Wonderful: Awlaki Was in Custory, Then Let Go

This was in 2002, mind you, and it appears we let him go at the behest of our dear friends, the Saudis. In hindsight it probaly doesn't matter much now since if we had sent him to Club Gitmo he'd have been sent off for art therapy and released back to Yemen anyway. We just gave the charming fellow a head start on his further jihadi activities. All kidding aside, what the hell were we thinking letting a guy who had direct links to 9/11 killers walk free?

He's America's Osama bin Laden -- and we let him go.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim imam who ministered to at least three 9/11 hijackers, the Fort Hood shooter and the crotch-bomber, was taken into custody at JFK Airport on a felony arrest warrant in 2002.

Even though Awlaki had been on the FBI's radar for years, he was let go, most likely because of intervention by Saudi Arabia, classified documents and interviews reveal. Now he continues to train new "martyrs" in Yemen.

"We were stunned" that he was let go, said Ray Fournier, a federal agent who has been tracking Awlaki as part of a joint terrorism task force. "He was a high-value target. Everybody was excited about the prospect of hooking this guy up under a [criminal] charge to motivate a conversation with him regarding his relationship with the [9/11] hijackers."

Awlaki, 38, was born in New Mexico and raised as a teen in Yemen. Fournier, then a Diplomatic Security Service agent, discovered that he lied about his place of birth on an application for a US Agency for International Development grant, receiving $20,000 a year to attend engineering classes at Colorado State University in the early 1990s. Awlaki turned to radical Islam instead, preaching at mosques in Fort Collins, Colo., and San Diego.

He attracted the FBI's attention in 1999, because of alleged contact with an al Qaeda agent who bought a satellite phone for Osama bin Laden. But the investigation was closed the next year because of lack of evidence.

While in San Diego, Fournier said, Awlaki met at his mosque with Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who would go on to hijack the plane that was crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11.

"They weren't discussing tabouli recipes," said Fournier, who believes Awlaki knew of the 9/11 plot in advance.

In early 2001, Awlaki took over the pulpit at the Saudi-funded Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which is located in Virginia, not far from the Pentagon. Hazmi followed him there. He and another Saudi hijacker, Hani Hanjour, pilot of the plane that hit the Pentagon, got help from Awlaki's mosque obtaining housing and identification.

In post-9/11 interviews with the FBI, Awlaki denied having contact with the hijackers in Virginia, and said that although he met with Hazmi several times in San Diego, he doesn't remember any specifics of what they discussed. The FBI let Awlaki go, but he remained on a watch list.

Meanwhile, Fournier was working up a warrant on the passport violation related to Awlaki's schooling. In 2002, Awlaki left the United States for England and later Saudi Arabia. On Oct. 10 of that year, he returned and was detained at JFK.

Fournier said that a passport-fraud conviction carries a maximum sentence of only six months, but it would have given investigators time to "play ball" with Awlaki -- to see if they could tie him to other charges.

According to classified immigration records, however, agents at JFK were advised to "release" the detainee because the warrant had mysteriously "been pulled back" the day before. Awlaki was handed off to a "Saudi rep" to continue his journey to Washington, where he recruited other terrorists. Not long after, he fled to Yemen.

Why would Saudi Arabia get involved in Awlaki's welfare? For one, he worked with the Saudi embassy as a tour guide for hajj pilgrimages, a position that requires connections in Riyadh. "You don't just get permission to lead tours" on the Muslim holy pilgrimage, said Hale Smith, a reformed Muslim convert who traveled with Awlaki on hajj, and roomed with the "very hard-line Sunni" cleric in Mecca and Medina. "You have to be in with the Saudis."