Word: cleric
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...list right now are Naser Abdel-Karim Wahishi and former Guantanamo detainee Saeed Ali Shehri, the leaders of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP is believed to have trained and outfitted alleged airline bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. There is also intelligence suggesting that radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemen-based cyber pen pal of Major Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 Army personnel at Fort Hood in November, may have been in contact with Abdulmutallab. (See pictures of the accused Fort Hood Gunman...
...Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Yemen, which has vast tracts of lawless countryside, has been harboring - and nurturing - terrorists for years. It is the site of the 2000 attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors, as well as the stomping ground of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical cleric and cyber-pen pal of Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood, Texas, shooter who killed 13 people in November. Abdulmutallab visited Yemen at least twice, most recently from August to December 2009, studying Arabic - and, apparently, bombmaking. (Read "Yemen: Al-Qaeda's New Staging Ground...
...officials are awaiting confirmation that a Yemeni air strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American cleric who exchanged email messages with the alleged Fort Hood Shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan. Counterterrorism officials and experts have differing views on Awlaki's importance to the wider jihadist cause. "The death of Awlaki would deprive al-Qaeda of a prominent face, a prominent voice, and someone who'd gotten involved in operations," says one counterterrorism official, who asked not to be named because he is not authorized to discuss the air strike with the media...
...Peter Bergen, an Al-Qaeda expert at the New American Foundation, says Awlaki was merely "important as an inciter to jihad, no more." Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University says it's unlikely Awlaki would have beeen involved in operational activities. "He was a cleric, not a field commander," he says. (See the effect of Al-Awlaki's sermons...
Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, reached out to Awlaki a year ago. Although Awlaki denies encouraging Hasan to kill, the cleric praised the major on his website as a "hero" after the shootings, and exhorted other Muslims in the U.S. military to follow his example. (See an assessment of the growing al-Qaeda threat in Yemen...