first, investigators say the suspects studied internet postings by the radical american cleric, anwar al-awlaki, a one-time al-qaeda leader at yemen who we've since killed. the feds have also linked al-awlaki to fort hood massacre. the attempted underwear bombing on a flight to detroit, the botched times square car bombing. he was a big deal until he got droned in yemen last year. adam housley is in los angeles. what do we know about the suspects? >> yeah. the four suspects are from the inland empire of southern california. about an hour to the east. we know this, the leader was a 34-year-old, a naturalized u.s. citizen from afghanistan. he was arrested in afghanistan. the other three were arrested here. ralph deleon, the other awaiting citizenship here in the u.s. and another man from riverside. the four of these men all wanted to join the taliban. >> they discussed wanting to join the taliban and ultimately graduating to joining al-qaeda, who they referred to as the professors. >> as part of al-qaeda, the f.b.i. alleges they wanted to blow up american sites, kill american soldiers and cause m

now authorities say the suspects spent time at shooting ranges and studied the teachings of anwar al-awlaki, that's the al qaeda point man in yemen killed by the u.s. >>> after weeks of pressure following the deadly consulate attack in benghazi white house and intelligence officials are denying charges of whitewashing the true details in order to protect president obama before the election. top intelligence officials tell nbc news they knew it was a terrorist attack from the start but that it could also have been spontaneous and they say it was the intelligence community, not the white house, that wrote the unclassified talking points delivered by ambassador susan rice six days after the attack. meanwhile, 97 house republicans have signed a letter to the president opposing rice's potential nomination as secretary of state. >>> all right. now for look at the weather and details of a storm that could affect your holiday travel. >> anyone trying to travel yesterday in oregon and washington state, it wasn't pretty. not much better this morning either. we knew this was going to be a big storm. i

in 2011, one of those targeted for death was anwar al awlaki, an al qaeda leader living in yemen and an american citizen. are the standards different when the target's an american? >> when an american has made a decision to affiliate itself with al qaeda and target fellow americans, that -- there is a legal justification for us to try to stop them from carrying out plots. >> many of his supporters are quite concerned because they view this as basically a form of targeted assassination. >> do you struggle with this policy? >> oh, absolutely. if you don't, then it's very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules thinking that the ends always justify the means. >> another new frontier? with israel, the president is believed to have launched a devastating cyber war against iran's nuclear program. still, the president's been plagued by tensions with israel's prime minister that's prompted an election year defense of his dedication to the jewish state. >> our commitment to israel's security must not waver and neither must our pursuit of peace. >> for the president, it

al awlaki. >> there was extensive amount of admiration for him and idealizing anwar al awlaki. >> reporter: a former member of the u.s. air force. the fbi claims the alleged terror cell conducted training including going to shooting ranges and had even bought tickets to travel to afghanistan through mexico. >> this was a valid, violent extremist network. we took this very, very seriously. >> reporter: according to the fbi's charges, one of the alleg alleged terror cell members posted violent extremist media, including audio files of al awlaki. abc news discovered 30 cases brought against home grown radicals where al awlaki was inspiration. plots to detonate a car bomb at a chicago bar. all the cases came after al awlaki was dead. some officials fear we may see al awlaki's influence for years to come. he lives on online. pierre thomas, abc new, washington. >> influence from the grave. what's disturbing. the one man, kabeer, former member of the u.s. military. for a brief time. in the air force from summer 2000 to the end of 2001. they're not releasing details on why exactly he was honorably di

anwar al awlaki was the world's most wanted man, public enemy number one, encouraging radicals to attack america in his online preaching. the u.s. killed him in a drone strike in 2011, but today we learn awlaki is still helping to recruit terrorists from the grave. overnight the fbi announced charges against four californian men accused of plotting to go to afghanistan to bomb and kill u.s. soldiers. they were disciples of awlaki. >> there was an extensive amount of their admiration for him and, quite frankly, idolizing anwar awlaki. >> reporter: the alleged ringleader, sohiel kabir was a former member of the u.s. air force. the fbi claims the terror cell conducted training and went to shooting ranges and bought tickets to travel to afghanistan through mexico. >> this was a violent extremist network. we took this very, very seriously. >> reporter: according to the fbi's charges, one of the alleged terror cell's members had posted violent extremist media including audio files of awlaki. abc news has discovered at least 30 cases brought against so-called homegrown radicals where awlaki was

in 2011, one of those targeted for death was anwar al awlaki, an al qaeda leader living in yemen andcan citizen. are the standards different when the target's an american? >> when an american has made a decision to affiliate itself with al qaeda and target fellow americans, that -- you know, there is a legal justification for us to try to stop them from carrying out plots. >> many of his supporters are quite concerned because they view this as basically a form of targeted assassination. >> do you struggle with this policy? >> oh, absolutely. if you don't, then it's very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules, thinking that the ends always justify the means. >> another new frontier? with israel, the president is believed to have launched a devastating cyber war against iran's nuclear program. still, the president's been plagued by tensions with israel's prime minister that's prompted an election year defense of his dedication to the jewish state. >> our commitment to israel's security must not waver and neither must our pursuit of peace. >> for the president,

