Jihad Joe

by J. M. Berger

  [The Prophet Muhammad] was once sitting in the masjid, and he asked the Sahabah, “Who’s fasting this day?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I am.”

  “Who has visited an ill person?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

  “Who has [attended a funeral]?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

  “Who on this day has given [something extra to charity]?” Abu Bakr Al Siddiq said, “I did.”

  And everybody else in the masjid was looking around, and the only hand that is going up is the hand of Abu Bakr. [ … ] He would always come out the first.

  And the amazing thing is that it didn’t seem as if Abu Bakr Al Siddiq [ … ] wasn’t doing it to compete with anyone. It came natural. See, what the others, they were trying to compete with him. Abu Bakr [ … ] was trying to compete with Abu Bakr.42

  Awlaki was hired at Dar Al Hijrah in Falls Church, Virginia, one of the nation’s most prominent mosques. Dar Al Hijrah had been founded in the 1980s and grew to a respectable size during the early 1990s, when it became associated with members of the American Muslim Brotherhood. Members of Hamas were also known to attend the mosque.43

  Johari Abdul-Malik, the mosque’s current imam, explained to the press how Awlaki came to be hired:

  Our community needed an imam who could speak English, not like many masjid, who have an imam who is from the old guard, he—he speaks broken English, if he speaks English at all, but someone who could convey that message with the full force of faith. He was that person. And he delivered that message dutifully.44

  As he had in San Diego, Awlaki began to attract devotees at Dar Al Hijrah. His talks during this period were positioned as moderate, but flashes of darkness surfaced from time to time. During a 2001 lecture on tolerance, he explained that Muslims were the most tolerant people in history, then qualified that statement to exclude a call for tolerance in modern times.

  Now, is there [ … ] a problem among the Muslim community of intolerance towards other faiths? Well, to some extent there is. To some extent there is.

  However, when one is dealing with the issue of tolerance, usually the party that is asked to be tolerant is the party that is in power, the party that is in control. However, when a people are suffering, and oppressed, it is not easy, or it’s not, doesn’t even make a lot of sense to bring up the issue of tolerance.45

  Awlaki was highly critical of U.S. foreign policy, and his attraction to the phenomenon of jihad continued, though often carefully framed. One undated lecture was an eight-hour dissertation on a classic book about jihad, which Awlaki attempted to disarm with a prefatory disclaimer:

  Now I want to state in the beginning and make it very clear that our study of this book is not an exhortation or invitation to violence or promotion of violence against an individual or a society or a state. This is purely an academic study. We are studying a book that is 600 years old.46

  One of the regulars who attended his sermons was an army psychiatrist named Nidal Hasan. Hasan, whose father had died two years earlier, had coped with his grief by turning more fervently to religion. Hasan’s eyes would light up when he talked about Awlaki’s teachings.47

  There were also familiar faces. The FBI and the 9/11 Commission determined that at least two and as many as four of the September 11 hijackers attended the imam’s services at Dar Al Hijrah, including Hani Hanjour and Awlaki’s San Diego disciple Nawaf Al Hazmi.48

  As in San Diego, a handful of people from Awlaki’s flock stepped forward to help the hijackers accomplish small tasks on the road to September 11. Jordanian Eyad al Rababah offered to help Hazmi and Hanjour find an apartment and ended up helping them get driver’s licenses (illegally) before escorting them around the East Coast on a trip he described as “sightseeing.” The apartment he eventually found for them was in New Jersey. As in San Diego, FBI agents suspected, Awlaki had tasked Rababah to assist the hijackers. In early 2001 Rababah had asked Awlaki for help finding a job; he started to assist the hijackers immediately thereafter.49

  The relationships among Awlaki, Omar Bayoumi, and the hijackers and the helpers remain ambiguous to this day, even among those who were in a position to know. FBI agents working the case wanted badly to arrest Awlaki but couldn’t come up with the hard evidence.

