Jihad Joe

by J. M. Berger

  Mohamed must have known that day that he would not be receiving a reduced sentence. In fact, he would never be sentenced at all. While other prisoners would become hot topics among civil libertarians, Mohamed just faded away without a fuss. After September 11, his plea deal was little more than a joke. Ali Mohamed was too dangerous to ever walk the streets again.

  9

  The Descent of Anwar Awlaki

  In the days after September 11, Anwar Awlaki spoke to the press over and over again, one of many Muslim leaders stepping forward to give the community’s response to the attacks.

  Although his statements were mostly conciliatory, there was an unmistakable edge. Awlaki was eager to blame the United States for inciting the terrorist attack through its “anti-Muslim” foreign policy.

  “Our hearts bleed for the attacks that targeted the World Trade Center as well as other institutions in the United States, despite our strong opposition to the American biased policy toward Israel,” Awlaki said during the first Friday khutba following the attacks.1

  A week later he continued to drum the message home, using language that seemed to justify the attack. “We were told this was an attack on American civilization. We were told this was an attack on American freedom, on the American way of life. This wasn’t an attack on any of this. This was an attack on U.S. foreign policy.”2

  Awlaki then turned the focus toward the alleged victimization of Muslims in the United States due to bigotries stirred by the 9/11 attack.

  “Most of the questions are, ‘How should we react?’ Our answers are, especially for our sisters who are more visible because of [wearing a head scarf]: Stay home until things calm down.”3 Yet Awlaki was unable to produce any victims of hate crimes, such as the woman he claimed was beaten with a baseball bat.4

  Behind the scenes, Awlaki was having other conversations—with the FBI, which had quickly identified him as a point of contact for the hijackers.5 Awlaki’s story shifted, depending on the day and the person to whom he was speaking. The FBI called him in for at least four interviews in the weeks following September 11.6

  On September 17 Awlaki admitted to the FBI that he had known Nawaf Al Hazmi in San Diego—well enough to describe his appearance and personality in some detail.7 Scant days later, he told an Associated Press reporter tracking the investigation that he didn’t know any of the hijackers. Instead he sought to turn scrutiny back on the FBI. “Our people won’t listen to us when they see this is how the FBI is treating them,” he said. “It strengthens our belief that we are a community under siege, whose civil rights are being violated.”8

  The imam was under pressure because of his relationship to the hijackers, and his worldview turned ever darker. Under the watchful eyes of FBI surveillance, he turned back to an old vice, visiting prostitutes in the D.C. area, at least one of whom was underage.9

  His sermons also darkened, taking an increasingly combative tone. Awlaki had always been an advocate of the view that Muslims were victims of discrimination and violent persecution around the world, parroting the Saudi-influenced scholars who had come before him. Now, by his account, that persecution had come squarely to America.

  Rather than focus on the perpetrators of 9/11—whom he had, wittingly or unwittingly, assisted in their suicide mission—Awlaki pointed, with increasing stridency, at the U.S. government. As the days stretched into weeks, Awlaki’s condemnations of terrorism became ever more equivocal and convoluted. In an October khutba, Awlaki delivered a speech that blamed terrorists for their violent acts while blaming the United States exponentially.

  The fact that the US has administered the homicide of one million Iraqi civilians, and supported the murder of thousands of Palestinians does not justify the killing of one civilian in NY or Washington DC. And the killing of six thousand American civilians does not justify the killing of one innocent Afghani. Two wrongs don’t make a right.10

  Awlaki’s peers didn’t see anything particularly radical about the imam from San Diego. “We could have all been duped,’’ said Johari Abdul-Malik after Awlaki had come out of the jihadist closet in 2009, echoing the view of others in the community. “But I think something happened to him, and he changed his views.’’11

  Shaker El Sayed, another imam who served at Dar Al Hijrah, echoed this view, dismissing the idea that Awlaki’s contact with the September 11 hijackers should have been scrutinized.