martha: what about ties between these men and the former leader law anwar al-awlaki. he was killed by a mortar in 2011 in yemen. it was a big get to get anwar al-awlaki. these guys studied his teachings online. when he was killed they seemed to turn it up a notch. their violent jihad got more significant and they planned on going into afghanistan. the informant, fbi informant infiltrated these four men and helped the fbi bring them down. throughout the entire document, it says the informant tried to talk the men out of jihad. but they said they wanted to go to a much better place, so to speak. martha: thank you very much, adam housley. bill: day number two, you feeling better? we are in our new digs. i was a little off kilter yesterday. you will love all the new things we have in this studio. bill: they worked on this thing for two months before the election came around. weeks left to reach a deal on the so-called fiscal cliff. but the president and the house minority leader nancy pelosi on the same page? martha: a top lawmaker making serious charges against the consul

the men had been studying online, the teachings of anwar al awlaki, killed by a u.s.ne in yemen in 2011. apparently even in death, al awlaki remains lethal. >> a grim reminder. thank you for that. >>> meanwhile, new hope for our 401(k)s this morning. wall street has reversed course. staging the biggest rally in two months, gaining more than 200 points. investors growing more optimistic that the government will be able to avoid that so-called fiscal cliff of tax increases and spending cuts looming at year's end. also, home sales are picking up. builder confidence said to be at the highest level in some 6 1/2 years. >>> and one last hope, perhaps, for the maker of the twinkie. a bankruptcy judge has ordered hostess and its union to attend mediation talks today to try to resolve their differences. if the talks do fail, the company's liquidation hearings will pick up again tomorrow. >>> and we're getting a better idea how big a bite hurricane sandy actually took out of the jersey shore itself. take a look at this. a new survey finding, the average beach in new jersey is n

california men shared violent and extremist material on facebook, including video messages from anwar al awlakiand they liked various links and postings. the complaint alleges the men, once in afghanistan, planned to target american military bases, one telling a federal informant that he hoped to load up a truck with c4 explosives and just drive it into, like, the baddest military base. i'm going to take out a whole base. >> i think any time you have individuals here in the united states that are conspiring to go overseas to commit violent acts against members of the united states military and/or any other members, be it civilian contractors or nationalized people over there working, we think that is extremely serious. >> she joins me now. what do we know about the ethnicity of these men? it wasn't what you might expect. >> absolutely not. not the typical profile, and something specifically the fbi wanted to address. we're talking about three suspects, one latino, the other two asian, vietnamese and filipino. the reason the fbi wants to talk about it, this is home-grown terror, involving people

in 2011, one of those targeted for death was anwar al awlaki, an al qaeda leader living in yemen and. are the standards different when the target's an american? >> when an american has made a decision to affiliate itself with al qaeda and target fellow americans, that -- there is a legal justification for us to try to stop them from carrying out plots. >> many of his supporters are quite concerned because they view this as basically a form of targeted assassination. >> do you struggle with this policy? >> oh, absolutely. if you don't, then it's very easy to slip into a situation in which you end up bending rules thinking that the ends always justify the means. >> another new frontier? with israel, the president is believed to have launched a devastating cyber war against iran's nuclear program. still, the president's been plagued by tensions with israel's prime minister that's prompted an election year defense of his dedication to the jewish state. >> our commitment to israel's security must not waver and neither must our pursuit of peace. >> for the president, it's a nuanced approac

they say they shared violent and extremist material on facebook, including video messages from anwar al awlaki qaeda in the arabian peninsula, and they liked various other links and postings. the complaint alleges the men, once in afghanistan, planned to target american military bases. one telling a federal informant that he hoped to load up a truck with c-4 explosives and just drive it into, like, the baddest military base. i'm going to take out a whole base. >> reporter: and something we just learned, that kabir was also in the u.s. air force. we did reach out to the u.s. air force, confirming that he was in the military for a year and a half. he was discharged honorably at the end of 2001. wolf, he is now in custody in afghanistan. >> very disturbing story, indeeindee indeed. kyung lah reporting from los angeles. >>> and anderson cooper is on the scene after a series of blasts. we'll go to him for the latest. and get the latest oen the meeting that's still ongoing right now between secretary of state hillary clinton and benjamin netanyahu. they're meet right here in jerusalem. wç?q9iuó >>>

al qaeda continues to plot. we know that they had a plan in which they gave this latest version of the underwear bomber thankfully to an undercover educate. so now anwaral-awlaki and now we talk about asiry, this is a guy we're worried about because he's the bomb maker in yemen. there are a couple of important things to remember, this is a guy who was radicalized since. he was radicalized because of the iraqi war. because we're focused on ibrahim asiri as the bomb maker, if we kill him al qaeda's bomb making capabilities would disappear. ibrahim is a college dropout, chemistry struent, crossed the bore -- student, crossed the border in 2006, as i recount in the book. he was trained by someone presumably in yemen and has been in yemen for six years. i think it's a fairly safe assumption that he's trained other individuals as well. and so just talking about these individuals, i think sort of misses the point. and what i think is particularly important is that as al qaeda has expanded from this 200 to 300 individuals in late 2009 up to 1,000 or more today al qaeda in the arabian peninsula now has a much bigger pool of talent upon which to draw now than it did pre