As mentioned earlier his parents are from Yemen but Anwar al-Awaki was born while his family was living in New Mexico.  The family left America and he and his parents returned to Yemen sometime in 1978 to his ancestral home in the Shabwa region of South Yemen.   Awlaki's family is well-known in Yemen. His father was a former agriculture minister, Nasser al-Awlaki . After roughly thirteen years,  Al-Awlaki returned to America  in 1991 to attend college, and obtained a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University.  He followed this up with  an M.A. in Education Leadership from San Diego State University.  By this point Anwar Al-Awlaki had already fallen under the spell of radical Islam.    He then began to work on obtaining a Doctorate degree in Human Resource Development at George Washington University Graduate School of Education & Human Development from January to December 2001.  During this time he was an Imam at the Dar al-Hijrah mosque also known as the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA. 
 It is very interesting to think that Mr. Al-Awlaki was able to utilize the human resource development skills in recruiting and developing young jihadist minds to share the same ideologies that al Qaeda holds paramount.

Anwar al-Awlaki Terrorist Connections  Septeber 11th Attacks.  While in San Diego Awlaki developed close relationships with two of the September 11, 2001 hijackers.  He met with Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid Almihdhar many times in closed door meetings according to an FBI witness. He continued to be their spiritual advisor while he was an Imam at the Dar al-Hirah Islamic Center in Virginia. In addition to these accounts Awlaki's phone number was found in a Hamburg Germany apartment of Ramzi Binalshibh.  Binalshibh is known as the 20th hijacker.  After the attacks in New York, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania the heat from the FBI was on. Awlaki and others were questioned in an attempt by the FBI to connect the dots of the dreaded September 11th attacks.  There was plenty of connections but not enough information or evidence discovered to press charges, however Anwar al-Awalki was a person of interest to the FBI. The pressure from being under the U.S. Governments microscope led to al Awlaki leaving the United States for Great Britain and eventually back to Yemen.  While in the Britain, he gave a series of lectures in December 2002 and January 2003 at the London Masjid at-Tawhid mosque, describing the rewards martyrs receive in paradise, and developing a following among ultraconservative young Muslims.  England is once again like America at risk from homegrown elements of disciples of Awlaki.  His connections across the pond are not yet visible but one would believe that through his speeches which planted the seeds, that over time his translations into English of many fundamental al Qaeda core belief teachings will have it's effects.  In America, the U.S. government law enforcement agencies are not only already aware of how dangerous al-Awlaki is, but are trying to diffuse the recent wave of threats and attacks that were inspired by the cleric. Ft. Hood, Texas Shootings  U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 13 and wounded over thirty more in a terrorist assault on the U.S. Army base.  Anwar al-Awlaki  was  in contact with U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan in the year leading up to Hasan's horrific attacks at Fort Hood, Texas Army Base on November 5, 2009. Hasan was known to argue with fellow soldiers who supported U.S. war policy, say those who know him professionally and personally. He was a counselor who once required counseling for himself because of trouble he had dealing with some patients, said a former boss. Hasan was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan where he would counsel troops in coping with stress.  A classmate of Hasan stated the the disgruntled Major "viewed the war against terror" as a "war against Islam." US intelligence intercepted at least 18 emails between Hasan and al-Awlaki from December 2008 to June 2009, including one in which Hasan wrote "I can't wait to join you in the afterlife."    A fellow Muslim officer at the Ft. Hood told the Daily Telegraph that the shooting suspect's eyes "lit up" when gushing about Awlaki's teachings.

Anwar Al-Awlaki Born 4/22/1971 in New Mexico.  Moved to Yemen for 13 yrs. in 1978 and returned to America for college in 1991 at Colorado State. He was a cleric in Southern California while he was getting his masters at San Diego St.  when his mosque was attended by two of the 911 hijackers leading up to the attack in New York, Washington D.C. and PA.  They would have closed door meetings with Awlaki. Investigators, however, have had Awlaki on their radar for a long time -- at least since the Sept. 11 attacks. The FBI questioned him about his role as "spiritual adviser" to Sept. 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va Awlaki is a former imam of mosques in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Virginia. Two of those mosques were attended by some of the September 11, 2001, hijackers. Hasan's family also worshipped at the Virginia mosque. In Britain, Awlaki was banned from speaking via videolink at a fundraising event in London for Muslims held at Guantanamo Bay amid claims, which he disputes, that he backed attacks on British troops and supported organizations linked to al Qaeda. Awlaki returned to Yemen in 2004, where he taught at a university before he was arrested and imprisoned in 2006 for suspected links to al Qaeda and involvement in attacks.  He was released in December 2007 because he said he had repented, a Yemeni security official said. But he was later charged again on similar counts and went into hiding.  Sought by authorities in Yemen with regard to a new investigation into his possible Al-Qaeda ties, the authorities have been unable to locate him since approximately March 2009, though he has been accessible to the Arabic press Al-Awlaki is an adherent of the Wahhabi fundamentalist sect of Islam; His sermons were extremely anti-Israel and pro-jihad.

