Making the absence of proof a proof of its own, the Council on American-Islamic Relations argues that the FBI’s failure to identify Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as terrorist threats before the Boston Marathon bombings proves that counter-terror stings don’t work. That’s among a series of fatuous claims and misguided recommendations in written testimony CAIR submitted to a House committee last week.
The testimony minimized the theological underpinnings driving terrorism by al-Qaida and other Islamists and offered instead a series of grievances and misguided policy recommendations that do nothing to avoid future attacks like Boston’s.
CAIR long has cast FBI terrorism sting operations as entrapment, an argumentrejected by Attorney General Eric Holder and one that has never proven successful in court. Its proponents are wrong on the facts “or do not have a full understanding of the law,” Holder said in 2010.
Yet, in its testimony, CAIR said it “believes that stings should be executed to prevent crime, not create criminals.” Rather than stopping people like the Tsarnaevs – committed to waging jihad in the United States – CAIR said successful stings “contributed to a false sense of security within the FBI that led to its agents missing a more well-guarded threat like Tamerlan Tsarnaev. While well-publicized FBI sting operations create an official narrative that the government is preventing acts of terrorism, they have little to no effect in stopping real tragedies like the Boston attacks, the Fort Hood shooting, the growing list of mass shootings in places like Virginia Tech, Tucson, Arizona, Newtown, Connecticut, and Aurora, Colorado perpetrated by disturbed individuals, or near misses like the failed Times Square bombing.” [Emphasis original]
Under this logic, law enforcement gets no credit for interdicting a terrorist attack before anyone is hurt, but it gets the blame when people like the Tsarnaevs slip through the cracks. As we’ve noted, sting operations include numerous opportunities for the suspect to back out, but when they choose not to, the investigations thwart people determined to carry out mass casualty attacks in public places.
Islamist Watch (IW) maintains an extensive archive of news items on nonviolent Islamism in the Western world. The complete collection can be found here; lists organized by topic are accessible on the right side of the IW homepage.
The IW database includes dozens of articles scrutinizing the many narratives, questions, and controversies to arise in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings carried out by two Muslim immigrants, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Several key developments are highlighted below:
Political correctness at the FBI
Following reports that Russian officials had contacted Washington about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s extremism years ago — warnings investigated and then set aside by the FBI — some suspect that political correctness paved the path to the attack. “The FBI can’t talk about Islam and they can’t talk about jihad,” notes counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka, citing policies that de-emphasize radical Islam as a driver of violence. “I have zero doubt it affected their investigation of Tsarnaev,” adds specialist Patrick Poole. Congressmen have voiced concerns as well.
The FBI also dropped the ball prior to the Fort Hood bloodbath. In that case, the Washington field office cautioned its San Diego counterpart that probing Nidal Hasan was a “politically sensitive” subject, and internal emails classified Hasan’s messages to an al-Qaeda operative as mere “research.” Furthermore, building on its record of Muslim outreachfollies, the agency recently caved to Islamists on training and expunged “biased” materials. Its “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training” declares that if someone belongs to a group that engages in both violence and “constitutionally protected activities,” the FBI must not assume that the person is involved in the former. As columnist Matthew Vadum opines, “It’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that the FBI could not have done anything about Tsarnaev unless he strapped on a suicide vest in front of them, called them ‘infidels,’ and detailed his abominable plans.”
Left: The brutal reality of jihad was displayed on April 15, 2013. Right: The Islamic Society of Boston may appear friendly from the outside, but its history tells a very different tale.
Radicalism at the Islamic Society of Boston
As the authorities trace the Tsarnaev brothers’ road to extremism, some point to the Cambridge mosque they attended. Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance has stated that “if the story emerges that they were radicalized in America … the Islamic Society of Boston [ISB] and its leaders provide an interesting place to look.” Indeed they do. The ISB’s first president was Abdurahman Alamoudi, now imprisoned in connection with an assassination plot. Muslim Brotherhood cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was listed among its trustees, and multiple convicted terrorists, including “Lady al-Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, prayed on the premises. Sheikh Ahmed Mansour, a reformist Muslim, recently reflected on a past visit: “Their writings and teachings were fanatical. … I left Egypt to escape the Muslim Brotherhood, but I had found it there.”
