Anwar al-Awlaki shared a special relationship with the FBI
A follow-up search of State Department emails has turned up over 1,300 emails on arch terrorist Anwar Al-Awlaki authored by top aides to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The “belatedly discovered” emails came to light after Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request, Josh Gerstein writes for Politico.In November US District Court Judge John Bates refused to expedite the release of five emails referring to al-Awlaki from Clinton’s private account. The State Department argued speeding up the process to release of the emails “would just expand and extrapolate the burden on the State Department” said Justice Department lawyer Stephen Elliott.
“It’s unclear how many of the newly discovered Al-Awlaki-related messages are substantive and how many are news reports forwarded by State officials,” Gerstein writes.
Documents released in October 2014 revealed al-Awlaki had worked with the FBI following the attacks of September 11 2001. His status afforded him special privileges.
Major Player in Terror Plots
According to the government al-Awlaki played a key role in the Fort Hood attack carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the botched Christmas Day bombing by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and the foiled Times Square attack attributed to Faisal Shahzad.
He is also said to have inspired the supposed Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzkhokhar Tsarnaev.
Al-Awlaki is connected to other world-be terrorists, including Quazi Nafis who is said to have attempted to bomb the New York Federal Reserve Building and also five men convicted of an abortive plot to attack the Fort Dix army base in New Jersey.
FBI informants played a key role in directing the Fort Dix plot. According to a report published by Mother Jones and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California-Berkley, the FBI routinely recruits patsies and encourages them to engage in terror plots. The effort is so blatant even The New York Times reported on it.
In June 2002 a federal judge in Denver signed an arrest warrant for al-Awlaki for passport fraud. Despite this FBI Agent Wade Ammerman ordered al-Awlaki to be released from custody at JFK International Airport when he returned from a trip abroad. The American born cleric was a top CIA target and named a serious threat by the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service at the time.
“There have been so many missed opportunities in getting the bad guys, but it’s one thing to have a bad guy working with you and for you and actually in your custody and then letting them go,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told Fox News.
Al-Awlaki was a lunch guest of military brass at the Pentagon following the 9/11 attacks. Documents obtained by Fox News after the Fort Hood shooting in November 2009 state al-Awlaki was invited to the Pentagon as part of a military outreach program to the Muslim community in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
He “was considered to be an ‘up and coming’ member of the Islamic community. After her vetting, Aulaqi (Awlaki) was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army’s Office of Government Counsel.”
The Pentagon visit occurred despite the FBI saying shortly after 9/11 that two of the alleged hijackers had prayed regularly in al-Awlaki’s mosque in San Diego and one of those hijackers and a third attended a mosque he later ran near Washington. He was interviewed by the FBI three times in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks.
In 2003 al-Awlaki talked with FBI Special Agent Icey Jenkins and had her pass a message to Wade Ammerman stating he wanted to arrange a meeting with the agency to dispute his alleged involvement in the attacks.
By 2010 al-Awlaki had apparently served his purpose and was added to the official list of designated terrorists by the US Treasury Department and the United Nations Security Council. After he reportedly issued a video calling for attacks on America, the CIA tracked him down to al-Jawf, Yemen and on September 30, 2011 he was purportedly killed during a drone attack. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of Anwar, was killed in a separate drone attack two weeks later.
The content of the emails discovered on Clinton’s server was not divulged but considering al-Awlaki’s relationship with the FBI and the Pentagon the emails would certainly be an interesting read.