  The 9/11 Commission left its section on Awlaki open-ended but clearly opinionated; the final report found Awlaki’s role suspicious enough to explicitly mention but said the commission was “unable to learn enough about Awlaki’s relationship with Hazmi and Mihdhar to reach a conclusion.”50

  On the topic of Omar Bayoumi, the commission was similarly conflicted. The final report of the commission described him as “devout,” “obliging,” and “gregarious,” and investigators “find him to be an unlikely candidate for clandestine involvement with Islamist extremists.” On the other hand, the commission conceded that it could not be sure whether Bayoumi’s initial “chance meeting” with the hijackers “occurred by chance or design.”51

  The nature of Bayoumi’s job is extremely unclear. He was known in the local community as someone who actively sought out new Muslims in town and helped them get settled. Many people assumed he performed this role on behalf of the Saudi government, which tends to be very activist about taking care of its citizens abroad. Although his interactions with the hijackers may simply have fallen within that mandate, questions linger.52

  The placement of the hijackers within Awlaki’s social circle raises significant questions. Bayoumi first met the hijackers in L.A., where he had connections with both the Saudi embassy and the Saudi-financed King Fahd Mosque. In San Diego he held a position of some importance at a Kurdish mosque not far from Alwaki’s Ar-Ribat mosque, where he could easily have arranged assistance with housing, transportation, and English lessons. Perhaps he felt the Saudis would be more comfortable at Ribat, which had a strong Saudi-Salafist orientation.53

  Or perhaps there is another explanation. In the immediate wake of September 11, many journalists probed into Bayoumi’s role with the hijackers without success. Questions were raised but never answered about the possibility that Bayoumi might have been a “handler” for the hijackers, working on behalf of someone in Saudi Arabia. A congressional probe into 9/11 found that Bayoumi had “tasked” San Diego Muslims to assist the hijackers.54

  Yet after Bayoumi’s initial contact with Hazmi and Mihdhar, most of the people who provided assistance to the hijackers were as close to Awlaki as they were to Bayoumi, if not closer. An FBI agent, whose name was redacted from released records, told the 9/11 Commission that “if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it was Awlaki.”55

  For most of the helpers, Awlaki was not only a friend or an acquaintance but an authority figure who inspired fervent devotion. Yet perhaps the most damning indicator of Awlaki’s involvement with the hijackers came several months after San Diego—when Awlaki’s followers performed the same helper function on the opposite coast, a social transaction with no apparent link to Bayoumi.

  Finally, there is Awlaki’s connection to Ramzi Binalshibh, the al Qaeda facilitator who provided logistical assistance to several of the September 11 hijackers— but not Hazmi and Mihdhar, who were being helped by Awlaki’s followers on both coasts. Binalshibh was in Yemen during the summer of 2000, around the same time Awlaki said he would be there. More significantly, when investigators searched Binalshibh’s apartment after September 11, they found the phone number of Awlaki’s mosque in Virginia, Dar Al Hijrah.56

  If Awlaki was helping the hijackers, the final question then becomes this: what did he know?

  Did he know they were extremists? Terrorists? Al Qaeda? Did he know they were planning to kill on U.S. soil? Did he know exactly what they were going to do? Awlaki has notably declined to address these questions. Even after he fully committed to terrorism (see chapter 9), he never raised the issue of September 11.

  Unless Awlaki is arrested and charged in a U.S. courtroom, these questions may never be answered. But Awlaki’s neighbor in San Diego, Lincoln Higgi
e, remembered an ominous pronouncement the imam made when he left San Diego for Virginia:

  He said, “I’m going back to Virginia, and shortly after that, I’ll be going to Yemen.” And I said, “Well, I do hope you’ll be coming back to San Diego soon.” And he says, “No, I won’t be coming back. And in a little while, you’ll understand why.”57

  Whatever Awlaki knew or didn’t know before September 11, his meetings with the hijackers were not destined to be his last contact with al Qaeda.

  8

  Scenes from September 11

  It defies preconceptions, but on a per capita basis, Arizona may have hosted more al Qaeda members than any other state in America.

