Imam of mosque Hasan once attended denies alleged link to 9/11 hijackers

By BARRY SHLACHTER

barry@star-telegram.com

The suspect in the Fort Hood shootings once regularly attended a Falls Church, Va., mosque, which the FBI has linked to two of the 9/11 hijackers, but the congregation's current spiritual leader Sunday insisted the government's claims of connections are wrong.

In 2001, Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center was led by Anwar Al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born scholar now living in Yemen. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, according to disclosures by a Fort Hood acquaintance, was an admirer of Al-Awlaki, who has been described as a radical Islamist.

The 9/11 Commission report accepted FBI findings that two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour, briefly worshiped at the mosque after one had met Al-Awlaki during the imam's previous religious posting in San Diego. But the FBI found no evidence that Al-Awlaki had prior knowledge of the attack, The Washington Post reported.

Shaker Elsayed, Dar's current imam, said the FBI turned over to the commission the fact that two of the hijackers used the mosque as their home address on driver's license applications, which Elsayed ridiculed as a specious link, noting that even FBI agents he met could not provide credible proof of a connection with the congregation.

Moreover, no congregant remembers seeing either al-Hamzi or Hanjour at Dar, one of the capital area's oldest and largest mosques, the imam told the Star-Telegram.

No luck finding wife

Elsayed said he spent time with Hasan, but that was after being asked to assist the bachelor psychiatrist find a wife.

"I met him personally because he sought my help to get him married. This was unsuccessful," said the imam, who learned little of the man's world view.

Like most worshipers, Hasan "joined prayers, finished prayers, then left," he said. "I didn't see him hanging out with people, joining discussion groups or classes. But there has been a lot of blogging about our mosque, a rightwing conspiracy, trying to make a mountain out of cardboard."

Contrary to numerous reports that Hasan was a brooding loner in Killeen, a more detailed picture of Hasan has surfaced that said he had at least one close friend, an Army officer who had converted in Islam several years ago. They had worshiped through the night together during the final days of Ramadan, the Muslim fasting holiday.

Kamran Pasha, a Pakistani-American novelist, quoted the Fort Hood officer as saying he befriended the Army psychiatrist, prayed side-by-side with him hours before Thursday's mass killings and had once challenged Hasan's view that Islam condoned suicide bombings.

Hasan also argued that Jews were "cursed by God," according to the officer, who had contacted Pasha long before the shootings to discuss his novel, Mother of the Believers, an account of Islam's beginnings as seen through the eyes of Prophet Mohammed's wife Aisha. The officer, a 22-year Army veteran, declined to be identified or speak to reporters because of his past work in special operations in Iraq, Pasha said. No independent corroboration could be made Sunday.