Three days after Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an army psychiatrist, murdered 13 of his colleagues at the Soldier Readiness Center in Fort Hood last November, Anwar Awlaki, an imam with whom he had been in email contact, posted a notice on his website. 'Nidal is a hero,' Awlaki wrote:

He opened fire on soldiers who were on their way to be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan ... How can there be any dispute about the virtue of what he has done? ... May Allah grant our brother Nidal patience, perseverance and steadfastness, and we ask Allah to accept from him his great heroic act.

LRB 28 January 2010 | PDF Download