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When the 9/11 Commission Report was released in July 2004, it outlined the commission’s suspicions about Awlaki. At that time, few in the mainstream media showed interest in exploring Awlaki’s role further, let alone his current activities.22 Yet by now, terrorism investigators in several countries were taking notice.

Awlaki was an emerging player in the radicalization of English-speaking Westerners. Members of a terrorist cell known as the Fort Dix Six, which was planning to attack U.S. military personnel in New Jersey, listened to Awlaki’s lectures during training. His recordings were also linked to a group of Somali Americans in Minnesota who had traveled to fight jihad in Somalia.23 In case after case, investigators fighting terrorism found copies of Awlaki’s lectures on the computers of their suspects.

Part of his wide appeal was attributed to the use of the Internet to spread his message. Awlaki maintained a Facebook page with thousands of followers and a widely read blog. He was accessible; his followers could e-mail him and receive a personal response. Awlaki was far from the only Islamic preacher using the Web to reach an audience, but he was particularly successful because of the moderate gloss he put on a message that could be rotated just a few degrees for a dramatically different effect. Large numbers of mainstream Muslims had been drawn to him for his inspirational works. A small but significant minority continued with him down the road to jihad.

In Yemen Awlaki fell in with a rough crowd, and trouble soon followed. In 2006 he and five others were arrested on charges of kidnapping a teenager for ransom. They were also planning to kidnap an American military official stationed in Yemen. The five men took care of the violence; Awlaki provided a fatwa purporting to offer an Islamic justification for their criminal activity.24

The imam’s nightmare of imprisonment had finally become a reality. But Awlaki’s account of his time in jail provided a stark contrast to his earlier tales of rape or torture. His prison cell was clean and empty. He was kept in solitary confinement for most of the time he was detained. He was not allowed to have pen, paper, or outdoor recreation. Toward the end, some of these restrictions were loosened. If he had been subjected to rapes, he did not speak of them.

He was subjected to interrogations, however. According to Awlaki, the FBI came to see him, again. They asked about September 11, again. And they left with nothing … again.25

When Awlaki emerged from prison in December 2007, he was different. Although his account of life in prison seemed a far cry from his worst imaginings, the experience led him even further down a dark path.

Before his arrest, Awlaki had been careful, always skirting the edges of the debate. His lectures were popular among aspiring radicals but not because they openly called for violence. Rather, they provided justifications and rationalizations. He called for action but did not say what that action should be. Now he was edging closer and closer to a true, unambiguous call to violence.

Awlaki’s blog offered justifications for suicide bombings and prayers for the destruction of America—but not a specific instruction to act on that prayer.26 He began to talk in increasingly glowing terms about jihad but still refrained from directly exhorting violence, as in this August 2008 blog entry:27

Because confusion usually surrounds what is meant by Jihad whether it is the Jihad al Nafs [struggle with oneself] or Jihad of the sword I do not exclusively mean one or the other and I do not exclude one or the other. What I mean by Jihad here is not just picking up a gun and fighting. Jihad is broader than that. What is meant by Jihad in this context is a total effort by the Ummah to fight and defeat its enemy.28

In 2008 he posted an entry praising Al Shabab, an extreme jihadist movement fighting in Somalia (see chapter 10).

Al Shabab not only have