"Fight in the Cause of Allah," Times Square Bomber Wrote in 2006

Quoting the Koran in a 2006 email, Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad wrote that "those who believe" should "fight in the Cause of Allah." Shahzad expressed anger over the cartoon drawings of Mohammed, conflicts that pitted Muslims against non-Muslims, and democracy.

"Why do you have to follow Democracy (Human made Laws) if you're already given Law revealed from Allah, Quran and Sunnah," Shahzad asked in the email, obtained by CNN.

"Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed," he wrote. "And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows? In Palestine, Afghan, Iraq, Chechnya and elsewhere."

Shahzad again quoted the Koran, writing that Muslims should "fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression."

Shahzad continued: "The crusade has already started against Islam and Muslims with cartoons of our beloved Prophet."

But let's not jump to any conclusions about why Shahzad tried to blow up Times Square. As Attorney General Eric Holder said last week, while refusing to admit that radical Islam motivated Shahzad, "We're in the process now of talking to Mr. Shahzad to try to understand what it is that drove him to take the actions" that he did.

Update: Tom Joscelyn adds:

Shahzad wrote these words in 2006, long before any of his supposed financial problems, and more than three years before he became an American citizen. Notice that he wrote another inflammatory email the same month he became a U.S. citizen -- April 2009.
 
He was entered into federal database of suspicious individuals in 1999, for carrying large sums of cash and cash instruments into the U.S.
 
In 2004 he was apparently investigated by the national JTTF, which had some reason to be suspicious of him.
 
And then he wrote these jihadi style comments in 2006.