The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided “full funding” for an al-Qaida terrorist to attend college in Colorado, unearthed documents appear to show.
This wild discovery comes as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) continues to investigate U.S. government agencies, looking for cases of overspending, corruption and fraud.
Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born jihadist, was killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen. A central figure in al Qaida, he had contact with military psychiatrist Nidal Hasan before the latter shot 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, officials said at the time, according to Fox News.
USAID, an independent agency and main international humanitarian and development arm of the U.S. government, managed more than $40 billion in combined appropriations, accounting for around 40% of the globe’s aid budget.
However, DOGE and Republican lawmakers have accused USAID for bankrolling numerous questionable programs over the years, with DOGE head Elon Musk launching a sweeping funding freeze that has shut down most of the agency’s programs around the world.
A copy of a document that appears to show a USAID form dated June 1990 was shared widely on social media. It outlined that al-Awlaki was granted funding to attend the college by fraudulently claiming he was a Yemeni national and qualified for an exchange visa.
The unearthed document previously was reported by George Washington University’s research and archival institution, the National Security Archive, Fox News noted.
“This form, dated 1990, confirms that Anwar al-Awlaki was qualified for an exchange visa and that USAID was providing ‘full funding’ for his studies at Colorado State University,” the archive, which included a copy of the document, reported in 2015.
“The document lists Anwar’s birthplace incorrectly as Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, which he later said was a deliberate falsehood offered at the urging of American officials who knew his father so that he could qualify for a scholarship reserved for foreign citizens.”
When asked to list an address, the document reports that al-Awlaki listed his address as “c/o USAID/Sana’a.”
Colorado State University confirmed to the outlet that al-Awlaki attended the school “under the name spelling of Anwar Alaulaqi,” from 1990-94, graduating with a Bachelor’s of Science in civil engineering.
He worked as a Muslim cleric in Denver, San Diego and Falls Church, Va., before moving to Yemen in 2004.
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But four years before that, Al-Awlaki was preaching at a San Diego mosque where he reportedly first met Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the 9/11 hijackers, Fox reported.
Al-Awlaki was arrested in 2006 in Yemen on suspicion of holding terrorist ties, with U.S. intelligence viewing him as a terrorist sympathizer until about 2009, NBC News previously reported.
That year, he was linked to the Fort Hood shooting as well as the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day.
The Obama administration authorized operations to capture or kill al-Awlaki in 2010, with a drone strike in Yemen on Sept. 30, 2011 ultimately sealing his fate.
The unearthed document reportedly connecting al-Awlaki to USAID funding comes as Musk works on dismantling the agency, which the Tesla CEO dubbed a “criminal organization.”
Trump said in an interview with Fox News over the weekend that his administration and DOGE are on a mission to cut government waste.
“We have to solve the efficiency problem,” Trump said.
“We have to solve the fraud, waste, abuse, all the things that have gone into the government. You take a look at the USAID, the kind of fraud in there.”