The world of charismatic clerics

WASHINGTON — The apparent ties between the Nigerian charged with plotting to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day and a radical American-born Yemeni imam have cast a spotlight on a world of charismatic clerics who use the Internet to indoctrinate young Muslims.

U.S. authorities said Thursday that the man accused in the bombing attempt, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, most likely had contacts with the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, who investigators have also named as having exchanged e-mail messages with Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, charged with killing 13 people last month at Fort Hood, Texas.

Speaking in eloquent, often colloquial English, al-Awlaki and other Internet imams from the Middle East to Britain offer a persuasive message of faith, purpose and a way forward to both the young and as yet uncommitted and to the most devout worshipers ready to take the next step, to jihad, officials say.

“People across the spectrum of radicalism can gravitate to them, if they're just dipping their toe in or they're hard-core,” said Jarret Brachman, author of “Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice” and a consultant to the U.S. government about terrorism. “The most important thing they do is take very complex ideological thoughts and make them simple, with clear guidelines on how to follow Islamic law.”

In an online posting in 2005 under the name “farouk1986,” Abdulmutallab referred to another radical Muslim cleric he listened to, a Jamaican-born preacher named Abdullah el-Faisal.

El-Faisal, who was deported from Britain in 2007, was convicted four years earlier of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in English- and Arabic-language tapes of speeches urging his followers to kill Hindus, Christians, Jews and Americans. He was later accused of influencing one of the attackers in the July 2005 London bombings.

These imams — in addition to their knowledge of the Koran and Islamic theology — offer in some cases an almost romantic flair because of their occasional brushes with the law. Among the examples are Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan cleric who escaped from prison in Afghanistan in 2005, and el-Faisal, who continued to preach online even after his arrest and deportation.

U.S. and European authorities say some of these clerics, like al-Awlaki, offer something much more sinister than just guideposts to radical Islam: a pipeline to al-Qaida operatives in places such as Yemen and the lawless Pakistan tribal areas.

“Awlaki is, among other things, a talent spotter,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said. “That's part of his value to al-Qaida. If people are drawn to him, he can pass them along to trainers and operational planners. Abdulmutallab was cannon fodder, a piece snapped into an operation.”

Intelligence officials and congressional aides briefed this week on the inquiry say investigators are still trying to determine the precise nature of any contacts between Abdulmutallab and al-Awlaki.

It is not clear what role, if any, al-Awlaki played in the airliner plot.

Marc Sageman, a former CIA operations officer and an authority on al-Qaida, said the relationship between these imams and young men like Hasan of the U.S. Army and perhaps Abdulmutallab was a two-way street.

“It is really young people seeking them out — the movement is from the bottom up,” Sageman said. “Just like you saw Major Hasan send 21 e-mails to al-Awlaki, who sends him two back. You have people seeking these guys and asking them for advice.

“What they provide is a justification for what these young kids want to do in the first place. There is an influence, but the direction is from the young people seeking folks out, as opposed to older guys recruiting them.”

Sageman cautioned against placing too much responsibility on leaders such as al-Awlaki. He also said he had no independent evidence that al-Awlaki and Abdulmutallab were linked.

But Sageman wants to find out if that is the case.

“Young people have a mind of their own,” he said. “They are not robots, brainwashed. They already are radicalized. What they want in a sense is a validation of what they already believe. The religious leaders are lightning rods because of the extreme statements. They form a community around them.”

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