The FBI, for the the first time, has admitted publicly that it knew the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was returning to the US in October 2002 and that an FBI agent discussed the American’s return with a US attorney before he was detained and then abruptly released from federal custody.
Al-Awlaki, who would become the first American targeted for death by the CIA, eventually was killed last September in Yemen by a US drone strike. Since September 2009, 26 terrorism cases have been tied to him and his digital jihad, according to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
“I really want to get to the bottom (of this),” said Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, chairman of the committee that has oversight of the FBI. The committee was holding a hearing Wednesday on the Webster report on the FBI’s intelligence failures leading up to the Fort Hood massacre. Al-Awlaki exchanged 19 emails with Maj. Nidal Hasan, accused of murdering 13 in the shooting.
Wolf noted Wednesday that the Webster report makes no mention of the 2002 incident and the FBI’s role in the cleric’s release.
“We’re going to send a letter on this. If we can, we’re going to get a hearing, and if we have to, we may even subpoena the thing,” he said.
Mark Giuliano, the FBI’s assistant director for national security, testified Wednesday that the FBI knew in advance that he was making his way back to the United States, though he didn’t explain how.
Al-Awlaki was detained at New York City’s JFK airport because a customs database flagged him based on an outstanding arrest warrant. Giuliano, under intense questioning by Wolf, also admitted Wednesday there were discussions between an FBI agent and the US attorney in Colorado about the US-born cleric’s re-entry and the warrant.
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