More Shahzad news

Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti have the story in The New York Times:

The Pakistani-American man accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in Times Square has told investigators that he drew inspiration from Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American cleric whose militant online lectures have been a catalyst for several recent attacks and plots, an American official said Thursday. The would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, said he was “inspired by” the violent rhetoric of Mr. Awlaki, said the official, who would speak of the investigation only on condition of anonymity. “He listened to him, and he did it,” the official said, referring to Saturday’s attempted bombing on a busy street in Times Square.
Friends of Mr. Shahzad have said he became more religious and somber in the last year or so, and asked his father’s permission in 2009 to join the fight in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces. Investigators believe he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that previously focused mainly on Pakistani government targets.
A senior military official said that Mr. Shahzad had told interrogators that he met with Pakistani Taliban operatives in North Waziristan in December and January. Later he received explosives training from the same operatives, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.
Counterterrorism officials want to know how Mr. Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen who had earned an MBA, married and had children, and worked in several corporate jobs, came to embrace violence.
It is no surprise to counterterrorism officials to find that a terrorist suspect had been influenced by Mr. Awlaki, 39, now hiding in Yemen, who has emerged as perhaps the most prominent English-speaking advocate of violent jihad against the United States. Earlier this year, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the killing of Mr. Awlaki, making him the first American citizen on the Central Intelligence Agency’s hit list.
Mr. Awlaki’s English-language online lectures and writings have turned up in more than a dozen terrorism investigations in the United States, Britain, and Canada, counterterrorism experts have said. And in two recent United States cases, Mr. Awlaki communicated directly with the person accused in the attack.
Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing thirteen people at Fort Hood, Texas in November, exchanged about eighteen email messages with Mr. Awlaki in the year before the shootings, asking among other things whether it would be permissible under Islam to kill American soldiers preparing to fight in Afghanistan. After the shootings, Mr. Awlaki praised Major Hasan as “a hero” on his website, which was taken offline by the internet host company shortly after the posting.
In addition, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner on Christmas Day, is believed to have met Mr. Awlaki during his training by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
It is unclear whether Mr. Shahzad ever directly communicated with Mr. Awlaki.
A video broadcast on 26 April on al-Jazeera showed Mr. Awlaki speaking in Arabic and accusing the United States of participating with Yemeni forces in two airstrikes in December, one of which was directed at a house where Mr. Awlaki was believed to be meeting with leaders of the Qaeda branch. The video carried the logo of the media arm of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Mr. Awlaki was questioned by the FBI late in 2001 about contacts with three of the Sept. 11 hijackers who had attended his mosques in San Diego and Virginia. He denied any radical ties and denounced the 9/11 attacks in public statements.
He was imprisoned in Yemen in 2006 and 2007, and after his release he was more overtly approving of violence. Last year, he published a tract titled “44 Ways of Supporting Jihad” that was widely circulated on the Internet.
Mr. Awlaki’s website became a favorite for English-speaking Muslims who were curious about jihad, and hundreds of people sent email messages to his site. It is not known whether Mr. Shahzad was among them, and there is no evidence that Mr. Shahzad visited the cleric in Yemen, where he was believed to be hiding in a harsh region of desert and mountains.