Maj. Hasan is accused of killing 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian in a Nov. 5 rampage at the Texas Army base. Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty.

Christmas Day Terrorist Attack in Detroit  Though no one was killed in the foiled Christmas Day plane hijacking over Detroit, it still should send a very strong signal that once again al Qaeda wants to strike at the hearts and fears of the American homeland.  A federal grand jury in Detroit has indicted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in the alleged Christmas Day terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound airliner.  The 23-year-old Nigerian national, who is in custody at a federal prison in Milan, Mich., is charged in a federal criminal complaint with trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear on Flight 253, which was en route to Detroit from Amsterdam.  The plot was foiled when passengers saw that Abdulmutallab pants leg was on fire and assumed he was trying to explode the plain over the Detroit populace.  The passengers were successful and he was unable to detonate the explosives that were sewn into his underwear.  He will forever be known as the "underwear bomber".  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility Monday for the attack, saying it was in retaliation for alleged U.S. strikes on Yemeni soil.  A preliminary FBI analysis found that the device AbdulMutallab is said to have carried aboard the flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan, contained pentaerythritol tetranitrate, an explosive also known as PETN. The amount of explosive was sufficient to blow a hole in the aircraft, a source with knowledge of the investigation.

In the weeks before the attempted airliner attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab met with al-Qaida operatives in a remote mountainous region that was later hit in an air strike that targeted a gathering of the group's top leaders, Yemen's deputy prime minister said.  Abdulmutallab came to Yemen in August, ostensibly to study Arabic at a San'a language institute where he previously studied from 2004-2005. But he disappeared in September, and his whereabouts were unknown until he left the country Dec. 4.  A Yemen official said that at some point during that period, the Nigerian met with al-Qaida in a sparsely populated area of Shabwa province amid high mountains some 200 miles southeast of the capital.  Among those he was most likely meeting with was the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

"There is no doubt that he met and had contacts with al-Qaida elements in Shabwa ... perhaps with al-Awlaki," al-Alimi told reporters.  The Awlak tribe, to which the cleric belongs, dominates much of the area.  In Yemen, he provides al-Qaeda members with the protection of his powerful tribe, the Awlakis, against the government. The tribal codes requires the tribe to protect of those who seek refuge and help, and this is an even greater imperative where the person is a member of his tribe, or a tribesman's friend.

Abdulmutallab (aka "The Underwear Bomber")  did meet with radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, after being recruited in London, a senior Yemeni official has said.  The official also told journalists that Mr Abdulmutallab "joined al-Qaeda in London".  The suspected bomber studied at University College London  from September 2005 to June 2008 and was president of its Islamic society in 2006-07.

Anwar al-Awlaki and Yemen al Qaeda

His fluency with English, his unabashed advocacy of jihad and mujahideen organizations, and his Web-savvy approach are a powerful combination." He calls al-Awlaki's lecture "Constants on the Path of Jihad", which he says was based on a similar document written by the founder of Al-Qaeda, the "virtual bible for lone-wolf Muslim extremist

US officials in late 2009 said al-Awlaki had recently been promoted to the rank of regional commander within al-Qaeda. While Yemen calls al-Awlaki a spiritual adviser to al-Qaida militants, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said he is "clearly a part of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" trying to instigate terrorism.

On Dec. 24, the day before Abdulmutallab's alleged bombing attempt, Yemeni warplanes raided the Shabwa region, targeting a gathering of al-Qaida leaders that at first thought may have included al-Awlaki, as well as the head of al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen and his deputy.  There has been reports that Awlaki was not injured by the air strike or possibly was not there at the time of the attack.  There will be constant pressure in the coming weeks to capture or kill Anwar al-Awlaki by U.S. agencies. Hundreds of al-Qaida fighters are believed to operating in Yemen, many finding refuge with tribes disgruntled with the government, which has little control outside the capital and is burdened with crises.

Awlaki is sought by authorities in Yemen with regard to a new investigation into his possible Al-Qaeda ties, however, the authorities were unable to locate al-Awlaki since approximately March 2009, and by December 2009 al-Awlaki was on the Yemen government's most-wanted list