Interviewer: You are accused of involvement in 14 cases [of terror], in the US, Canada, and Britain. Is there any truth in these allegations, which have been spread by the media, and what are the reasons for this onslaught?

Anwar Al-Awlaki: This onslaught is because I am a Muslim who calls to Islam. They are accusing me of incitement. Nidal Hasan, Umar Farouk, and the other cases that you mentioned – the common denominator between them is incitement. Incitement to what? Incitement to Jihad, and to the Islam revealed by Allah in the Koran and in the Sunna of His Prophet. That is the accusation. The Americans do not want an Islam that defends the causes of the Islamic nation, or an Islam that calls for Jihad, for the implementation of the shari’a, and for the Doctrine of Allegiance and Disavowal. These are gates of Islam that they do not want opened, and they do not want people to be called to them. They want an Islam that is American, liberal, democratic, peaceful, and civilized, as has been mentioned and promoted in some of their reports, for instance, in a report by the Rand Corporation. Today, [Islam] has jurisprudence of honor, which demands justice, as well as jurisprudence of ignominy and a culture of servility. A high-ranking CIA official says: If we are faced by a Mullah Omar, we will confront him with a Mullah Bradley…It’s an American name.

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This war over the hearts and minds of the Islamic world has reached its peak. Today, the US is trying to promote a false Islam, just as their forefathers falsified Christianity and Judaism. Now they want to falsify Islam – but the religion of Allah is safeguarded. Today, we have a jurisprudence of honor, which is promoted by some Islamic preachers and activists, like yourselves, in Al-Qaeda. Your discourse is an example of the jurisprudence of honor. Take, for instance, what Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri said to Obama. He said to him: “Mr. Obama, may Allah bring about the downfall of the US at the hands of the mujahideen. That way, we – along with the entire world – will find relief from your evil.” This is an example of the discourse of honor. It is a candid and clear expression of the Muslims’ view of the US. We, along with the rest of the world, are waiting to find the relief from your evil, because of your oppression and aggression against the world. In contrast, when Obama visited the Islamic world – he went to Riyadh by way of Cairo – a preacher greeted him, saying: “What a blessed moment, Abu Hussein.” A blessed moment?! When Obama comes to the heart of the Islamic world, that Arabian Peninsula?! Is it a “blessed moment” when we welcome Obama – the commander of the Crusader war against Islam today, the Pharaoh of our times? Should we be welcoming him with these words? This is an example of the jurisprudence of ignominy and the culture of servility.

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Nidal Hasan is a student of mine, and I am proud of this. I am proud that there are people like Nidal Hasan among my students. What he did was a heroic act, a wonderful operation. I ask Allah to make him steadfast, to protect him, and to free him. I support what he did, and I call upon anyone who calls himself a Muslim, and serves in the US army, to follow in the footsteps of Nidal Hasan. Good deeds erase bad ones. In addition, I call upon [all] Muslims to follow in his footsteps, and to wage Jihad by speech or by action. Nidal Hasan set a wonderful example, and I ask Allah to make it a beginning, and that many other Muslims will follow in his footsteps.

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[US Muslim] organizations used to support the Jihad in Afghanistan, in Bosnia, in Chechnya, and in Palestine. I was there, in America, at that time. We used to call from the pulpits to everything in Islam: Jihad for the sake of Allah, the establishment of the Caliphate. Allegiance and Disavowal. We could speak freely. The freedom in America allowed us to say these things, and we had much more freedom than in many of the countries of the Islamic world.

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How can we possibly oppose an operation like Nidal Hasan’s?! He killed American soldiers on their way to Afghanistan and Iraq. Who could possibly oppose this? There is a consensus about this issue, not only among humans, but even among domesticated animals. If you push a cat into a corner, it makes its fur stand on end, and its bares its teeth and its claws in order to defend itself. Yet we say that a Muslim does not have the right to defend himself? Nidal Hasan is Palestinian in origin. He was defending his nation.

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We are dealing with an infidel country, America, which is at war with us. The image of ourselves that we want to convey to America is: Oh America, if you attack us, we will attack you, and if you kill us, we will kill you.

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The war today between the Muslims and the Americans is not just about oil, not just about a maritime strait, and not just about controlling a land or a sea. It is not just a war over Palestine, Iraq, or Afghanistan. True, these are all among the reasons for the conflict, but in its essence, hart, and core, this is a war about the belief in Allah’s unity. America wants to destroy the Islam that was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. They want to replace it with the falsified Islam that I mentioned.