  Tucson residents included some of Osama bin Laden’s closest associates, such as early al Qaeda financier Wael Julaidan, the American citizen jihadist Wadih El Hage, and the American citizen Loay Bayazid, who was present at the founding of al Qaeda (see chapter 2).1 An Islamic newspaper based in Tucson issued an ID card to World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef in 1992.2

  A branch of the Al Kifah Center was located in the city during the 1980s, recruiting Americans to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.3 There was so much jihadist activity, over so many years, that U.S. intelligence officially labeled Arizona a “long term nexus for Islamic extremists.”4

  Then there were the pilots. Essam Al Ridi, Osama bin Laden’s personal pilot, traveled to Arizona during the 1990s. Suspected Islamic extremists from all over the world—Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Jordan, and Pakistan—were spotted by the FBI at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, a few hours away. One of them flat-out told FBI agents that the United States was a “legitimate military target” for Muslims and that al Qaeda’s murderous attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were justified.

  In July 2001 the FBI’s Phoenix field office proposed a full-scale investigation to headquarters, citing its belief that the would-be pilots were linked to Osama bin Laden, but its plea fell on deaf ears, and the investigation foundered.5

  Hani Hanjour had first visited Tucson some ten years prior. A devout Muslim and an experienced jihadist who fought in Afghanistan, he came as a student to learn English, left, then returned to the United States in 1996 to train as a pilot. First, he qualified for a private pilot’s license. Later, he succeeded in being certified as a commercial pilot.6

  Hanjour spent about five years in the United States, much of it of Arizona, often in the company of al Qaeda–linked extremists who had been noticed by the FBI.

  On the morning of September 11, 2001, Hanjour was seated in the cockpit of a commercial jet, American Airlines Flight 77, just as he had trained for in the heat of an American desert. Under his steady hand, the plane screamed down out of the sky and slammed into the side of the Pentagon, disintegrating in a fiery explosion and killing 189 people, including himself.7

  ANWAR AWLAKI

  On the morning of September 11, Anwar Awlaki was also sitting in an airplane bound for Washington.

  The Yemeni-American imam was returning home from a conference in San Diego, the city where he had first befriended two of the men who were even now helping Hanjour complete his suicide mission. A third hijacker on Flight 77 had also met Awlaki, later, at the Dar Al Hijrah Mosque near Washington, where the imam now worked.

  Awlaki was landing at Reagan National Airport around the time that the hijackers were boarding their flight at the nearby Washington Dulles International Airport. The timing was extraordinarily tight. Awlaki heard news of the hijackings during his cab ride home.

  Awlaki rushed to the mosque. After a consultation, the facility’s leaders decided to close the facility for the rest of the day, citing security concerns, and issued a press release condemning the attacks. That night, they called the police after someone drove up to the mosque and started shouting at the people huddled inside.

  ABDULLAH RASHID

  The African American mujahid from Brooklyn was a long way from his glory days in Afghanistan. For the last eight years, Abdullah Rashid had been living in a series of prisons. Since 1999 his home had been the federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana.8

  Not long after the planes hit, Rashid was taken out of his cell and moved to death row.

  “They said it was the safest point in the prison,” his wife, Alia, recalled. “I said, ‘That’s bull.’”

  Alia believed that they wanted to “get him outta their face. [ … ] He was gettin’ on their nerves real bad, and they fixed him.”9

  Rashid remained on death row for more than a year. After that, it was on to another prison.

  JOHN WALKER LINDH

  On a morning when the rest of America was waking up to the reality of war, John Walker Lindh was already there—in a foxhole in Afghanistan, fighting on behalf of the Taliban.

