The latest local terror suspects were obsessed with an American-born cleric whose al Qaeda ties have earned him a prime spot on the feds’ hit list.
While no direct contact has been established between Anwar al-Awlaki and the suspected jihadists busted over the weekend, authorities said the men repeatedly listened to the fugitive imam’s recorded lectures promoting violent strikes against the United States.
One of the suspects, Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, kept recordings of Awlaki’s lectures on his cellphone — and used them to pump the pair up as they sweated at local gyms and hiked to get in shape to kill Americans, authorities said.
The recordings were likely downloaded off the Internet. Awlaki — who is believed to be covertly operating in Yemen — has used the Web to recruit terrorists.
He has been blamed for inspiring the Army-base rampage that killed 13 people in Fort Hood, Texas, and the failed Christmas Day airline bombing, during which the suspect tried to set off a bomb in his underwear.
In a video posted on Islamist Web sites last month, Awlaki justified the killing of American civilians and urged Muslims in the US army to kill their fellow soldiers.
The cleric, a dual citizen of Yemen and the United States, has been targeted by American officials for assassination, according to various reports.
In December and again in January, Almonte played a recording on his cellphone of Awlaki lecturing about “the importance of violent jihad.”
“During the recording, al-Awlaki emphasized that an individual need not rely on others or have a leader in order to wage violent jihad,” according to a criminal complaint.
Almonte and alleged cohort Mohamed Alessa, 20, were heading to Somalia to link up with one of Africa’s most fearsome militant Islamist groups, authorities said. They had specifically singled out al-Shabaab as the jihadist group of choice to wage holy war against the United States.
“It has to be them,” Almonte allegedly said in a recorded conversation with an undercover officer.
Al-Shabaab has drawn increasingly close to al Qaeda in recent years, deploying suicide bombers and attracting jihadists from around the world as it terrorizes much of Somalia in an effort to impose strict Islamic rule.