Feds Focus on Celeb Imams

The ties between the alleged Christmas Day bomber and a radical imam have cast the spotlight on so-called Internet imams, who go online to recruit young Muslims. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is believed to have been in contact with the Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who also exchanged emails with alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. According to The New York Times, these clerics “offer in some cases an almost heroic flair because of their occasional brushes with the law.” The Washington Post reports that Abdulmutallab possibly had "face-to-face" contact with the cleric during his stay in Yemen and may have met with the cleric in a house later destroyed by U.S. forces.