Nidal Hasan Tried To Contact Al Qaida, US Officials Knew Months Ago

ABC News is reporting that U.S. agencies were aware months ago that Fort Hood shooting suspect Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sought to contact people associated with al Qaida, according two American officials familiar with the case. "It is not known whether the intelligence agencies informed the Army that one of its officers was seeking to connect with suspected al Qaeda figures, the officials said," ABC writes.

While ABC goes on to note that CIA director Leon Panetta was asked by Congress "to preserve" all documents related to Hasan, CBS News is reporting that a U.S. intelligence official has told them that there is no indication that the agency had collected information related to the case and then not acted on it.

Meanwhile, the AP is reporting that a radical American imam currently living in Yemen has praised Hasan for the shooting in a post on his website:

The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the attacks on the Texas military base last week are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Comments

[Oleg1]

"The Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood.... had personal business cards describing himself a "soldier of Allah," according to investigators.... SoA is commonly used on jihadist Web sites as the acronym for Soldier of Allah, according to investigators."

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-fort-hood-shooting,0,1258153.story

Any one else PCed up enough to claim this was not a religiously inspired act?

[billobasher]

News reports say that IF this guy was sending e-mails to the Al Queda guy it was in late 2008. Tell me, who was in the White House in 2008?

[betty22]

is this how we now keep our country safe......Obama this is on your watch now...stop blaming

[donnajr]

goes to show all this Homeland Security,warrant less wire taps,e-mail snooper, did not make it any safer than we were on 9-10-2001. now we have a lower standard of living & less freedom. how many times will we see the SWAT team unload out of the black van @ Fort Hood on MSM tv. a simple question, did the Major Hasan take anti-depressants medication?

[gypsy508]

Sounds like 9/11 all over again when intelligence agencies knew the terrorists they were looking for had entered the U.S. and didn't tell the FBI. Anyone who tries to contact Al Qaida is going to be found out. The Internet and communications systems across the globe are bugged. That kind of attempt would have been flagged.

[JDM73]

Predictably, people like Joe Lieberman are jumping all over this story as justification for continuing the "War on Terror" (a euphemism for "war on Muslim countries"). With a majority of Americans opposed to ramping up the war effort in Afghanistan, the Fort Hood tragedy came along at just the right time for fearmongering, war drum-beating neoconservatives.

[old timer 37]

What will probably be lost in all this is the deriliction of duty of the officers who received the FBI information about Nidal Hasan and did nothing. Someone decided to ignore information and put our service people in jeopardy. That is deriliction of duty and should end one or more careers for military officers. Unfortunately, this will probably be covered up rather than used to prod bureaucrats in the military to do their duty rather than what is easiest for them personally.

[forty8r]

Duh, if you know someone is trying to contact terrorists what a bonanza if they could actually use him to find other terrorists cells???? The cost of not arresting him immediately vs the benefit of finding terrorists cells in the USA if not the world is unfortunately the cost of war. People die almost every day in war becasue of decisions such as these.

You right wingers are really not very bright. Look at Bush's failure even in taking precautions for 911 yet none of you morons think he failed in his duty which time and time again he proved to be a complete incompettant to hold the office.

[4flashman]

Military people do this a lot more then you realize. Do you remember the phrase"Going Postal" A lot of those guys were ex-viet. vets that used their civil service points to work for the post office. I was in the military during Viet. war and heard several people say that wanted to work for the post office when they got out. War has always created people like this. He did not go into combat but the stress about it was more then he could take. Find a WW2 vet still alive and ask them if it surprises them. After the battle of the Jadrang valley in Nam Gen Westmorland came and made a speech about it. His body guards disarmed all the troops that were in the battle before he arrived to insure "HE" was not a victim of "Friendly Fire" I heard that in group therapy from 2 men that were there. Believe it or not.

[triplbee]

What? So they knew he was trying to contact Al Qaida but they were going to deploy him to Iraq anyway? Do these guys have rocks in their head?

[rationalthought1]

THis is looking more and more like a terrorist act from within our own military. We should not be in denial about that, if its true. Any radical group that is promoting the murder of innocents needs to be cracked down on - whether its radical Muslim or Christian or whatever. The reality is that it is the fringe groups in the Muslim religion that is currently presenting this threat. Just because they are associated with a religion, these people should not be treated with kid gloves. No one should be allowed to preach and promote murder - that is NOT part of freedom of religion.

[swat68]

This is one conflicted individual with mental issues who snapped. Let's not make this into a major conspiracy until ALL of the facts are in.

[lexkw]

How many do you need?

[VORAC]

Is it not possible that the Government was using their knowledge of his attempts to make contact with radical groups and there for made arrangements to deploy him in the hopes that he would lead them to bigger players? Law enforcement keeps bad guys in play for this very reason all the time. Of course I don’t think that they expected him to go on a shooting spree though.

[gypsy508]

Good idea but doubtful unless he was a govt. agent. If Hassan can contact Al Qaida then the CIA almost certainly can.

[VORAC]

I think what happened here is something that the Government can't really say, and that is that yes they knew this guy was trying to contact these people, but they were doing what law enforcement does every day and that is they were using him in the hopes that he would lead them to bigger players. And since he was trying to contact with these people, I'm sure that's why they were going to deploy him, in the hopes that he would make contact with these people over there in effect leading us right to them. They obviously didn't expect him to flip out and start shooting people.

[wizzardly]

This is going to be big if he was on the radar of the CIA or Homeland Security. Heads should roll. PC is getting dangerous. Obama is the ultimate one to blame because it was under his watch. I'm waiting for him to blame Bush.

[lawrencemuh]

the last thing we should want as American's is to awaken sleeper cells within America...igniting sleeper cells of hatred within Muslims by continuing to bash the religion and spread false information and accusations..

[Jeaccuse]

These bunch of epiphanies from the military leads me to believe something is rotten in Denmark, I mean, Washginton, DC. We know how credible the army is. Starting the Pat Tillman affair, the Jessica Lynch story, the pay for "good" news bit, and the list goes on and on. Gulf of Tonkin, WMDs, Saddam-Al Qaeda connections(this one sounds familiar). The army, as with Bush investigtations of 9/11 can't be trusted to conduct a fair investigation. Hell, according to some media reports, 137 prissoners in Baghram AB were tortured to death and life for them, the higher ups, continue like they were the protectors of the Constitution, but actions speak louder than words. A real democracy doesn't need made up facts or leaking of "fracts". Remember what happened to those "slam dunked" cases of the perpetrators of 9/11. Justice was jeopardized for the need to take extra-judicial vengeance. Let's let justice take its course. Timothy McVeigh had his day in court and I don't think he was tortured and see what happened.