US terror attacks have common denominator in Anwar al-Awlaki

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Five years after Anwar al-Awlaki was killed by an American drone strike, he still inspires acts of terror.

Investigators say a bomb that rocked New York a week ago, injuring more than two dozen people, was the latest in a line of incidents in which the attackers were inspired by al-Awlaki, an American imam who became an al-Qaida propagandist.

Federal terrorism charges against the bombing suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, say a bloodstained notebook – found on him after he engaged in a shootout with police in New Jersey and was arrested – included passages praising al-Awlaki.

Among the attackers who investigators and terror experts say were inspired by al-Awlaki and his videos: the couple who carried out the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings, which left 14 people dead in December, and the brothers behind the Boston Marathon bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others in April 2013.