In positive news, Governor Deval Patrick’s office withdrew an invitation to Suhaib Webb, imam of the affiliated ISB Cultural Center (ISBCC) in Roxbury, to speak at an interfaith service on April 18. The center is managed by the Muslim American Society (MAS), which, according to prosecutors, “was founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” Another ISBCC imam once exhorted congregants to “grab on to the gun and the sword” in Siddiqui’s defense. “Officials who change course when confronted with the facts need to be commended,” the Clarion Project’s Ryan Mauro explains. “Thank [the governor] by contacting his office here.”
Rays of light in the media darkness
While many media outlets downplayed jihad, others were surprisingly candid: USA Today ran a detailed piece on the ISB’s radicalism. The Islamist-friendly Bill O’Reilly blasted Nihad Awad of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for denying Islam’s role in terrorism. Bill Maher mocked Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, when he asserted that “it’s not like people who are Muslim who do wacky things have a monopoly on it.” Maher called the idea that all faiths are equal in terms of inspiring violence “liberal bulls—t,” perhaps opening the eyes of viewers who reflexively discount criticism of Islam from the right.
Daniel Pipes sees the Boston bombings as “education by murder,” noting that Westerners “learn best about Islamism when blood flows in the streets.” This process is aided when the bloodshed encourages prominent media figures to overcome inhibitions and speak truthfully about jihad.
Left: Bill Maher asked Brian Levin whether a show about Islam similar to the raucous Book of Mormon could run on Broadway without violence. “Possibly so,” he replied, convincing no one. Right: Ibrahim Hooper admits that revenge attacks against Muslims have been rare.
Post-terror backlash fails to materialize yet again
Amid the predictablehype about anti-Muslim backlash — which almost never occurs — the Associated Press relays this refreshingly frank tidbit: “Muslim civil rights leaders say the anti-Islam reaction has been more muted this time than after other attacks since Sept. 11. … Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations … said his organization has seen no uptick in reports of harassment, assaults, or damage to mosques since the April 15 bombings.”
No surprise here: Muslims in the U.S. actually suffer hate crimes at a lower rate than blacks, Jews, or gays. Blogger Brendan O’Neill sums it up: “Time and again, left-leaning campaigners and observers respond to terror attacks in the West by panicking about the possibly racist response of Joe Public — and time and again, their fears prove ill-founded and Joe Public proves himself a more decent, tolerant person than they give him credit for. What this reveals is that liberal concern over Islamophobia, liberal fretting about anti-Muslim bigotry, is ironically driven by a bigotry of its own, by an deeply prejudiced view of everyday people as hateful and stupid.”
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For additional news and analysis, please visit the IW website.
Megyn Kelly and Michelle Malkin Call Out Eric Holder on Lame Warning of Retaliation Against Muslims:
The FBI’s list of “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives dates back to 1950 but the list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” dates back to just after 9/11 and a sense that terrorism had become a strategic threat. Today, the list includes 31 individuals, all of them male and with a single exception (Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal rights extremist), all of them Muslim:
Abd al Aziz Awda – 1950, Palestinian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed Al-Nasser – ca. 1947, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
Abdul Rahman Yasin – 1960, American, World Trade Center bombing in 1993
Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah – 1963, Egyptian, Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings in 1998
Adam Yahiye Gadahn – 1978, American, Al-Qaeda
Adnan G. El Shukrijumah – 1975, Guyanese, Al-Qaeda
Ahmad Ibrahim Al-Mughassil – 1967, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
Ali Atwa – ca. 1960, Lebanese, TWA hijacking in 1985
Ali Saed Bin Ali El-Hoorie – 1965, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
Anas Al-Liby – 1964, Libyan, Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings in 1998
Hakimullah Mehsud – ca. 1980, Pakistani, Pakistani Taliban
Hasan Izz-Al-Din – 1963, Lebanese, TWA hijacking in 1985
Husayn Muhammad Al-Umari – 1936, Lebanese, 15 May Organization
Ibrahim Salih Mohammed Al-Yacoub – 1966, Saudi, Saudi Hizbullah
Isnilon Totoni Hapilon – 1966, Filipino, Abu Sayyaf Group
Jaber A. Elbaneh – 1966, Yemeni, Al-Qaeda
Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim – 1965, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali Al-Badawi – 1960, Yemeni, USS Cole bombing in 2000
Jehad Serwan Mostafa – 1981, American, Al-Shabaab
Mohammed Ali Hamadei – 1964, Lebanese, Lebanese Hizbullah
Muhammad Abdullah Khalil Hussain Ar-Rahayyal – 1965, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
Muhammad Ahmed Al-Munawar – 1965, Palestinian, Abu Nidal Organization
Omar Shafik Hammami – 1984, American, Al-Shabaab
Raddulan Sahiron – ca. 1936, Filipino, Abu Sayyaf Group
Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah – 1958, Palestinian, Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Saif Al-Adel – ca. 1960, Egyptian, Al-Qaeda
Wadoud Muhammad Hafiz Al-Turki – 1955, Palestinian, Pan Am hijacking in 1986
Zulkifli Abdhir – 1966, Malaysian, Kumpulun Mujahidin Malaysia
Comments:
(1) Muslims make up 30 out of 31 most wanted terrorists, or about 97 percent of them. That’s a pretty good indication of what Bernard Lewis’ 1990 article famously called “Muslim rage” and why Islam-related issues have such prominence.
