SANAA, Yemen (AP) — In a significant new blow to al-Qaida, U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on Friday killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network's most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States.
The strike was the biggest U.S. success in hitting al-Qaida's leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But it raises questions that other strikes did not: Al-Awlaki was an American citizen who has not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government's authority to kill an American without trial.
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 United States were widely circulated among militants in the West.
But U.S. 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 U.S. airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants.
Yemen's Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki — Samir Khan, a U.S. 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 United States. U.S. officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but that they were still trying to confirm his death. U.S. and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago.
In July, U.S. 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 U.S. 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.
Friday's success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the U.S. that has dramatically increased in recent weeks — ironically, even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil as protesters try to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, U.S. officials said.
Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida. U.S. officials said the Yemenis have also allowed the U.S. to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki's movements and to fly more armed drone and aircraft missions over its territory than ever before.The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the U.S. military's elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command — the same unit that got bin Laden.
A U.S. counterterrorism official said American forces targeted a convoy in which al-Awlaki was traveling with a drone and jet attack and believe he's been killed. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Yemeni government announced that al-Awlaki was "targeted and killed" around 9:55 a.m outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa. It gave no further details.
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