  Well, he was an imam when he left and he was an imam at the Islamic center in San Diego. And being an imam myself, I get in touch with lots of people, but does this necessarily mean that I agree with what they are doing behind my back? Of course not.

  So the government, in the case of Muslims, they did not look for the serious scrutiny; they spread a broad dragnet of suspicion around Muslims, in general, and the Islamic centers in particular.12

  Awlaki’s sermons continued to spiral into radicalism. At times, he blamed the Jews for the plight of American Muslims, saying that they controlled the media and the government and citing recordings of Richard Nixon in the White House as evidence.13 Awlaki also fixated on Muslim prisoners in the United States, a topic to which he would return again and again. He seemed to be projecting his own personal worries into these lectures, but his khutbas also reflected concerns being expressed across a broad spectrum of the Muslim community. The difference was the tone: Awlaki tended toward unabashed fearmongering and wasted little effort trying to put a mainstream gloss on his point.

  It’s also useful to look at the lectures in the context of his personal history. Awlaki’s earlier lectures had been delivered in a clear, steady voice. As the content became more and more hysterical, so too did Awlaki’s voice. His lectures came faster and at a higher pitch and volume. His voice at times wavered as he sought to generalize the actions of law enforcement into a broad alarm for American Muslims.

  When the FBI raided several Islamic institutions in Virginia as part of a terrorism-financing investigation in early 2002, Awlaki made the stakes as plain as could be during a khutba delivered at Dar Al Hijra:

  So this is not now a war on terrorism. We need to all be clear about this. This is a war against Muslims. It is a war against Muslims and Islam. Not only is it happening worldwide but it’s happening right here in America, that is claiming to be fighting this war for the sake of freedom, while it’s infringing on the freedom of its own citizens just because they’re Muslims. For no other reason.

  And as Muslims, if we allow this to continue, if we do not stop it, it ain’t gonna stop! It’s not gonna stop. [ … ] Maybe the next day the Congress will pass a bill that Islam is illegal in America. Don’t think this is a strange thing to happen. Anything is probable in the world of today because there are no rights unless there’s a struggle for those rights.14

  In March 2002, shortly after giving this speech, Awlaki left the country and his post at Dar Al Hijrah for London. In August he gave a speech before the annual conference of an Islamic charity known as JIMAS (Jamiat Ihyaa Minhaaj Al Sunnah). The topic was the role of Muslims living in the West.

  After a largely unremarkable hour of speaking, Awlaki suddenly turned apocalyptic—literally—with a digression into his own belief, based on Muslim traditions, about what will happen at the end of time during the Islamic version of Armageddon:

  Dawah [the invitation to Islam] will flourish in the West, and many Westerners will become Muslim. And they will be with the Muslims. [ … ] However, the majority won’t, and the majority who won’t become Muslim are going to be the spearhead in the effort to fight Islam. [ … ] The Romans are going to approach all of the Arabs who are living in their midst, and every Arab man and woman and child will be killed. They will all be exterminated. A holocaust.

  Awlaki’s speech was cut short by the organizers, purportedly due to his exceeding his allotted time. He seemed to realize he had gone too far. Poignantly, he groped for an upbeat conclusion.

  I have to take few more minutes. I don’t want to close on this pessimistic tone. We have to
have a better ending. [ … ] Islam will flourish all over the world. [ … ] Our Dawah in the West is a peaceful Dawah. We are not allowed to commit aggression, to take up arms. It is a Dawah of patience and subtlety. [ … ] We do not fight back. We do not strike back.15

  In the United States, the FBI was engaged in a heated internal debate about the imam’s status. The Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, having scrutinized Awlaki’s contacts with the hijackers, was eager to press a case against the imam.

  The consensus was that the evidence didn’t yet justify charging the cleric in relation to 9/11. The task force had other options. In Awlaki’s traffic with prostitutes in Washington, D.C., he had transported some of the women across state lines, which opened the possibility of federal charges, although it would be clear to everyone that this was only a pretext to get him into custody, with an eye toward additional charges later.