(2). Islamists make up 27 out of those 30; only the three perpetrators of the Pan Am 73 hijacking in 1986 (Rahayyal, Munawar, Turki), all connected to the Abu Nidal Organization, are not Islamists (or at least were not in 1986). This predominance of jihad reflects the Islamist hegemony among politically extreme Muslims.
(3) Ethnic Arabs make up 25 of the 30 terrorists. The largest numbers are 4 each of Lebanese, Palestinians, and Saudis, 3 each of Americans and Egyptians. Non-ethnic Arabs include 2 Filipinos, 1 Malaysian, 1 Pakistani, and 1 American convert. This high percentage confirms the sense that Arabic-speakers have the most pent-up hostility toward Americans.
(4) Most attacks by these most wanted fugitives date from the 1980s and 1990s – Khobar, TWA 847, East African embassies, WTC bombing. Symbolically of this relative antiquity, the only American airlines attacked by them were Pan American and TWA, both long defunct. This points to the greater success since 9/11 in both foiling and tracking terrorism, thanks to greater resources and more diligence.
(5) Also reflecting the long-ago quality of this most wanted list, note the striking pattern of their decadal birthdates:
The average age is close to 50 – not exactly the prime time of life for terrorism. The youngest listee, Hammami, will be 29 years old in less than a week. The eldest two, Umari and Sahiron, are approaching 80. (April 30, 2013)
Khera’s letter to Brennan complained that my books could be found in “the FBI’s library at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia”; that a reading list accompanying a powerpoint presentation by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Communications Unit recommended my book The Truth About Muhammad; and that in July 2010 I “presented a two-hour seminar on ‘the belief system of Islamic jihadists’ to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Tidewater, Virginia,” and “presented a similar lecture to the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, which is co-hosted by the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office.”
In fact, I gave many such presentations to various government agencies and law enforcement groups. This was amid many other complaints about similar material from other writers, and presentations by other counter-jihadists. So now all that material is gone, and the witless and politically correct FBI of today ignored Tamerlan Tsarnaev despite repeated warnings from Russian authorities. And if they did investigate him, they didn’t know what to look for or how to understand what they were seeing.
The Leftist journalists and Islamic supremacist groups who pressured Obama (as well as Obama and his administration officials themselves) ought to be held accountable for the law enforcement and intelligence failures connected to the Boston jihad bombings.
Russian authorities warned the Obama administration repeatedly — not merely once — that Boston Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev could be an Islamic terrorist, but those admonitions went unheeded in Washington, D.C.
It’s a depressingly familiar tale of intelligence failures, official lies, politically correct posturing, and bureaucratic bungles coming from an administration that has little interest in protecting Americans from the Islamic terrorist threat, a danger President Obama refuses even to acknowledge.
Time magazine previously reported that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) warned the U.S. government about Tsarnaev a single time two years ago, after he frequented a radical mosque in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, during a six-month visit to that politically unstable, jihadist-friendly Russian republic. The mosque is reportedly a terrorist hangout.
But the Boston Globe now reports there were several such warnings.
