Anwar Al Awlaki Role In Prepping Underwear Bomber Revealed By Feds

The United States on Friday submitted a memorandum to a Michigan federal judge revealing that terrorist leader Anwar al Awlaki had more direct involvement that previously known in the so-called underwear bomber's preparations to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009.

Awlaki, a Yemeni American member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) who is credited with inspiring the would-be Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to carry out terrorist acts on American soil, was killed in a drone strike in northwest Yemen this past September.

A White House official, speaking on background, said the details disclosed in the memo, which were gained from Abdulmutallab through debriefing statements made to FBI agents in April 2010, help show that military detentions are unnecessary to combat terrorism. Law enforcement officials had read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights shortly after he was arrested, prompting criticism from Republicans who argue that the federal courts cannot properly handle terrorist cases.

According to the memo, Awlaki personally vetted Abdulmutallab, helped him film a "martyrdom video," and directed the underwear bomber to carry out his suicide mission on a U.S. airliner over U.S. soil.

The memo recounts Awlaki's hands-on approval of Abdulmutallab for a "martyrdom mission" and his facilitation of the underwear bomber's "instruction in weapons and indoctrination in jihad" at an AQAP camp.

Abdulmutallab filmed a video with Awlaki's assistance. According to the memo, "Awlaki arranged for a professional film crew to film the video. Awlaki assisted defendant in writing his martyrdom statement, and it was filmed over a period of two to three days. The full video was approximately five minutes in length."

Perhaps most important, the memo states, "Awlaki instructed defendant not to fly directly from Yemen to Europe, as that could attract suspicion. Prior to defendant's departure from Yemen, Awlaki's last instructions to him were to wait until the airplane was over the United States and then to take the plane down."

Abdulmutallab has been charged with eight criminal counts, including attempted use of a criminal weapon and attempted murder of the 289 people on board Flight 253, and is currently being held in a federal prison in Michigan. The memo asks Judge Nancy Edmunds of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to apply the maximum sentences for each of the eight counts, which would result in five life terms and 60 years in prison.

Michael McAuliff contributed to this report.

Comments

[Markrsm]

08:45 PM on 05/22/2013

Dear Friends,

Okay after they killed him with a drone, they submit papers to the court, and Mr Obama has said many times tha Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is not terrorist, it was just a bad day at the office.

Matter of fact, Mr Hasan is still on the payroll, as even though he killed many people, he is sorry for it, and said he would not do it again

It is to bad he was not working for the state department and been drinking, as they refuse to fire people that are convicted of stealing from the government, but no worries, Mr Obama pardon her, so she could keep her job.

[Autora]

07:07 PM on 02/11/2012

Republicans are saying the courts are not able to try these cases? Whom would they LIKE to try these cases-- a star chamber? We caught him, he's in custody. I am surprised he's still alive, actually, granting that prisons are not fun houses, and terrorists have to be pretty high on the list of people American inmates are not fond of.

[Markrsm]

08:46 PM on 05/22/2013

Dear Autora,

Our system works like this you take your case to court first, and then you punish the afterwards, that is the point of grand jury.

We did with many foreign terrorist, until Mr Obama got into office.

[Autora]

09:11 PM on 05/22/2013

Sorry, but after an entire year I can't reply properly as I don't recall the thread. All I can say for sure is that Obama has not made normal court procedure any different than it ever was.

[Canefighter]

06:06 PM on 02/11/2012

I keep seeing people defending this terrorist. What is wrong with this picture. Was he going to give due process to the passengers on that plane, No. Try him as a terrorist and give him life in prison, not death. That way he cant be used as a martyr.

[Anthony Thoms]

05:24 PM on 02/11/2012

I remember this time I ate Gas Station curry; wanna talk about being an underwear bomber?

[bmitche]

05:02 PM on 02/11/2012

As I have always said, there is no one to be feared more than a person who is willing to kill himself in order to kill you.

[Markrsm]

08:46 PM on 05/22/2013

Dear Bm,

Normally I would help him.

[squiddypie8]

03:46 PM on 02/11/2012

LMAO!!!!

[kesac]

03:40 PM on 02/11/2012

So the Administration is claiming this is proof that Civil courts are the place to try those who mount attacks against our nation? These guys sure do march to a differtent drummer, don't they? 200 years of US legal history just ignored. The Constitutional provison excepting them from Habeaus Corpus, ignored. The Geneva Convention treaty ignored.
Just because Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder think they have a better idea. They couldn't get a conviction on one guy who has literally confessed, and through him back in jail anyway. But they are still insisting they know best.

[freeetob]

03:25 PM on 02/11/2012

Has anyone EVER read or heard what the damage was to putz to blew up his underwear? Has he been taken out the of gene pool?

[jerdog365]

03:14 PM on 02/11/2012

Hey I have an idea, lets blame a dead guy so he can't defend the allegation. Then let's wait till the truth comes out about us(CIA) getting him on the plane without a passport, so he can't refute that also. Gosh we(CIA) are so smart, the idiot public will argue among themselves about our lies, and we can keep taking away the liberties of Americans...BRILLIANT!!

[kesac]

03:41 PM on 02/11/2012

What liberties have been taken away?

[squirt280]

04:15 PM on 02/11/2012

The right to due process of the law.

