Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspected shooter in the Fort Hood massacre that left 14 innocent people dead, had even more ties to jihad and its perpetrators than previously thought. That according to ABC News, which reports:
A senior government official tells ABC News that investigators have found that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had “more unexplained connections to people being tracked by the FBI” than just radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki. The official declined to name the individuals but Congressional sources said their names and countries of origin were likely to emerge soon.
Questions already surround Major Hasan’s contact with Awlaki, a radical cleric based in Yemen whom authorities consider a recruiter for al Qaeda. U.S. officials now confirm Hasan sent as many as 20 e-mails to Awlaki. Authorities intercepted the e-mails but later deemed them innocent or protected by the first amendment.
The FBI said it turned over the information to the Army, but Defense Department officials today denied that. One military investigator on a joint terror task force with the FBI was shown the e-mails, but they were never forwarded in a formal way to more senior officials at the Pentagon, and the Army did not learn of the contacts until after the shootings.
So the FBI knew about a military officer’s repeated correspondence with jihadists, yet the information was forwarded to the Defense Department? And authorities determined that the emails fell under the purview of the First Amendment? Since when does continued communications by a military officer with a known jihadist fall under free speech? He was located on a military base and had deployment orders.
Michelle Malkin has a column out today regarding the death toll political correctness is stacking up. It’s worth a read, especially as it’s being speculated that information about Hasan wasn’t passed on due to concerns over his religious convictions and the appearance that he was being discriminated against.
by Stephan Tawney on Wed, Nov 11, 2009