Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan revealed his growing disapproval of the US military in email correspondence with a radical imam who once counseled 9/11 terrorists, the cleric has revealed. “I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else," the imam said Hasan wrote in emails that began last December. Anwar al-Aulaqi said he believed Hasan “trusted” him because he helped Hasan become a devout Muslim through his lectures at a Virginia mosque.
While corresponding with Hasan, Aulaqi, who now lives in Yemen, continued to encourage violence against American soldiers on his website. But Hasan needed little convincing, the cleric communicated to the Washington Post. He presented Aulaqi with arguments on how the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq violated Sharia law. Aulaqi is proud of his acolyte. "The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal,” he wrote in a recent blog post.
(More Nidal Malik Hasan stories.)