House Probes New 9/11 Suspect

The House homeland security panel has set its sights on another extremist over possible ties to the 9/11 attacks: the cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual citizen of the US and Yemen, reports Fox News. “We need to do this in light of al-Awlaki’s growing stature,” committee chair Peter King tells Politico. “His emergence, even before the death of bin Laden, was probably the most feared al-Qaeda official in the world.” He has been linked to the would-be Christmas underwear bomber, the Times Square bomber, and the Fort Hod attacker.

The probe hopes to determine “how active he was in the country before Sept. 11,” King says. He wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder in May seeking Justice Department assistance in the investigation; the department hasn’t yet responded but is working with the FBI to do so. Awlaki was in Colorado, Virginia, and California before the attacks, and had contacts with three of five of the hijackers of the flight that hit the Pentagon. Read the letter to Holder here. (More Anwar al-Awlaki stories.)