[squirt280]

03:49 PM on 02/11/2012

Anwar al Awlaki (AL-CIA-Duh) secretly meeting at the Pentagon Months before the 9-11 attacks reported by fox news. I have the actual footage on my youtube channel. They ran the story in the early morning hours and swept it under the rug before people woke up that day. Those reporters were in shock what they were reporting.

[gryphon10]

04:20 PM on 02/11/2012

And yet you fail to post that video here?

Total BS.

[WarpedHuman]

04:38 PM on 02/11/2012

No way man 9/11 was caused by Hitler's clone brother allied with Santa, they just framed Al-Talaban. See my face book for proof.

[abruin]

03:03 PM on 02/11/2012

i had heard that it was not a bomb in his pants.........just before the flight he had eaten in the airport diner....a bowl of bean chili.

[tsgrcels]

02:44 PM on 02/11/2012

Abdulmutallab was indicted, and on October 22, 2011, plead guilty to six criminal counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted murder of 289 people, attempted destruction of a civilian aircraft, placing a destructive device on an aircraft, and 2 explosive possession charges. If the underwear bomb had gone off, the 283 passengers and 11 crew members of the Delta 777 flying from Amsterdam to Detroit would have died. Hence, the WMD charge.

Under US federal law, it is not the size of the weapon that determines if it is a WMD, it is the number of people who would die if it had exploded. Liberals don't like to hear that definition of WMD.

[kesac]

03:43 PM on 02/11/2012

There is no real, agreed upon definition of WMD.

[tsgrcels]

04:09 PM on 02/11/2012

Yes there is. It's US Federal Law which was used to convict Abdulmutallab and the idiot who drove the SUV loaded with his home-made explosives into Times Square, NYC. He was convicted and sentenced to life without parole for "detonating a weapon of mass destruction." Fortunately, the bomb was a dud that only burned and didn't fully explode because he screwed up the chemical mix.

[MDhome]

04:59 PM on 02/11/2012

283+11=289? I don't think so and the rest of your post is suspect.

[tomterif]

04:01 AM on 06/22/2012

2 of Tsgrcels' 3 figures actually were absolutely correct, MDhome.

So if you'd taken the slight trouble to Google what the actual passengers / crew figures were, for the flight in question [as I just did], you'd've realized there were a # of very simple, eminently logical possible explanations, here, [mostly having to do with a # of totally plausible / routine possibilities for completely SUBSTANTIVELY non-significant instances of simple ordinary carelessness, regarding correctly reporting / recording a single math figure in a series of 3 figures] that IN NO WAY, as I see it, at all makes any of the rest of Tsgrcels' excellent, very substantively / soberly presented post "suspect", at least not in my opinion.

If it was in fact the case that your noticing his 3 figures didn't add up correctly's what made his entire, really exceptionally reasonable presentation * completely "suspect" in your eyes, I'd respectively tell you I don't think that's at all a reasonable conclusion for you to come to, based on the entirety of what he presented here, in my considered opinon.

* which I'm going to further check out, to absolutely verify, regarding the federal statute mentioned in his post, when I have a bit more time. And I'd frankly be SHOCKED if I find anything Tsercels said here was at all untrue (regarding the federal statute and its' application in this case, rather than his careless over-reporting, by 5 passengers, the # of passengers on that plane, which...

[Continued]

[tomterif]

04:58 AM on 06/22/2012

[Continued from previous reply]...]

...I see as having literally zero importance / significance, relative to the important, very substantive point[s] the gentleman was making in his post.

Northwest Flight 253 had 278 passengers on it, MDhome, not the 283 Tsgrcels listed, but Tsgrcels' figure of 11 crew members was correct, so one simply corrects for the proper 278 passenger #, which added to the 11 crew members ultimately gives the correct total number [which is widely understood and acknowledged, by Tsgrcels and everyone else in regards to this case] of the 289 human beings who were on that plane Abdulmatallab attempted to bring down over Detroit that day

And I do think that Abdulmatallab himself was definitely considered as one of the 278 passengers onboard that day, as I understand that this is generally how these things are calculated, as much as I myself am no way comfortable acknowledging as "a human being" someone who would freely choose to [at least most determinedly "attempt to", in Abdulmatallab's case] simply cold-bloodedly murder all those other 288 entirely innocent ACTUAL human beings on that plane, with his true "weapon of mass destruction", of course for absolutely no in any way legitimate reason[s] whatsoever.

[sinop69]

02:42 PM on 02/11/2012

Alwaki must have been very persuasive to convince a young
man to put a bomb in his crotch. That is one conversation
for the ages.

[squirt280]

04:28 PM on 02/11/2012

Its called drug induced mind control. The CIA are experts in this.

[bigbobh]

02:35 PM on 02/11/2012

What goes around comes around. Think he likes his 47 virgins?

[vietnamvet1967]

01:48 PM on 02/11/2012

Guess the FBI likes to blame people like there Higher Boss, Obama
Sure The man is dead let's blame him,

[MDhome]

05:00 PM on 02/11/2012

learn to spell.

[roch1234caputo]

07:55 PM on 03/13/2012

If you can understand it what the big problem with poor spelling? It would be great if everyone spelt well, but they don't, and now there is the texting words. Just have some heart, get over it smartie pants.

[31 A 13]

01:47 PM on 02/11/2012

Huh, no mention of the fact that he was drugged and disoriented and actually helped onto the plain without a passport. Curious isn't it?