On Tuesday, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were told during a briefing closed to the public that Russia made “multiple contacts” with the United States regarding Tsarnaev, including “at least once since October 2011,’’ Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) told reporters.
The FBI previously acknowledged its investigators interviewed Tsarnaev in early 2011 but did not determine him to be a threat. He was not placed on the “no-fly” list.
As FrontPage reported last September, FBI agents aren’t allowed to treat individuals associated with terrorist groups as potential threats to the nation.
The fact that a terrorism suspect is associated with a terrorist group officially means nothing, according to the FBI document, “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training.”
After first handcuffing FBI agents investigating terrorism, the “Touchstone” document also invokes the gods of political correctness by making agents afraid of asking useful questions that might produce actionable information.
“Training must emphasize that no investigative or intelligence collection activity may be based solely on race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation,” the Touchstone document reads, borrowing some language from civil rights legislation.
“Specifically, training must focus on behavioral indicators that have a potential nexus to terrorist or criminal activity, while making clear that religious expression, protest activity, and the espousing of political or ideological beliefs are constitutionally protected activities that must not be equated with terrorism or criminality absent other indicia of such offenses.”
It’s not that much of an exaggeration to say that the FBI could not have done anything about Tsarnaev unless he strapped on a suicide vest in front of them, called them “infidels,” and detailed his abominable plans. Diverting attention away from the Obama White House, the Boston Globe article fatuously editorializes that the new revelation of multiple warnings from the FSB raises “new questions about whether the FBI should have focused more attention on the suspected Boston Marathon bomber.”
With a few lucky breaks, last week’sBoston Marathon bombing could have had a dramatically different outcome. Had Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sought help building their bombs on jihadist web forums, FBI agents likely would have detected it.
They would have sent in an undercover operative or an informant. And the Tsarnaevs would have been arrested as they tried to detonate their bombs, which had been rendered inert by the FBI.
And it would have elicited howls of protest from Islamists and their supporters.
Instead, four people are dead, including the MIT police officer killed in Friday’s shootout, and more than 150 people are injured. Many have lost limbs. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction.
It is easy to imagine the reaction had investigators discovered him and his brother sooner.
“Entrapment!” defense attorneys would argue. “The FBI is fabricating terror threats, using hapless stooges incapable of harming anyone,” Islamist advocacy groups would say.
We know this because this is how the scenario has played out dozens of times in recent years. But last week’s bombing shows you don’t need to be a master criminal to murder and maim innocent people. The ingredients to build the pressure-cooker bombs came straight out of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazine. The brainchild of American-born operative Samir Khan – killed in a 2011 drone strike along with fellow American Anwar al-Awlaki – Inspire offered suggestions for small-scale, homegrown jihadi attacks in each issue.
Instructions for the pressure-cooker bomb came from an article headlined “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.” A subsequent article referred to that recipe and advised that pressure cooker bombs should be “placed in crowded areas and left to blow up. More than one of these could be planted to explode at the same time. However, keep in mind that the range of the shrapnel in this operation is short range so the pressurized cooker or pipe should be placed close to the intended targets and should not be concealed from them by barriers such as walls.”
The Boston Marathon bombs blew up within 12 seconds of each other, about a block apart.
The Tsarnaevs succeeded in carrying out an attack where others have come close, but failed. At least two other would-be terrorists came chillingly close to attacks that likely would have triggered more casualties than were suffered in Boston. Faisal Shahzad parked an explosive-laden car in Times Square. But he made mistakes in the chemical composition and it failed to detonate.
In Texas, Naser Jason Abdo had copies of Inspire magazine in his hotel room, and ingredients for pressure-cooker bombs, when police swooped in. Abdo was nabbed thanks to an alert gun store owner who took notice and called authorities after Abdo arrived by taxi cab to a fairly remote outlet and acted suspiciously.
His plan was to detonate the bombs at a restaurant popular with Fort Hood personnel and then shoot survivors as they scrambled out of the debris. He did it out of a sense of religious duty.
But, as we have repeatedlychronicled, FBI sting operations meant to interdict terrorists before they strike, are condemned routinely as misguided and unnecessary. Islamist advocacy groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) say the FBI is creating terrorists who otherwise would not turn violent.
