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The rich kid with a brilliant school record was a ticking time bomb even before he turned up as an international student living in his father’s mansion block apartment in Britain. Classmates remember Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as such a pious youth that he was nicknamed “Imam” and “the Pope” after rebuking them for failing to live up to religious principles. Suicide bombers typically take half a dozen years to descend from religious fanaticism to “martyrdom”, which appears to be the case for this young Nigerian, a security expert said. Acting alone as a “clean skin” rather than by mingling with...

Sana’a – A US-born radical cleric is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts, friends and relatives said Friday. The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level Al-Qaeda operatives in Thursday’s airstrike in the remote Shabwa region. It claimed at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including Anwar Al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the shooter in last month’s attack at the Fort Hood military base in the US. In addition to Al-Awlaki, the top leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (in Saudi Arabia...

The Yemeni-American imam who's been under renewed scrutiny after the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, preaches against alcohol, birthday parties, black magic and extramarital sex. He also supports armed struggle — jihad — against the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has encouraged extremist insurgents in Pakistan and Somalia. None of that sets Anwar al Awlaki, 38, apart from other militant Sunni Muslim clerics — and even many mainstream ones — in the Middle East. Awlaki uses digital means to spread his views, however, through a blog, lectures on YouTube and Facebook pages with more than 1,000 fans....

ADD to post no. 105: http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/terror_complaint.pdf http://www2.lasvegasnow.com/docs/terror_indict.pdf LAS VEGAS, NV — SNIPPET: “The real end, however, came in a Minnesota Federal Court. Two weeks ago, the FBI arrested Abdow Munye Abdow for two counts of making false statements to a federal official. The FBI believes Abdow lied about his trip to Las Vegas, and a passenger he was with who was on the terrorism watch list. The Nevada Highway Patrol pulled over Abdow and four other people on October 6, 2009 for speeding. Trooper Alan Davidson, a spokesperson for NHP, said the officer on the scene began asking questions.” SNIPPET:...

The title page of Nidal Hasan's PowerPoint demonstration for a medical lecture in June 2007, indicates how little interest he took in medicine and how much in the perceived contradiction between being a Muslim and an American soldier. As the Pentagon and Senate launch what one analyst dubs "dueling Fort Hood investigations," will they confront the hard truth of the Islamic angle? Despite encouraging references to "violent Islamists" by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Democrat of Connecticut), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, there is reason to worry about a whitewash of the massacre that took place on Nov. 5; that is...

United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, "I can't wait to join you" in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.

The Army psychiatrist accused of the Fort Hood massacre apparently acted alone and without outside direction in the attack, investigative officials said Monday evening. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan will be charged by the U.S. military rather than in a civilian court, they said. Although investigative officials portrayed Hasan as a lone wolf, the investigators and a U.S. official disclosed that Hasan communicated 10 to 20 times with a radical imam overseas who in the past came under scrutiny for possible links to terror groups. The investigative officials said the communications began last year and continued into this year and "were...

And so a personnel file already teeming with red flags gets another giant one. If you’re wondering how a British newspaper managed to track down this information when the U.S. military apparently couldn’t, you’re not alone. There’s no question now that we need congressional hearings into how the army missed the warning signs on Hasan, especially given the suspicions as to why they might have looked the other way. Chop chop, Messrs. Boehner and Cantor. 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...

The journalists at the center of an embarrassing scandal for the grass-roots organization ACORN also paid a visit to the ACORN office in San Diego County. Grass-roots organizing has gotten a black eye on the national stage after undercover videos involving ACORN, a controversial group with a local office, were released that were shot during a series of visits from a hidden-camera crew. At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, a video was broadcast on Fox's "Hannity" that purported to show a San Diego ACORN staffer discussing human trafficking with two people who were undercover. Earlier in the day, local ACORN officials,...

Investigators are trying to determine whether a San Diego sailor passed Navy secrets about security weaknesses and warship movements to a British man accused of having terrorist links, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. E-mail messages from the unnamed sailor, sent in late 2000 and 2001 before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were found in December in computer files belonging to Babar Ahmad, who was detained Wednesday in London, according to the 31-page arrest affidavit. The computer files contained details about security arrangements and movements of the San Diego-based Constellation carrier battle group, which included the destroyer Benfold, on which...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - A driver stopped on an Iowa highway this month was found with flight-training manuals, Arabic documents and night-vision goggles, and he told troopers he knew of terrorist plans to shoot up trains in San Diego, according to court papers. Michael Wagner, 44, of San Diego, said he had knowledge of terrorist activities and people and groups tied to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Wagner also said that he knew about things in the Muslim communities in San Diego that would interest federal authorities.

The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency. The program is a spin-off from The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, by acclaimed investigative reporter James Bamford, due out in a matter of days. The FBI denied Rossini...

9/11 Panel Questions Two Hijackers' Help Sept. 11 Commission Wonders Why Two Hijackers Got Help From Two Muslim Men When in U.S. The Associated Press WASHINGTON June 27, 2004 — The FBI long has contended that not a single al-Qaida operative in the United States collaborated with the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks. Yet the commission investigating the attacks has identified two Muslim men who may have had advance knowledge of the plot. The commission found that two hijackers got substantial help from Mohdar Abdullah and Anwar Aulaqi after settling in California in 2000. The bipartisan panel created...

An Indian-born U.S. citizen was sentenced Monday to more than five years in prison for his role in a plot to obtain and sell Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban and al-Qaida. Ilyas Ali, 58, formerly of St. Paul, Minn. also was ordered to serve five years probation following his release. Ali pleaded guilty in 2004 to one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and hashish, and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. Two other men both from Pakistan pleaded guilty to the same charges. Muhamed Abid Afridi, 32, also was sentenced to nearly five years...