Dirty Wars

by Jeremy Scahill

  When 9/11 happened, Awlaki didn’t own a television. “I used to get my news through the Internet,” he said days after the attacks. “But since this happened, I rushed to Best Buy and got a TV set. And we were glued to our TV sets. For Muslims, I think it was a very complicated issue because we suffer twice,” he asserted. “We’re suffering as Muslims and as human beings because of the tragic loss for everyone. And then in addition, we suffer the consequences of what will happen to us as an American Muslim community since the perpetrators are, so far, identified as Arabs or Muslims. I would also add that we have been pushed to the forefront because of these events. There has been huge media attention towards us, in addition to FBI scrutiny.”

  While Anwar huddled with other Muslim leaders to determine how they would respond to the 9/11 attacks, he once again popped onto the US government radar. “September 11 was a Tuesday,” Anwar later recalled. “By Thursday the FBI were knocking on my door.” US agents began questioning Awlaki about his dealings with two of the suspected hijackers. The agents showed him pictures of the hijackers—including the two who had attended his San Diego mosque as well as Hani Hanjour, who also had spent time in San Diego and, along with Hazmi, attended an Awlaki sermon in Falls Church, Virginia, in 2001. Awlaki “said he did not recognize Hazmi’s name but did identify his picture. Although Awlaki admitted meeting with Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed,” according to the 9/11 Commission. Awlaki also said that he had not had any contact with Hazmi in Virginia, only in San Diego, and said he had never met Hanjour. Awlaki, according to the commission, “described Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends.” According to declassified FBI files on Awlaki’s meetings with federal agents after 9/11, Awlaki described Hazmi as “a loner,” adding that he was “a very calm and extremely nice person.” Awlaki, according to the FBI, did not view Hazmi “as a very religious person, based on the fact that [Hazmi] never wore a beard and neglected to attend all five daily prayer sessions.” Soon after that meeting, the FBI returned again and asked Awlaki to work with them in their investigation. The next time they visited, Awlaki got a lawyer. An FBI file after the meeting stated: “Investigation continues at WFO [the FBI’s Washington Field Office] into the association between Anwar Aulaqi and persons connected to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.” [Awlaki’s name is alternately spelled Aulaqi.]

  According to subsequent FBI testimonies to the 9/11 Commission, Awlaki had a series of phone conversations in 2000 with Saudi Omar al Bayoumi, who helped Hazmi and Mihdhar find apartments in San Diego. An FBI investigator told the commission that he believed that the men were using Bayoumi’s phone at the time, implying that Awlaki had had direct contact with the hijackers. Yet, based on those early interviews, the investigators concluded that Awlaki’s interactions with the three hijackers were inconclusive. The 9/11 Commission asserted that the future hijackers “respected Awlaki as a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him” but added that “the evidence is thin as to specific motivations.”

  While the FBI dug into Awlaki’s relationship with the hijackers, hundreds of people would pack Dar al Hijrah mosque to hear Awlaki preach on Fridays. He counseled families and helped new immigrants find apartments or employment. Among those who came to him for help was a Palestinian couple who attended all of his Friday sermons. They were having trouble with their son, who was a US military psychiatrist. The couple was concerned that their son was not taking interest in their religion. Nasser recalled Anwar telling him that they said, “Why don’t you talk with [our son], so he will come with us to the mosque?” Awlaki agreed to help. Their son was named Nidal Malik Hasan, the man who, more than a decade later, would commit one of the worst massacres on a US military base in history. Just as his relationship with some of the 9/11 hijackers would result in government scrutiny of his life, Awlaki’s interactions with Hasan would later be used to raise suspicions about Awlaki’s role in other terror plots.

  Undoubtedly, Awlaki’s mosques seemed to attract an array of characters who would go on to become terrorists. But the extent of Awlaki’s knowledge of who they were or what they were plotting is difficult to determine. In examining Awlaki’s experiences and statements from this period, the mystery only deepens. What unfolded between Awlaki and the US government behind closed doors in the months after 9/11 and what played out publicly between Awlaki and the US media at the same time is a bizarre tale, filled with contradictions. It was as though Anwar Awlaki were living a double life.

  In the weeks after 9/11, while Anwar dealt with the FBI agents in private, in public he became a media star, called upon by scores of media outlets to represent a “moderate” Muslim view of the 9/11 attacks. TV crews followed him around. National radio programs interviewed him. Newspapers quoted him frequently. Awlaki encouraged his followers to participate in blood drives for 9/11 victims, to donate money for the families. The leadership at the mosque described him as a man known for his “interfaith outreach, civic engagement, and tolerance,” and the Associated Press reported that, among those who attended his sermons, “Most said they did not find him to be overtly political or radical.” Although Awlaki at times delivered stinging indictments of US foreign policy, he also condemned the attacks in strong terms. Initially, he even indicated that the United States would be justified in waging an “armed struggle” against those responsible for the attacks. “Absolutely,” Awlaki told PBS. “We have stated our position that...there must be a way for the people who did this, they have to pay the price for what they have done. And every nation on the face of the earth has a right to defend itself.”

