Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been killed in Yemen. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
A missile fired from an American drone has struck and killed a radical American-born Islamic cleric in Yemen and put an end to a controversial manhunt that stretched across the globe.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a dual US-Yemeni citizen, has been one of America's top targets in its fight against al-Qaida. His firebrand rhetoric had become renowned on jihadi websites and is thought to have inspired many more followers. With a blog, a Facebook page and numerous YouTube videos of his sermons, he had increasingly been regarded by the US National Security Council as one of the most dangerous al-Qaida leaders.
President Barack Obama authorised a request to target Awlaki in April last year, making him the first US citizen to be a legal target for assassination in the post-9/11 years. The strike has prompted accusations in the US that the administration has carried out an extra-judicial killing.
Obama welcomed the news of Awlaki's death. At a ceremony at the White House to welcome the appointment of a new joint chief of staff for the US military, Obama broke from his prepared schedule to say Awlaki's death was a major blow to America's enemies and condemned him as a dangerous terrorist.
"He repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda," Obama said.
Awlaki is credited with inspiring or directing at least four plots on US soil in recent years, three of which were unsuccessful ? a shooting inside the Fort Hood military base, the failed Times Square bombing, the failed underwear bomber, and a parcel bomb hidden inside a printer that also failed to explode inside a passenger jet.
He is thought to have been the leader of the foreign operations unit inside al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula group, which has in recent years taken centre stage in the global jihad campaign inspired by Osama bin Laden.
Awlaki was also linked to failed plots to target British and European interests, according to security officials. The attempted murder of the MP Stephen Timms was inspired by Awlaki's sermons, and a British Airways employee, Rajib Karim, was convicted in February of plotting attacks against the airline.
Reaction from American politicians was generally positive on the news.
Awlaki was born in New Mexico in 1971 to Yemeni parents who took him back to Yemen after early childhood. He returned to the US in 1991 to attend college. US authorities believe he came into contact with at least two of the 9/11 hijackers while giving sermons at a San Diego mosque. He is believed to have been killed at 9.55am on Friday morning at a site 90 miles (140km) east of Sana'a between the provinces of Marib and al-Jawf in what is believed to have been an air strike.
Few details have been released about the strike ? not least because the Obama administration is wary of further destabilishing the embattled regime of Yemeni president Ali Abdulla Saleh. But witnesses say that Awlaki was boarding a 2005 Toyota Hilux along with five other supporters when the US drone attack hit the vehicle.
Initial reports suggested that it was the drone was operated by the CIA, working alongside the US joint special operations command team that directed the Osama bin Laden assassination.
A second American militant, Samir Khan, who produced the English-language al-Qaida web magazine Inspire, was killed in the attack, said Yemen's defence ministry.
The death of Awlaki is the most significant blow to the al-Qaida organisation since Bin Laden was assassinated in May. He was one of the few senior operatives orientated to western ways, and in recent years had become increasingly strident in his calls for Muslims to wage jihad against the US.
The CIA and the US military have used drones to target al-Qaida officials in Yemen and had placed Awlaki near the top of a hit list.
Yemeni officials initially said they were not yet sure who had killed him. However, they released details of the killing within several hours of it happening, suggesting that Sana'a was either directly involved or well-briefed by the US.
Perhaps mindful of the difficult circumstances in Yemen, Obama was careful to praise the country's involvement in the strike and stress that Islamic militants have carried out many attacks in Yemen.
"Awlaki and his organization have been directly responsible for the deaths of many Yemeni citizens. His hateful ideology and targeting of innocent civilians has been rejected by the vast majority of Muslims and people of all faiths, and he has met his demise because the government and the people of Yemen have joined the international community in a common effort against al-Qaida," Obama said.
But not all reaction was positive. The campaign to take out Alwaki has been criticised by some as a worrying development where the US government can undertake to kill a US citizen without any form of trial. Republican presidential candidate, libertarian-leaning congressman Ron Paul, spoke out against the attack. "Nobody knows if he [Awlaki] ever killed anybody," Paul said after a political event in New Hampshire where he is currently campaigning. "If the American people accept this blindly and casually ? I think that's sad," he added. Paul is a long-standing critic of American foreign policy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The American Civil Liberties Union also condemned the attack. The organisation, which campaigns on legal and human rights issues, put out a strongly-worded statement saying the strike was a clear violation of both US and international law.
"This is a programme under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public, but from the courts," said ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer.
He added: "It is a mistake to invest the president ? any president ? with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-killed-yemen
abc world news with charles gibson abc world news with david muir abc world news with diane sawyer abc world news with diane sawyer 2011 abc world news with diane sawyer video
No comments:
Post a Comment