Surprise! Jersey Jihadi in Contact With al-Awlaki

Just connecting some dots the teabagger hunters on the left are disinterested in. You would think being Americans stuff like this might concern them, but I guess since there's no Tea Party connection it's a non-story.

A New Jersey nuclear plant laborer arrested in Yemen with 10 other suspected al Qaeda members was in contact with the same radical Yemeni-American cleric tied to Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, federal law enforcement officials told ABC News.

The New Jersey man, Sharif Mobley, was detained by Yemeni security forces earlier this month and taken to a hospital for medical treatment. He allegedly tried to escape from the hospital over the past weekend by grabbing a security guard's gun and engaging in a gunfight that killed one of the guards.

Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, told ABC News that details of Mobley's case "will be clearer in a couple of days."

Asked about Mobley's apparent connections with the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, Albasha said he was not surprised because radicals and extremists in Yemen seek Awlaki out.

"He is a fixture in jihad 101," Albasha said of Awlaki.

Before fleeing the United States, Awlaki taught at a Virginia mosque visited by 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour.

Since then, Awlaki has become a prominent influence with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and is believed to be in Yemen.

He also was in contact with Hasan, accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.

Mobley apparently has been on the radar of officials.

A startling portrait is emerging of a New Jersey man suspected of travelling to Yemen to train with Al Qaeda — and the potential warning signs that were missed before he allegedly opened fire at a hospital there.

The U.S. government knew about Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen, even before Yemeni officials arrested him, the Associated Press reported, citing a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The official did not provide a time frame or details about what exactly was known about him.

Another law enforcement official told the Associated Press that Mobley had traveled to Yemen with the goal of joining a terrorist group.

Realizing that goal came after Mobley managed to find employment at six different nuclear plants.

An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists.

Sharif Mobley, 26, worked for contractors at plants in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland from 2002 to 2008, mostly hauling materials and setting up scaffolding, plant officials said.

At some point the left will be dragged kicking and screaming to this story, but we predict the reaction will be a familiar one: Blame Bush.

The arrest in Yemen of a New Jersey man accused of joining Al Qaeda is the latest in an alarming string of cases involving radicalized American Muslims, a trend some experts link to the duration of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Mobley plays his cards right, Eric Holder may soon be available to represent him.

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