  Awlaki had also lied on his passport application in the 1990s, claiming he had been born in Yemen in order to obtain a U.S. government–funded scholarship. An immigration charge looked better, and it was a standard tactic for making a pre-textual arrest. Because the passport fraud had taken place in Colorado, the charges were filed there, and a judge issued an arrest warrant. All they had to do now was wait and hope that Awlaki came back to the United States.16

  The trap was set. After appearing at several conferences in the UK, Awlaki began to travel, reportedly visiting Yemen and Saudi Arabia during mid-2002. Finally, he walked into the net. On October 10, 2002, Awlaki and his family returned to the United States on a flight from Riyadh to New York. Customs and immigration officials had been alerted to detain him, and the family was escorted to a secondary screening area.

  Once Awlaki had been secured, however, something went wrong. When customs officials contacted the FBI, they discovered that the arrest warrant had been revoked—one day earlier. After fewer than four hours in custody, he received an apology and was permitted to connect with a flight to Washington, D.C.17

  The decision to revoke the warrant was made by an assistant U.S. attorney in Denver, David Gaouette, who said in 2009 that his office “couldn’t prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and we asked the court to withdraw the complaint,” adding that he couldn’t prosecute someone for a “bad reputation.” The decision did not go over well with his colleagues in the Justice Department and the State Department’s investigative service, who were infuriated at the cancellation of the warrant.18

  The writing was on the wall. Awlaki left the United States for good and returned to London, where he continued to lecture prolifically at the Masjid At-Tahwid mosque and various forums and conferences. After his departure from the United States, he took his long-held narrative about the victimization of Muslims further than ever before. In December 2003 he gave the Friday khutba at the East London Mosque.

  You have over 520 Muslims who are locked up in jail and are left to rot in there, and there’s no crime. They have not committed anything. There are no charges brought against them. And they are left there for months at end to just rot in those prison cells. What have you done for them? [ … ]

  [Allah] will revenge for himself. [Allah] does not need us. But the thing is, we cannot allow such things to happen and we watch. We just sit there watching, doing nothing. Thinking by ducking down and by being quiet, we’ll be safe. If you don’t stop it now, it’s gonna happen to you, it might happen to your wife, it might happen to your own daughter. You need to stop it in its tracks before it grows.19

  As if a foreboding had gripped him, Awlaki was becoming increasingly obsessed with prison and the horrors that might be visited on a Muslim who had been detained. His speeches were colored, perhaps, by his own sexual demons.

  The Jews and the Christians will not be pleased until you become like them. How can you have trust in the leaders of kufr [the infidels], when today, right now, right now, there are Muslim brothers who are in jail? Every sinister method of interrogation is used against them. They would use against them homosexuals to rape them. They would bring their mothers and sisters and wives, and they would rape them in front of these brothers. The United Nations knows about it. Amnesty International knows about it, and they are doing nothing. In fact, sometimes they are encouraging it.20

  Awlaki traveled to a number of mosques and Islamic centers in the UK, sponsored by the Muslim Association of Britain, where he spoke more and more openly about jihad, “the most beloved deed to Allah.”

  He left dozens, perhaps hundreds, of radicalized disciples in his wake, such as University of London students Roshonara Choudhry and Omar Farouq Abdulmutallab. The former tried to assassinate an English parliament member for supporting the Iraq war, and the latter tried to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 but succeeded only in setting his underwear on fire.

  In 2004 Awlaki returned to his ancestral home in Yemen. He began to lecture at Sanaa University, where he continued his attacks on U.S. foreign policy. Soon he moved to Iman University, also in Sanaa, which was run by his old mentor and al Qaeda associate Abdul Majid Zindani. The university was known for fostering radicalism. One of its former students was John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban.21

  When the 9/11 Commission Report was released in July 2004, it outlined the commission’s suspicions about Awlaki. At that time, few in the mainstream media showed interest in exploring Awlaki’s role further, let alone his current activities.22 Yet by now, terrorism investigators in several countries were taking notice.

