Washington Post (USA) 09/02/2010

Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said he taught and corresponded with the suspect in the attempted Dec. 25 airliner bombing but did not order the attack, according to an interview published this week.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, "is one of my students; yes, we were in correspondence," Aulaqi said in the interview, published Tuesday in Arabic by al-Jazeera.net. "But I did not give [him] a fatwa in regards to this operation." In Islam, a fatwa is an order by a recognized religious authority.

The interview was the first to claim direct contact with Aulaqi since the attempted attack but did not indicate when or where it took place. An introduction to the question-and-answer format said it was rushed because of "security conditions and precautions."

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