6 UNITED STATES V. MOHAMUD In 2009, Mohamud began communicating over the Internet with Samir Khan, a United States citizen then living in North Carolina.2 Khan published Jihad Recollections, an online magazine aimed at English-speaking al-Qaeda supporters. From February to August 2009, Mohamud and Khan exchanged roughly 150 emails, with Mohamud using his truthbespoken email account. Topics included Islamic law and advice about personal relationships. They also outlined Mohamud’s support for Osama bin Laden. During this time period, Mohamud wrote four articles for Jihad Recollections.3 Among other things, the articles recommended physical exercise to prepare for war with the West and analyzed Europe’s vulnerability to a jihadi attack. Mohamud’s initial drafts of these articles contained more incendiary content. For example, Mohamud praised the proficiency of the September 11, 2001, hijackers who “hit them so fast the Americans became dumbfounded,” the 2008 Mumbai attackers, who were “a great display of quickly entering the arena of battle and just decimating the kuffar [unbelievers],” and the fighters in Afghanistan who attacked landing American helicopters and then “finish[ed] off the wounded American soldiers.” Mohamud also prayed for Allah to help the reader “prepar[e] you to meet Allah as a martyr” and included a photograph of the Twin Towers burning during the September 11th attacks. Khan removed 2 The September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar alAwlaki, an al-Qaeda leader, also killed Khan. 3 Three of the articles were published under the pen name Ibn alMubarak. Mohamud was not credited with publishing the fourth article, which appeared in Jihad Recollections under a different pseudonym, Abu Talha.