  Awlaki was an emerging player in the radicalization of English-speaking Westerners. Members of a terrorist cell known as the Fort Dix Six, which was planning to attack U.S. military personnel in New Jersey, listened to Awlaki’s lectures during training. His recordings were also linked to a group of Somali Americans in Minnesota who had traveled to fight jihad in Somalia.23 In case after case, investigators fighting terrorism found copies of Awlaki’s lectures on the computers of their suspects.

  Part of his wide appeal was attributed to the use of the Internet to spread his message. Awlaki maintained a Facebook page with thousands of followers and a widely read blog. He was accessible; his followers could e-mail him and receive a personal response. Awlaki was far from the only Islamic preacher using the Web to reach an audience, but he was particularly successful because of the moderate gloss he put on a message that could be rotated just a few degrees for a dramatically different effect. Large numbers of mainstream Muslims had been drawn to him for his inspirational works. A small but significant minority continued with him down the road to jihad.

  In Yemen Awlaki fell in with a rough crowd, and trouble soon followed. In 2006 he and five others were arrested on charges of kidnapping a teenager for ransom. They were also planning to kidnap an American military official stationed in Yemen. The five men took care of the violence; Awlaki provided a fatwa purporting to offer an Islamic justification for their criminal activity.24

  The imam’s nightmare of imprisonment had finally become a reality. But Awlaki’s account of his time in jail provided a stark contrast to his earlier tales of rape or torture. His prison cell was clean and empty. He was kept in solitary confinement for most of the time he was detained. He was not allowed to have pen, paper, or outdoor recreation. Toward the end, some of these restrictions were loosened. If he had been subjected to rapes, he did not speak of them.

  He was subjected to interrogations, however. According to Awlaki, the FBI came to see him, again. They asked about September 11, again. And they left with nothing … again.25

  When Awlaki emerged from prison in December 2007, he was different. Although his account of life in prison seemed a far cry from his worst imaginings, the experience led him even further down a dark path.

  Before his arrest, Awlaki had been careful, always skirting the edges of the debate. His lectures were popular among aspiring radicals but not because they openly called for violence. Rather, they provided justifications and rationalizations. He called for action but did not say what that
action should be. Now he was edging closer and closer to a true, unambiguous call to violence.

  Awlaki’s blog offered justifications for suicide bombings and prayers for the destruction of America—but not a specific instruction to act on that prayer.26 He began to talk in increasingly glowing terms about jihad but still refrained from directly exhorting violence, as in this August 2008 blog entry:27

  Because confusion usually surrounds what is meant by Jihad whether it is the Jihad al Nafs [struggle with oneself] or Jihad of the sword I do not exclusively mean one or the other and I do not exclude one or the other. What I mean by Jihad here is not just picking up a gun and fighting. Jihad is broader than that. What is meant by Jihad in this context is a total effort by the Ummah to fight and defeat its enemy.28

  In 2008 he posted an entry praising Al Shabab, an extreme jihadist movement fighting in Somalia (see chapter 10).

  Al Shabab not only have succeeded in expanding the areas that fall under their rule but they have succeeded in implementing the sharia and giving us a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation. The ballot has failed us but the bullet has not.29

  The invocation of the bullet over the ballot was a distortion of a turn of phrase most famously deployed by Malcolm X. In recent years, it has come to be used as a jihadist slogan.

  Even having gone this far, Awlaki was still holding back. At the time he issued the message, Shabab was still fighting a primarily military conflict in a contained geographical zone. It wasn’t quite the same as endorsing al Qaeda. And Awlaki couldn’t help but end the message with a suggestion that Shabab—known as an extraordinarily violent movement—practice kindness toward the Somalis it sought to conquer.

  I would like to take this opportunity to advise my brothers to be kind and soft with the masses; to excuse them for centuries of ignorance and false beliefs; to teach first and hold responsible last. I would advise you to go by certainty and to leave doubts; to prefer forgiveness over revenge. The masses of the people are suffering from the illnesses of tribalism, ignorance, and a campaign of defamation of Sharia. Therefore you need to win the hearts and minds of the people and take them back to their [true nature].30