By Faras Aamir
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
A New York Times journalist came to the Baltimore area Tuesday to tell the story of how an American-Muslim leader known for his peaceful and inspirational lectures turned into a terrorist who waged a war against the United States.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 50 people at the Baltimore County Public Library in Towson, Scott Shane said Anwar al-Awlaki was a prominent Imam and Islamic lecturer who turned into a motivator for the Islamic militant group al Qaeda.
Shane, who was presenting his book “Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone,” said al-Awlaki was a voice of peace for American-Muslims prior to the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
Shane said al-Awlaki started his turn toward al Qaeda after he was put under heavy surveillance by the FBI, which became suspicious of al-Awlaki because two of the 9/11 hijackers attended the same mosque as him.
As al-Awlaki gained media attention, Shane said, the FBI discovered that al-Awlaki would sometimes go to a hotel to meet a prostitute, even though he was married with children.
Out of shame and fear of exploitation, al-Awlaki left the U.S. in a hurry to go to the United Kingdom and later Yemen, Shane said.
Shane said that the invasion of Iraq and bombings from drones in Afghanistan took a toll on al-Awlaki and led him to radical views. Al-Awlaki would ultimately go on to join al Qaeda and plot attacks on the U.S., landing him on United States’ kill or capture list, Shane said.
Al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. predator drone strike on Sept. 30, 2011. However, videos and publications that al-Awlaki had put out remain as a motivator for other terrorists, Shane said.
“By killing an internet guy, you’re not killing his message,” Shane said.
Shane said al-Awlaki’s messages may be tied to the 2015 Charlie Hebado and Sand Bernardino shootings.
Shane said that al-Awlaki coached Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a young Nigerian man who hid explosives in his underwear in an attempt to destroy a plane going from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009.
The Tsarnaev brothers, who were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, also claimed to have been influenced by al-Awlaki, Shane said.
The Tsarnaev brothers, like many of al-Awlaki’s followers, learned how to make bombs from his do-it-yourself terrorism guides in al Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, which he also started.
A controversy that came up with the dealing of Awlaki was whether it was constitutional to hunt and kill him since he was an American citizen. Shane said that he had to go through several procedures and permissions to look at the documents that explained the legality of the issue.
“One of my problems with the situation is how the Obama administration handled it,” Shane said. “Why do they have to classify the drone killing of Americans?”
Shane showed a video of Obama’s speech in which the president addressed the hunt for al-Awlaki. Obama said that al-Awlaki’s killing was justified because he was waging war against America.
Shane compared Obama and al-Awlaki as having similar lives. He said both attended graduate school in America, struggled with identity and had temptation with radicalism.
In the struggle for identity, he said al-Awlaki was hypocritical in his teachings and personal life when it came to peace and adultery while Obama did not know how to deal with his father being of Muslim heritage.
As far as temptation for radicalism, Shane said, “Both sides think God is on their side.”
Al-Awlaki had changed his approach of dealing with non-Muslims in a peaceful way to a violent way because of the divide that the western world took against Islam after 9/11, Shane said.
Shane said that the title of the book comes from the military code name given to al-Awlaki, who was known to U.S. officials at “Troy.”
“If you have the misfortune of being put on the military kill list, you are listed as an objective, or target that is named after a town in Ohio,” Shane said.