The FBI, “by using informants acting as agent provocateurs, has recruited more so called extremist Muslims than al-Qaida themselves,” CAIR-Michigan Director Dawud Walid said in 2010. The use of informants are among “self-deluding initiatives that seem to seek terror-case quotas,” CAIR Chicago’s Ahmed Rehab wrote in 2009.
“What the FBI came and did was enable them to become actual terrorists, and then came and saved the day,” CAIR-San Francisco’s Zahra Billoo said in 2010. The FBI “is creating these huge terror plots where they don’t exist.”
But Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent and a veteran of some sting operations, defended the practice as vital for national security.
“As you can’t prosecute someone just for professing a desire to kill Americans, and you can’t read minds to determine if they really intend to carry out their threats, either you wait to see if the real al Qaeda gets in contact—and hope you can track them—or you intercede,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal book review. “Most Americans would no doubt prefer the latter option to taking a serious gamble with civilian lives.”
How many Boston Marathon attacks does it take to emphasize that point? How many dead 8 year olds, exchange students or innocent young women are enough to make interdiction acceptable?
The FBI was ordered by Congress to carry out an external review of its efforts to combat domestic radicalization less than a month before two Chechen-born terrorists bombed the Boston marathon.
Congress mandated last month that the FBI submit to an outside review of its “response to trends of domestic terror attacks since September 11, 2001, including the influence of domestic radicalization,” according to language contained in the 2013 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act passed to avoid a government-wide shutdown.
The funding bill was signed into law on March 26 and allocated $500,000 to the “comprehensive external review,” according to the bill.
“The timing of the review is important, given the reports about radicalization of the two suspects involved in the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks last week,” according of the office of Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), who authored the amendment initiating the review.
The FBI was reportedly warned by Russian intelligence services that Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with the police, was suspected of having terrorist ties.
The FBI is said to have interviewed Tsarnaev in 2011 following the tip but determined he did not pose a threat. Critics have called this a stunning intelligence failure in the wake of the Boston attack.
The external authority charged with reviewing the FBI will seek to determine if the law enforcement organization has improved its ability to detect and respond to domestic acts of terror.
“The motivation behind the language is to have fresh eyes on this constantly evolving threat and to improve practices within the Bureau, particularly in light of the terrorist attacks involving radicalized Americans, like the brothers suspected in the Boston attacks and Maj. [Nidal] Hasan at Ft. Hood,” Rep. Wolf said in a statement Monday.
Those reviewing the FBI will also provide “any additional recommendations with regard to FBI intelligence sharing and counterterrorism policy,” according to the legislation.
The Congressional Research Service has reported since the 9/11 terror attacks that “hundreds of individuals have been implicated in more than 50 homegrown violent jihadist plots or attacks,” according to Wolf’s office.
The FBI came under criticism from lawmakers over the weekend for what they say is its failure to have identified Tsarnaev as threat prior to last week’s terrorist bombing.
Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) warned, “this is the latest in a series of cases like this” during an interview Sunday on Fox News.
King said this is just the latest example of the FBI having been “given information about someone as being potential terrorist, they look at them, and then they don’t take action, and then they [the terrorists] go out and carry out murders after this,” King said. “I’m wondering if there’s something deficient here.”
Tsarnaev is suspected of having ties to Chechen Islamists and possibly al Qaeda.
It came to light over the weekend that Tsarnaev had traveled to Dagestan, a Russian territory that is the home to Islamic terrorists.
There have been at least five terrorists, including the Fort Hood shooter, who have gone on to carry out terrorist attacks following contact with the FBI.
BREAKING NEWS: The FBI has identified two suspects in Monday’s the Boston Marathon bombing, releasing photos and video showing them and asking the public to help locate them.
The suspects, one of whom wore a a dark ballcap and the other who wore backwards white ballcap,appear to be in their twenties and were captured on footage near where one of two explosions killed three and injured 176. In video that appears to be from a surveillance camera and which was shown by the FBI, both suspects are walking west on Boylston Street, near the finish line and where the explosions occurred.
“We consider them to be extremely dangerous and armed,” said FBI Special Agent Rick Deslauriers. “With the Media’s help, we know the public will create a critical role in locating these suspects.
“The nation is counting on those with info to come forward,” he added, urging anyone who recognizes the men to call 1-800-CALL-FBI or go to the bureau’s website, FBI.gov.
