Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — Radical Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi has praised a Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US airliner and said the man accused in the attack was his "student," according to an interview published by Al-Jazeera.

The militant religious leader, accused of links to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said he supported the attack.

He described alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who reportedly received training in Yemen, as his "student," but said that he did not direct the young Nigerian to launch the attack.

"I support what Umar Farouk did," he added, citing the deaths of Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as drone strikes in Yemen, to justify the foiled attack against a Northwest Airlines plane as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day.



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