge also discovered that U.S. diplomatic security wanted to arrest al-Awlaki in 2002 for passport fraud and that he illegally received a $20,000 scholarship for foreign students when he was a U.S. citizen.

The new evidence disclosed in Ms. Herridge’s book raises serious doubts about the mainstream narrative concerning al-Awlaki. After 9/11, U.S. authorities considered him a moderate Muslim leader. It is thought that he only became interested in al-Qaeda after he moved to London in 2003. Today, he is a spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was in contact with Maj. Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

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It is doubtful Awlaki will ever challenge her version of events, at least not in the US. His subsequent conduct certainly suggest she is on to something. With all the complaints about the Bush Justice Department, the failure to charge and arrest Awlaki runs against the liberal narrative.