http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=352561Book: Snuffed out terrorist busted for vice, loitering around schools
The recently slain American al-Qaida cleric at the center of dozens of terror plots, including the 9/11 attacks, led a seedy double life that included a penchant for hookers and underage girls, a blockbuster new book reveals.
In the 1990s, Anwar Awlaki, then an imam at a small San Diego mosque, was picked up twice by San Diego police for soliciting prostitutes. He served no jail time.
The Muslim holy man was also cited for loitering around playgrounds and schools. Local detectives believe he may have been a pedophile on the prowl.
U.S.-born Awlaki, 40, was killed last week in a CIA drone strike in Yemen, following his designation last year as a top al-Qaida terrorist.
Within months of being named prayer leader of Masjid al-Rabat just outside San Diego in 1996, Awlaki was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in a nearby redlight district. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $400, after enrolling in an AIDS awareness program.
But the cleric was unfazed by the embarrassing bust.
The next year, he was arrested again for vice. This time, Awlaki was sentenced to three years probation and fined $240. He was also ordered to perform 12 days of community service.
Then in 2002, after taking over a large mosque in the Washington suburbs, Awlaki was caught on tape at a Virginia ATM with a young prostitute he'd picked up in the district and driven across the Potomac. The woman was a minor, and federal authorities considered busting Awlaki under the Mann Act, an obscure federal law originally passed in 1910 to stop johns and pimps from trafficking underage girls across state lines.
But the case was never prosecuted – one of many investigations against the Saudi Embassy-connected terrorist to mysteriously lose traction.
Awlaki at the time lived in Falls Church, Va., with his wife and children.
In his sermons at the Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, and in his widely circulated taped lectures, he railed against sins of the flesh, and spoke openly about his disgust for fornication on Earth.
He was held up in the Muslim community as a paragon of traditional Islamic virtues.
"While employed at Dar Al-Hijrah, he was known for his interfaith outreach, civic engagement and tolerance in the Northern Virginia community," said Dar al-Hijrah spokesman Johari Abdul-Malik.
But investigators and terror experts say he was a hypocrite.
"In both cities, he held important leadership positions at the mosque. He had a young wife and a family," said Fox News national security correspondent Catherine Herridge, author of "The Next Wave: On the Hunt for Al-Qaeda's American Recruits." "Yet, in his off time, in Virginia and in San Diego, Awlaki let off steam in inappropriate ways."
His seedy side could tarnish his martyr status and give his many slavish followers pause. At least one former member of his San Diego flock says he's offended by news of Awlaki's indiscretions.
"You have this guy who's actively sitting there telling people, you know, this is how you should conduct your affairs," said a Muslim convert to Islam identified by Herridge as having known Awlaki at the al-Rabat mosque. "If that's the case, he should also say that, you know, while you're going down El Cajon Boulevard (in the redlight distict, not far from Awlaki's old mosque), on this side of he street they have the more expensive prostitutes, and this side they have the cheaper ones."
Awlaki privately counseled the 9/11 hijackers and later, the Fort Hood terrorist. Before carrying out their attacks, interestingly, they patronized topless bars.
Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter, spent evenings at the Starz strip club off base. According to one dancer, he paid $50 for a lap dance in one of the club's private rooms a week before the massacre.
Such lechery has preceded treachery in other major suicidal attacks, as well.
Sexual frenzy seems to "run through the lives of many successful and wannabe terrorists," Herridge writes in her bestselling book. "You could say the promise of martyrdom and the fabled virgins was like a get-out-of-jail-free card. There was no problem sinning today when paradise was guaranteed tomorrow."
Traditional Islam forbids the intermingling of the sexes. That means no dancing, and no mixed swimming or other mixed sports activities. Women and men, moreover, are separated during mosque worship. Marriages are arranged, and there is no dating. And women are required to veil themselves.
Such sexual repression can lead to perversion – especially among men, explains Marc Sageman, a leading forensic psychiatrist and terror expert.
"They cannot have sex. They cannot think about it. They cannot even look at a woman – and well, (then) you're going to have aberrant behavior," said Sageman, author of "Leadership Jihad."
"And then they blame the West for that," he added, "because the West is who put the temptation there."
Former FBI special agent Brian Weidner agrees. He says raids of Muslim terror suspects' homes commonly turn up hard drives containing some 90 percent pornography.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden also kept a cyberporn stash, according to reports about the daring U.S. raid on his Pakistani hideout.
"Traditional Islam is significantly sexually repressive," Weidner said in "The Next Wave." "Historically, when we see sexually repressive environments, the people do strange things."
In addition, U.S. military interrogators in Iraq and Afghanistan tell WND it was not uncommon for terrorist detainees to engage in abnormal sexual behavior.
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