United States Army Major Nidal Hasan told a radical cleric considered by authorities to be an al-Qaeda recruiter, “I can’t wait to join you” in the afterlife, according to an American official with top secret access to 18 e-mails exchanged between Hasan and the cleric, Anwar al Awlaki, over a six month period between Dec. 2008 and June 2009.
Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, was once the imam of a Falls Church, Virginia mosque attended by Hasan and two of the 9/11 hijackers. After an intensive investigation by the FBI, Awlaki moved to Yemen where he was imprisoned in 2006 and says he was interrogated by U.S. authorities.
Although not mentioned by Treasury, Awlaki has also been linked to Major Nidal Hasan, the US Army doctor who murdered 13 soldiers at a deployment center at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009. While Awlaki had originally denied radicalizing Hasan, his emails, which he provided to Al Jazeera, show that he provided the religious justification for Hasan to conduct the attacks.
In March 2010, Awlaki released an audiotape praising Hasan and Abdulmutallab’s attacks on the US. He also admitted that he is now at war with the US.
Awlaki released a videotape in April 2010 in which he claimed he was “proud” to have trained Hasan and Abdulmutallab. “I am proud to have been their teacher,” Awlaki said in the videotape, which was aired on Al Jazeera.