Deslauriers said investigators first focused on one man, then realized he appeared to be working with another man.
“Through the last day or so, we developed a single person of interest,” Deslauriers said. “Indeed though that process we have identified a second suspect. We believe they are associated.”
The second suspect was seen dropping a backpack as both walked single file on Boylston Street, where both of the bombs exploded, Deslauriers said. It is believed that was the second bomb, which went off 12 seconds after the first one, at about 2:50 p.m.
It could not be determined from the photos whether the suspect terrorists were homegrown of foreign, but Deslauriers said the pictures will be distributed internationally.
“Someobody out there knows them as friends, coworkers,” Deslauriers said. “Although it may be difficult, we are counting on those [people] to come forward.”
A newly released FBI report indicates that an unnamed male once received a check from radical imam Anwar al-Awlaki for $280 and gave a check for $175 to Nawaf Al-Hamzi, a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 77 that flew into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The transactions suggest that al-Awlaki funded Al-Hamzi through this unnamed intermediary.
This is the third report in the last two months of a U.S.-based imam having helped to finance terrorism.
Hat tip to El Grillo for tweeting this press release from Judicial Watch on Mar. 28:
JW Obtains FBI Records Detailing Banking Activity and Purchases Linking Anwar al-Aulaqi and 9/11 Hijackers
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received documents on March 4, 2013 from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that raise new questions about close ties between Anwar al Aulaqi, the U.S.-born terrorist assassinated by a U.S. drone in Yemen on September 30, 2011, and Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar, two of the five hijackers who attacked the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In the documents the FBI describes al Aulaqi as “The Spiritual Leader of the Hijackers.”
Judicial Watch received the documents in response to a June, 2012, Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI and the U.S. Department of State (DOS) (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State and Federal Bureau of Investigations (No. 1:12-cv-00893). They are part of Judicial Watch’s ongoing investigation of al Qaeda in the United States, including its current operations and support network.
Materials received by Judicial Watch reveal the following information the FBI regarded as worthy of investigation in its probe of ties between al Aulaqi and the 9/11 hijackers:
An undated FBI report indicates an individual received a check for $281.50 from al Aulaqi and wrote a check for $175 to al Hazmi on July 7, 2001. There is no additional information about the transactions. The FBI apparently found the transaction to be of investigative interest because, depending on the identity of the intermediary party, it could indicate direct assistance from al Aulaqi to al Hazmi.
On 9/13/2001, FBI agents took possession of and searched the vehicle al Aulaqi rented in San Diego on 9/8/2001 (which he kept for one day and drove only 37 miles). While there is no report regarding the results of the search, the action highlights the FBI’s interest in al Aulaqi and suspicions about his trip to San Diego, home to both al Hazmi and al Mihdhar leading up to the attacks.
An FBI report dated 10/24/2001 indicates that the Bureau became aware three days after the 9/11 attacks (9/14/2001) that al Aulaqi had rented a Mailboxes Etc. mail drop in Falls Church, VA. The mail box was the subject of a federal grand jury subpoena.
“The more we learn about Anwar al Aulaqi, the more questions arise not only about his activities before and after 9/11, but also about the al Qaeda operational and support network still active in the United States,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is now even more concerning that al Aulaqi was invited to the Pentagon after 9/11 and then let go by the FBI despite warrants for his arrest.”
An earlier release of FBI documents obtained by a Judicial Watch FOIA and reported by Fox News suggest that the FBI was aware on September 27, 2001, that al Aulaqi had purchased airplane tickets for three of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers, including mastermind Mohammed Atta. Subsequent to the FBI’s discovery, al Aulaqi was detained and released by authorities at least twice and had been invited to dine at the Pentagon…
Previous evidence showed that Al-Hamzi and fellow future hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar regarded their San Diego neighbor Al-Awlaki as a spiritual adviser, but the extent of Awlaki’s concrete support for the duo had not been firmly established.
Making the absence of proof a proof of its own, the Council on American-Islamic Relations argues that the FBI’s failure to identify Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as terrorist threats before the Boston Marathon bombings proves that counter-terror stings don’t work. That’s among a series of fatuous claims and misguided recommendations in written testimony CAIR submitted to a House committee last week.
With a few lucky breaks, last week’s
