AmericanJihadist.com updates will now appear a new address. All old and new stories will be available as part of http://news.intelwire.com/, with American jihadist specific content at http://news.intelwire.com/search/label/American-Jihadists. The old pages will be maintained, but will be mirrored at the new site. All menus should now point to the new site, but links inside story pages and throughout the site will be gradually converted. RSS feed for all INTELWIRE sites will now be consolidated at http://news.intelwire.com/atom.xml. If you can't find a story you read before, try Google site search from here. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Fallout in the Military Over Nidal Hasan
It looks like there will changes in procedures and discipline for those who failed to spot problems that could have prevented the murder spree of Nidal Hasan, the Army major who shot and killed 13 people in November. The missed warning signs included Hasan's obsession with U.S. wars as "wars against Islam" and his contacts with radical Al Qaeda-linked cleric Anwar Awlaki.
Contrast that to the handling of Ali Mohamed, Al Qaeda's last big conquest within the military. Mohamed infiltrated the U.S. military on orders from Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader Ayman Al Zawahiri. Some of his commanding officers sent up alarm bells about Mohamed's radical leanings (including statements made on the video below which was distributed by the military to educate soldiers about the Middle East).
No one was disciplined and nothing was changed after Mohamed's spying on behalf of Al Qaeda was exposed, a failure that spanned both Republican and Democratic administrations. The Pentagon even stonewalled requests by the CIA for information about foreign nationals serving in the armed forces after Mohamed's duplicity was finally exposed in 1998.
Accountability is an important tool in dealing with terrorism, because accountability leads to adaptability, which is our enemy's greatest strength. It's a lesson that could be applied even more broadly in the U.S. government, but a good start is a good start.
Ali Abdelsaoud Mohamed was an Egyptian soldier who became a U.S. citizen and served alongside the U.S. Special Forces at Fort Bragg. He was a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization and later a member of Al Qaeda, serving a top trainer and as Osama bin Laden's chief of security for some years. He attempted to infiltrate the CIA during the 1980s and successfully infiltrated the FBI during the 1990s, before finally being arrested for his role in the 1998 East African Embassy bombings.
