The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar
who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August
because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing
terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's
teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas,
the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the
mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar
al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west co...

read more»

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar
who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August
because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing
terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's
teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas,
the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the
mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar
al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later
the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his
services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will
now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of
Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an
"al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11
hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging
terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen".

Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San
Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a "stable" condition. Born in America to a
Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign
up for the US military against his parents' wishes.

A chilling precursor

Saturday, November 7, 2009

20 years ago this month before Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on his murderous shooting spree, Sgt. Ali Mohamed, a radical Egyptian enlisted in the U.S. Army and got posted to Fort Bragg, N.C. On weekends he traveled to New York City where he trained the cell responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Day of Terror plot to blow up the U.N. the FBI's New York office and the bridges & tunnels into Manhattan. An al Qaeda spy who hid in plain sight as he stole Top Secret documents from the highly secure J.F.K. Special Warfare School at Bragg, Mohamed even made Army training videos in which he declared that it was the "duty" ...

A chilling precursor

Saturday, November 7, 2009

20 years ago this month before Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan went on his murderous shooting spree, Sgt. Ali Mohamed, a radical Egyptian enlisted in the U.S. Army and got posted to Fort Bragg, N.C. On weekends he traveled to New York City where he trained the cell responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Day of Terror plot to blow up the U.N. the FBI's New York office and the bridges & tunnels into Manhattan. An al Qaeda spy who hid in plain sight as he stole Top Secret documents from the highly secure J.F.K. Special Warfare School at Bragg, Mohamed even made Army training videos in which he declared that it was the "duty" of all Muslims to overthrow the secular governments of countries so that Islamic law could prevail. Among the many questions being asked of the U.S. Army in the aftermath of the Fort Hood mass killings, is how Maj. Hasan could have risen to the rank he had and counseled other soldiers while apparently expressing similar radical views. If Santayana was correct and "he who forgets history is doomed to relieve it," the FBI and DIA officials probing the Hasan case need to re-examine the terrorism record of Sgt. Ali Mohamed aka "Ali Amirki," or "Ali, the American." The following is an excerpt from my definitive biography of Mohamed: TRIPLE CROSS: How Bin Laden's Master Spy Infiltrated the CIA, the Green Berets and the FBI. CLICK:


http://web.me.com/netgraph1/peterlance.com/Ali_Mohamed.html

Contrary to previous reports, Hasan's military personnel record
indicates that he did not apply for an early discharge from the army,
as a conscientious objector or for any other reason, according to
military officials. Hasan, who was born in the US to Palestinian
parents, was widely understood to have sought and been denied an early
separation from the army, a factor that could have helped explain why
he allegedly snapped and went on the shooting rampage.

Family
members have said that Hasan sought desperately to leave the army,
especially ahead of an expected deployment to Afghanistan. A cousin in
the West Bank has said that as recently as a week before the incident
the...

read more»

Contrary to previous reports, Hasan's military personnel record
indicates that he did not apply for an early discharge from the army,
as a conscientious objector or for any other reason, according to
military officials. Hasan, who was born in the US to Palestinian
parents, was widely understood to have sought and been denied an early
separation from the army, a factor that could have helped explain why
he allegedly snapped and went on the shooting rampage.

Family
members have said that Hasan sought desperately to leave the army,
especially ahead of an expected deployment to Afghanistan. A cousin in
the West Bank has said that as recently as a week before the incident
the army rejected Hasan's effort to gain an early separation. The army,
short on psychiatrists and desperate to retain Arab-Americans among its
ranks, was highly unlikely to accede to such a request from Hasan,
having paid for his medical training.

But the Pentagon has found
no evidence Hasan ever formally sought to leave the military. Another
indication Hasan had not put in for a discharge: He was promoted to the
rank of major in May, after an army board endorsed his performance as
an officer, the Washington Post reported.

Meanwhile, officials
involved in Hasan's medical training have described him as belligerent,
defensive and argumentative when discussing his apparently deeply held
Muslim faith.

Officials also described him as a mediocre
student and a lazy worker, and said the combination led to a decision
to send him to Fort Hood, where other medical personnel could pick up
the slack if he continued to perform poorly and superior officers could
document behaviour problems, the Associated Press reported.