USAID Paid College Tuition For Al-Qaeda Terrorist, Records Show

A U.S. agency currently being targeted by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk – and defended by Democrats – reportedly paid the college tuition of an American-born jihadist who U.S. government officials had described as “a key leader of Al-Qaeda.”

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided “full funding” for Anwar al-Awlaki to attend Colorado State University in 1990, Fox News reported. Al-Awlaki was an American-born jihadist with ties to the 9/11 hijackers, who was killed in a drone strike during the Obama administration.

Al-Awlaki was instrumental in Al-Qaeda’s war against the U.S. and had contact with Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan prior to Hasan killing 13 people at the U.S. Army post in Texas in 2009 that was formerly known as Fort Hood.

Documents showing that USAID paid for Al-Awlaki’s college tuition first appeared on social media over the weekend by investigative reporters and revealed that Al-Awlaki fraudulently claimed he was a Yemeni national to qualify for an exchange visa.

Reporters Pamela Browne and Catherine Herridge posted the documents on X, noting that Al-Awlaki falsely claimed he was a permanent resident of the Republic of Yemen seeking tuition.

“Aulaqi would later develop close ties with several 9/11 hijackers and attain leadership status in AQ’s Yemen affiliate,” Herridge wrote. “Aulaqi was the godfather of the digital jihad that leveraged his writings and the web to radicalize Americans to AQ’s cause. Aulaqi became the first American targeted for death by the CIA. In 2011, he was killed in a US drone strike.”

STUNNING:

Looks like USAID supported college tuition for Anwar Aulaqi (Awlaki) who later became a high level al Qaeda terrorist.

Aulaqi falsely claimed he was born in Yemen to secure the financial help via the State Dept. when he was actually a US citizen, born in Las Cruces… https://t.co/jW3yHS81F1

— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) February 9, 2025

Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1971. His parents were both from Yemen, and he traveled between the two countries as he grew up. The document, which has been unearthed at a crucial time for USAID, was first discovered by George Washington University’s National Security Archive in 2015.

“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 National Security Archive reported at the time. “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.”

After graduating, Al-Awlaki worked as a Muslim cleric in cities across the U.S., including at a mosque in San Diego in 2000 where he met two 9/11 hijackers. He moved to Yemen in 2004 and was arrested in 2006 on suspicion of holding terrorist ties, Fox reported. In addition to the Fort Hood shooting, Al-Awlaki was also linked to the reported attempted bombing of a flight over Detroit on December 25, 2009.