Hasan Wrote Imam of Anger With US

Link went beyond sermons; Aulaqi says Hasan 'trusted' him
By Nick McMaster,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 16, 2009 2:40 AM CST
Hasan Wrote Imam of Anger With US
This 2000 file picture provided by the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences shows Nidal Malik Hasan when was a medical student at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine.   (AP Photo/Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, file)

Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan revealed his growing disapproval of the US military in email correspondence with a radical imam who once counseled 9/11 terrorists, the cleric has revealed. “I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else," the imam said Hasan wrote in emails that began last December. Anwar al-Aulaqi said he believed Hasan “trusted” him because he helped Hasan become a devout Muslim through his lectures at a Virginia mosque.

While corresponding with Hasan, Aulaqi, who now lives in Yemen, continued to encourage violence against American soldiers on his website. But Hasan needed little convincing, the cleric communicated to the Washington Post. He presented Aulaqi with arguments on how the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq violated Sharia law. Aulaqi is proud of his acolyte. "The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal,” he wrote in a recent blog post.
(More Nidal Malik Hasan stories.)

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