Socialist mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani is facing another political firestorm after newly resurfaced tweets appear to defend notorious al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki — while pinning the blame for his turn to terror on the United States.

In a series of eyebrow-raising 2015 posts, Mamdani, then 23, criticized the FBI for its surveillance of al-Awlaki, claiming that federal monitoring helped drive the radical cleric into the arms of al-Qaeda.

“Why no proper interrogation of what it means for FBI to have conducted extensive surv. into Awlaki’s private life?” Mamdani wrote after reading a New York Times report describing al-Awlaki’s use of unsavory women despite his conservative religious preaching.

“How could #Awlaki have ever trusted @FBI to not release surveillance esp. if he continued to critique [the] state?” Mamdani added. “Why no further discussion of how #Awlaki’s knowledge of surv. eventually led him to #alqaeda?”

Critics have erupted over the comments, calling them a grotesque insult to 9/11 victims and an obscene rewriting of history.

“To blame the United States for al-Awlaki is like blaming the Jews for Hitler,” blasted retired Rep. Peter King, a former Homeland Security Committee chair. “Mamdani is making excuses and rationalizing al-Awlaki joining al-Qaeda. It’s an absolute disgrace. It should disqualify Mamdani from being mayor of New York City.”

Al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born cleric, was connected to three of the 9/11 hijackers and eventually plotted numerous al-Qaeda terror operations before being killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

Mamdani, 33, has built a high-profile social media following that helped him topple former Governor Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary. But he’s faced other controversies over past posts, including sharing a video mocking Chanukah and leading “BDS” chants outside the Israeli Consulate in Manhattan.

Jewish advocacy group StopAntisemitism slammed Mamdani for the Chanukah video as “sick” and accused him of “cosplaying Jews.”

Al-Awlaki’s teachings have been linked to roughly a quarter of Islamist terrorism convictions in the United States between 2007 and his death.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)