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Cleric may have booked pre-9/11 flights for hijackers, FBI documents show
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Fox News


Fox News, January 3, 2013
Posted: January 8th, 2013
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/03/exclusive-al-awla...

The FBI suspected within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that the American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may have purchased tickets for some of the hijackers for air travel in advance of the attacks, according to newly released documents. The heavily redacted records obtained by Judicial Watch through a [FOIA] request suggest the FBI held evidence tying the American-born cleric to the hijackers just 16 days after the attack that killed nearly 3,000 Americans. We have FBI documents showing that the FBI knew that al-Awlaki had bought three tickets for three of the hijackers to fly into Florida and into Las Vegas, including the lead hijacker, Mohammad Atta, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Fox News. He added that the records show the cleric, killed in September 2011 by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, was a central focus of the FBI's investigation of 9/11. They show he wasn't cooperative. And they show that he was under surveillance. The cleric was a guest speaker on moderate Islam at a Pentagon executive dining room in February 2002. The newly released documents now suggest the FBI knew five months earlier of al-Awlakis probable link to the hijackers. Al-Awlaki was held at New York Citys JFK airport on Oct. 10, 2002, under a warrant for passport fraud, a felony punishable by 10 years. However, ... an FBI agent, Wade Ammerman, from the bureaus Washington field office ordered the cleric be released from custody, even though there was an active warrant for his arrest.

Note: Click here to view the more than 200 pages of documents obtained by Judicial Watch. Isn't it quite strange that the continuously monitored Al-Awlaki was breakfasting with the Pentagon brass and was released from custody by the FBI, after the 9/11 attacks? Could his assassination by drone have been for the purpose of keeping him quiet about what he knew concerning 9/11?


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