  Awlaki was “a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion,” according to the New York Times. In a separate article, the paper reported that Awlaki “is held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West.” Awlaki said in late September 2001, “I even feel that it’s unfortunate that we have to state this position because no religion would condone this, so it should be common knowledge. But we were in a position where we had to say that Islam does not approve of this. There is no way that the people who did this could be Muslim, and if they claim to be Muslim, then they have perverted their religion.” The Washington Post consulted Awlaki several times after 9/11, even commissioning him to star in a webcast about Ramadan. “Our position needs to be reiterated and needs to be very clear,” Awlaki said during a sermon, televised nationally in the United States by PBS, a few weeks after the attacks. “The fact that the US has administered the death and homicide of...civilians in Iraq, the fact that the US is supporting the deaths and killing of thousands of Palestinians does not justify the killing of one US civilian in New York City or Washington, DC, and the deaths of [thousands of] civilians in New York and Washington, DC, does not justify the death of one civilian in Afghanistan. And that is the difference between right and wrong, evil and good, that everybody’s claiming to talk about.”

  Even as he condemned the attacks, Awlaki pulled no punches in his analysis of the US posturing toward the Islamic world. In one sermon, a week after 9/11, Awlaki pushed back on the Bush administration’s characterization of al Qaeda’s motives. “We were told this was an attack on American civilization. We were told this was an attack on American freedom, on the American way of life,” Awlaki declared. “This wasn’t an attack on any of this. This was an attack on US foreign policy.” As the United States began its push into Afghanistan in October 2001, Awlaki was interviewed by the Washington Times. “We’re totally against what the terrorists [have] done. We want to bring those who [have] done this to justice,” he said. “But we’re also against the killing of civilians in Afghanistan.” As the first Ramadan after 9/11 approached, Awlaki said, “There will be a higher level of
anxiety in the community this year.” The Muslim holiday will be overshadowed by “a gloomy mood because of the events that happened in September and the ongoing war overseas,” he said, adding, “We always want Ramadan to come in quiet times, but unfortunately, this year that is not going to happen.” He also made clear he was opposed to the launch of the US war against the Taliban. “In my personal opinion I feel that the US rushed into this war,” he told an interviewer. “There could have been some other avenues to solve this problem, one of which was diplomatic pressure, taking advantage of all the Muslim countries who voiced their support for the US in this, and voiced their concern for what has happened on September 11. Very strong condemnations from all over the Muslim world. So that could have been used and capitalized on to put some pressure on Afghanistan or whoever did this, rather than rushing into the war that we’ve seen.” More than a decade before the so-called Arab Spring, Anwar also criticized US support for autocratic leaders and their repressive regimes in Middle Eastern and predominantly Muslim countries. “There doesn’t have to be a dramatic, sudden, overnight change in these regimes, but there needs to be at least some pressure on the part of the US for these regimes to open up a bit and provide more freedom to the people,” he said.

  Driving around suburban Virginia during Ramadan in late 2001, Awlaki spoke to a camera held by a journalist from the Washington Post. “Since the war started there have been a lot of casualties among civilians. A lot. And unfortunately that hasn’t been reported, or hasn’t been reported in a fair proportion in the media, so there’s a lot of concern that the common people in Afghanistan are paying the price for this. They’re pawns in this game of politics,” he said.

  After September 11th, the feelings of American Muslims were similar to the feeling of everybody else in America, feelings of sympathy for the families of the victims, and a sense that whoever did this needs to be brought to justice...that was the prevailing feeling amongst all American Muslims, in fact Muslims around the world. The war changed that a bit, because we have the memories of Iraq fresh in our minds. We were told in 1990 that this was going to be a war against Saddam Hussein. Well, after ten years he’s still in power and the ones who are suffering are the Iraqi people. A million in Iraq died. So those memories are coming back to us now. They say it’s to get the terrorists, but then here we go, casualties from the civilians.

  The interviewer asked Awlaki what he thought of bin Laden and the Taliban. “They represent a very radical understanding, an extreme view, and a part of what feeds into [those] radical views are the conditions that exist in the Muslim world,” he said. “It’s definitely a fringe group. There have been teaching[s] that were twisted. It’s a method of justifying views by using religious texts, and that could exist in any religion.” Awlaki appears, in the video, to be struggling sincerely with how to respond to 9/11. He is also seen as a loving father, wiping his younger son’s nose. At another point, he holds his trotting toddler’s hand as they walk into the mosque. For a brief moment, Awlaki even sings part of the theme song from the children’s show Barney: “I love you, you love me.” It is difficult to watch the hours of footage and conclude that he was simply a good actor.

