US-born terror boss killed in CIA strike
Source: Agencies |
October 1, 2011, Saturday
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THE same military unit that got Osama bin Laden used a drone and jet strike in Yemen yesterday to kill an American-born cleric suspected of inspiring or helping plan numerous attacks on the United States, including a Christmas 2009 attempt to blow up a jetliner, US and Yemeni officials said.
Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a strike on his convoy directed by the CIA and carried out with the US Joint Special Operations Command's firepower.
It was a significant new blow for al-Qaida.
Al-Awlaki became a prominent figure in the terror network, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks on the US.
The strike was the biggest US success in hitting al-Qaida's leadership since the May killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.
The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida's ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the US were widely circulated among militants in the West.
But US officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen.
Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who, on Christmas Day, 2009, tried to blow up a US airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives in his underpants.
Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki - Samir Khan, a US citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced "Inspire," an English-language al-Qaida web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the US.
US officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but they were still trying to confirm his death.
US and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not identify them.
Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the US.
In July, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the terror network's leader.
The Yemeni-American had been in the US crosshairs since his killing was approved by President Barack Obama in April 2010 - making him the first American placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list.
At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn't harmed.
Yesterday's success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the US that has dramatically increased in recent weeks even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil with protesters trying to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida.
US officials said that the Yemenis had also allowed the US to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki's movements and to fly more drone and aircraft missions over its territory.
The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the US military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command - the unit that got bin Laden.
The Yemeni government said al-Awlaki was "targeted and killed" at around 9:55am outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 140 kilometers east of the capital Sanaa.
Local tribal and security officials said al-Awlaki was traveling in a two-car convoy with two other al-Qaida operatives from Jawf to neighboring Marib province when they were hit by an airstrike.
Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, began as a mosque preacher as he conducted his university studies in the US, and he was not seen by his congregations then as radical.
While preaching in San Diego, he came to know two of the men who would eventually become suicide-hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The FBI questioned al-Awlaki at the time but its investigators found no cause to detain him.
Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a strike on his convoy directed by the CIA and carried out with the US Joint Special Operations Command's firepower.
It was a significant new blow for al-Qaida.
Al-Awlaki became a prominent figure in the terror network, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks on the US.
The strike was the biggest US success in hitting al-Qaida's leadership since the May killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.
The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida's ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the US were widely circulated among militants in the West.
But US officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen.
Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who, on Christmas Day, 2009, tried to blow up a US airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives in his underpants.
Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki - Samir Khan, a US citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced "Inspire," an English-language al-Qaida web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the US.
US officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but they were still trying to confirm his death.
US and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not identify them.
Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the US.
In July, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the terror network's leader.
The Yemeni-American had been in the US crosshairs since his killing was approved by President Barack Obama in April 2010 - making him the first American placed on the CIA "kill or capture" list.
At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn't harmed.
Yesterday's success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the US that has dramatically increased in recent weeks even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil with protesters trying to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida.
US officials said that the Yemenis had also allowed the US to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki's movements and to fly more drone and aircraft missions over its territory.
The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the US military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command - the unit that got bin Laden.
The Yemeni government said al-Awlaki was "targeted and killed" at around 9:55am outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 140 kilometers east of the capital Sanaa.
Local tribal and security officials said al-Awlaki was traveling in a two-car convoy with two other al-Qaida operatives from Jawf to neighboring Marib province when they were hit by an airstrike.
Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, began as a mosque preacher as he conducted his university studies in the US, and he was not seen by his congregations then as radical.
While preaching in San Diego, he came to know two of the men who would eventually become suicide-hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The FBI questioned al-Awlaki at the time but its investigators found no cause to detain him.
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