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Interviewer: After the air strikes in Abyan and Shabwa, the mujahid Umar Farouk tried to blow up a Delta airliner en route from Amsterdam to Detroit. This operation was in retaliation for the oppressive American air strikes in Yemen. What is your connection to Umar Farouk?

Anwar Al-Awlaki: This operation fulfilled some goals of the mujahideen. It is considered an operation of retaliation and deterrence against the Americans. This operation demonstrated the flaws in the US security agencies, both in their intelligence and in their [homeland] security. The Americans spent over $40 billion on their airport security, and then the mujahid Umar Farouk managed to penetrate these measures. In addition, the intelligence agencies claim that he was under surveillance, yet he managed to reach Detroit, in the heart of America. This operation achieved great successes, even without killing a single person.

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As for the brother Umar Farouk, he is likewise a student of min, and this also is an honor. I support what he did.

Interviewer: Do you support such operations, even though they target what the media calls “innocent civilians”?

Anwar Al-Awlaki: Yes. With regard to the issue of “civilians,” this term has become prevalent these days, but I prefer to use the terms employed by our jurisprudents. They classify people as either combatants or non-combatants. A combatant is someone who bears arms – even if this is a woman. Non-combatants are people who do not take part in the war. The American people in its entirety takes part in the war, because they elected this administration, and they finance this war. In the recent elections, and in the previous ones, the American people had other options, and could have elected people who did not want war. Nevertheless, these candidates got nothing but a handful of votes. We should examine this issue from the perspective of Islamic law, and this settles the issue – is it permitted or forbidden? If the heroic mujahid brother Umar Farouk could have targeted hundreds of soldiers, that would have been wonderful. But we are talking about the realities of war.

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For 50 years, an entire people – the Muslims in Palestine – has been strangled, with American aid, support, and weapons. Twenty years of siege and then occupation of Iraq, and now, the occupation of Afghanistan. After all this, no one should even ask us about targeting a bunch of Americans who would have been killed in an airplane. Our unsettled account with America includes, at the very least, one million women and children. I’m not even talking about the men. Our unsettled account with America, in women and children alone, has exceeded one million. Those who would have been killed in the plane are a drop in the ocean.

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They shut down my website following Nidal Hasan’s operation. I had posted an article of mine in support of what Nidal Hasan did, and so, they shut down my website. Then I read in the Washington Post that they were monitoring my communications. So I was forced to stop these communications. I left that region, and then the American air strikes took place.

But it is not true that I am a fugitive. I move around among my tribesmen and in other parts of Yemen, because the people of Yemen hate the Americans, and support the people of truth and the oppressed. I move around among the Awlaki tribe, and I get support from wide sectors of the people in Yemen, whether in Abida, Daham, Waila, Hashed, Bakil, or Hawlan, whether in Hadhramawt, Abyan, Shabwa, Aden, or Sanaa.

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There were negotiations in the past with the Yemeni government about turning myself in, but I categorically rejected this, because I am not accused of anything, to begin with. What am I accused of? That I call to the truth? That I call to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and in defense of the Islamic nation’s causes?

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The same goes for the Americans. I have no intention of turning myself in to them. If they want me, let them search for me.

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The Islamic movements, the clerics, and the Islamic universities should send representatives to Somalia, to study under these mujahideen, and then pass this experience on in their own countries.

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Nidal Hasan used to be an American Muslim, the way the US wants them to be. Nidal Hasan used to pray, fast, and give zakat, but at the same time, he was a soldier in the US army, whose loyalty lay with America. Then, as a result of America’s crimes, he turned into a mujahid for the sake of Allah. From being an American soldier, Nidal Hasan turned into a mujahid who killed the soldiers with whom he served. If America’s crimes continue, we will see a new Nidal Hasan. There are also mujahideen from the West, or from America, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and this phenomenon will grow, due to the Western and American crimes in the Islamic world.

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My message to the Muslims in general, and to those in the Arabian Peninsula in particular, is that we should participate in this Jihad against America. Today, America leads the global Crusader campaign against the Muslims. The America of today is the Pharaoh of the past. We should take part in it. We have a glimmer of hope in this small band of mujahideen in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in Somalia, who have managed to bring the US army to its knees. Due to this Jihad, the US economy is reeling today. If that small band of mujahideen have managed to defeat America, imagine what would happen if the Islamic nation rose up. America cannot withstand this Islamic nation. It is too weak. America’s cunning is weaker than a spider web.