  As incidents of anti-Muslim violence and bigotry spread, Awlaki watched as Muslim and Arab communities in the United States were targeted by the federal government. The people who came to his sermons told him of harassment they endured because of their race or their faith. People were rounded up, mosques were infiltrated, Muslim businesses were targeted by vigilantes and federal agents. Like many American Muslims, Awlaki believed that his people were being singled out, profiled because of their religion or race. “There is an element of feeling among the Muslims that they are targeted, or at least they are the ones who are paying the highest price for what’s going on,” Awlaki told National Public Radio in October 2001. “There has been a rise in negative reporting on Islam in the media since the events happened. There have been 1,100 Muslims detained in the US. There’s a bombing going on over a Muslim country, Afghanistan. So there are some reasons that make the Muslims feel that, well, it is true that the statement was made that this is not a war against Islam, but for all practical reasons, it is the Muslims who are being hurt.” When two members of his former San Diego mosque were detained on the basis of allegedly “strong connections” to the hijackers who had worshipped there, Awlaki rebuked the FBI. “There was no need to round them up in a crude fashion,” he said. He and his colleagues had preached patience and cooperation with the authorities, Awlaki said, but argued that “our people won’t listen to us when they see this is how the FBI is treating them. It strengthens our belief that we are a community under siege...whose civil rights are being violated.” “It is not right,” he went on, claiming that the two men had tried to voluntarily cooperate with authorities before being unfairly detained. “It gives the impression they have involvement in this. It just destroys their reputation. I am convinced they are innocent.”

  As the weeks went on after 9/11, Awlaki described in scores of media interviews the struggle that he and other Muslim leaders were facing in their communities, sparked by the perception that the United States was waging a war against Muslims and Islam. “It is the radical voices that are taking over, the ones who are willing to enter into an armed confrontation with their governments. So, basically, what we have now is that all of the moderate voices are silenced in the Muslim world,” he said in one interview. In another, Awlaki said, “With American Muslims, there’s this feeling of being torn between our nation and our solidarity with Muslims around the world.” Awlaki began warning the United States that if it launched what Muslims perceived as a war against their religion, it would bring blowback. “My worry is that because of this conflict, the views of Osama bin Laden will become appealing to some of the population of the Muslim world,” he said. “That’s a very frightening thing, so the US needs to be very careful and not have itself perceived as an enemy of Islam.”

  IN ONE OF THE ODDER TWISTS in Awlaki’s post-9/11 story, he was invited by officials at the US Department of Defense (DoD) to address a Pentagon luncheon on February 5, 2002. In a declassified e-mail, one of the organizers of the event, a Pentagon employee, wrote: “I had the privilege of hearing one of Mr. Awlaki’s presentations in November and was impressed both by the extent of his knowledge and by how he communicated that information and handled a hostile element in the audience. I particularly liked how he addressed how the average Middle Eastern person perceives the United States and his views on the international media.” The e-mail concluded that the event needed to be booked soon because Awlaki “will be leaving for an extensive period of time,” adding, “I think you’ll enjoy it if you come. [Awlaki] is very informative and this is certainly a hot topic that we all would like to learn a little more about.” According to declassified Pentagon documents, “At that period in time, the secretary of the Army (redacted) was eager to have a presentation from a moderate Muslim,” adding that Awlaki “was considered to be an ‘up and coming’ member of the Islamic community.” After being vetted for security reasons, Awlaki “was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army’s Office of Government Counsel.” (It is unlikely Awlaki dined on the “East Side West Side” sandwich offered at the event, which included beef, turkey and bacon on marbled rye.)

  The Pentagon appearance may have just been a freak event that occurred thanks to poor vetting and Awlaki’s public reputation at the time, shaped by his scores of media appearances, but it would also fuel speculation that Awlaki was cooperating with the US government in its 9/11 investigations. When I asked Nasser Awlaki, Anwar’s father, about the Pentagon luncheon, he lit up. “Yes! You know, you cannot believe it,” he told me. “At one time, he told me he will join the US Army in order to be Muslim chaplain.” In one conversation he had with his son during this time, Nasser said Anwar “told me he was mad not to be invited to the White House. Like other Muslim dignitaries during Ramadan, when Bu
sh started this event, asking people to come to Ramadan. He thought, how come they didn’t ask him, because he was the imam of a big religious center in America.” Awlaki may not have made it into the White House, but in early 2002, he was invited to lead a prayer service in the US Capitol. His sermon there was featured in the 2002 PBS documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet.