Yemeni cleric who allegedly was in contact with Major Hasan and Abdulmutallab has been targeted for arrest.
The cleric has had little trouble from law enforcement until now, despite his support of al-Qaida and attempts to spread the ideology in the Muslim world. Authorities’ failure to react to him and other Islamist radicals in Yemen highlight the conflicts of political Islam amongst Yemeni’s ruling class.
But the scrutiny of Yemen’s neglect of al-Awlaki ignores their counter-radicalization efforts which include a terrorist re-education program where clerics attempt to persuade jailed militants that Islam is not a violent ideology or religion. Hamoud Hitar, Islamic scholar, is leading the program. Until 2006, none of Yemen’s 420 radical militant prisoners committed armed violence against the state.