  It had been a long, unlikely path that brought him to this point. He had spent his adolescence in Marin County, the heart of American liberalism. Lindh had been named after John Lennon. He was called quiet and sweet, a sickly child, homeschooled for a time, then educated at a progressive California school.10

  Lindh had converted to Islam as a teenager, drawn to the religion after watching Spike Lee’s film about Malcolm X. One year later he traveled to Yemen to study the Arabic language. He landed at the Al Iman University in Sanaa, headed by Abdel Majid Al Zindani, a close ally of al Qaeda and mentor to Anwar Awlaki.11

  From Yemen, he went to Pakistan, where he enrolled in a madrassa with the intention of memorizing the Koran. There he was exposed to the Taliban, and in the spring of 2001, he traveled to Afghanistan to fight on their behalf against the Northern Alliance, an anti-Taliban militia and an enemy of al Qaeda.12

  In June 2001 he trained for combat at al Qaeda’s Al Farooq camp, where he heard rumors about suicide attacks in the works against the United States. He even met Osama bin Laden, who thanked him for taking part in jihad.13

  Lindh was fighting with a foreign fighter unit on behalf of the Taliban on September 11. News of the attack traveled quickly, even in this remote, rugged terrain. Word came down that al Qaeda personnel were being deployed to face the inevitable U.S. response. Lindh stayed with his unit.

  In November Lindh’s unit was captured by the Northern Alliance, which was now fighting the Taliban and allied with the United States. The detainees staged an escape, during which a CIA agent was killed.

  Lindh was quickly recaptured. He was hiding in a tunnel with other Taliban when it was flooded by U.S. forces. He emerged, muddy and tattered. Photos of his capture would be splashed over every newspaper and television broadcast in the world under the words “American Taliban.”14

  ADNAN SHUKRIJUMAH

  From Pakistan, near the border, Adnan Shukrijumah called his mother in Florida.

  “Did you hear what happened?” he asked her. “They’re putting it on the Muslims.”

  She told him not to come home. They were arresting all of the Muslims, she said.

  “‘No, I didn’t do nothing,” he replied. “I will come, don’t worry about this.”

  But he never came.15

  ISMAIL ROYER

  He had fought and trained as a jihadist in Bosnia and Kashmir, and now Ismail Royer was the civil rights coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Royer had arrived at his office just before 9 a.m. when he heard coworkers calling from the conference room. They were huddled around the TV, staring at the gaping hole in the first tower of the World Trade Center.

  “I hope Muslims didn’t do this,” he said.

  Within hours of the hijackings, Royer had written and issued a press release condemning the attack and urging Muslims to report harassment. The phones were now ringing off the hooks, and it was his job to answer them. Many of the calls were reporting hate crimes and harassment.16

  Yet after he left the office—near midnight—Ismail Royer’s mind was elsewhere. A message had been passed through his circle of friends, half a dozen men he had spent hours training with outside the office. Ev
eryone in the group who owned a gun was to assemble for a meeting.17

  That meeting took place four days after September 11, at the behest of an American-born cleric, Ali Al Timimi. Timimi told Royer and the other gathered jihadists that the Muslims of Afghanistan now needed their help, far more than the Kashmiri Muslims on whose plight the group had previously focused. The Muslims of Afghanistan had a new enemy, and that enemy was the United States.

  Armageddon was at hand, Timimi told his rapt audience. September 11 was a sign of the impending apocalypse, and everyone in the room had a part to play.18

  ALI MOHAMED

  Al Qaeda’s most accomplished spy, the American citizen Ali Mohamed, had been living in the witness protection wing of a federal prison for the past few months. Mohamed had cut a plea deal and agreed to provide information about al Qaeda in the hope of winning a reduced sentence.

  That hope went out the window on the morning of September 11, when he was abruptly hustled out of his cell and moved to solitary confinement. No contact with other prisoners and especially no news of the world—no television, radio, or newspapers.

  A few days later, the questions began. “How did they do it?”

  Calmly, Mohamed laid it all out. This is where you sit to hijack a plane; this is how you get a blade through security. He had taught these tricks to his fellows at al Qaeda. Mohamed had obtained a copy of the FAA’s security procedures manual and given it to al Qaeda. One of his trainees, Ihab Ali, had attended the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, which Mohammad Atta had contacted to ask about flight training.19

  Ali Mohamed may not have known that the September 11 attack specifically was in the works, but he knew an awful lot about how it could be done.