The U.S. began a new CIA-led counterterrorism program in Yemen on Friday, sending unmanned aircraft to kill an American-born cleric who occupied a top place on the U.S.’s anti-terrorist list.
The death of Anwar al-Awlaki eliminates a leading figure in Yemen’s branch of al Qaeda and one of its most charismatic recruiters. A Web-savvy Islamic preacher with sparkling English, Mr. Awlaki was known for his ability to couch extremist views in ways that appealed to Western youth. He had been linked to suspects in the 2009 Fort Hood, Texas, shooting spree and the botched bombing of a Detroit-bound jet that Christmas.
The strike marked another significant blow to the global terrorist group after the killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this year. It also highlights a conundrum about continued joint antiterror operations with the Yemenis: U.S. officials have publicly called for embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh to accede to the demands of an eight-month-old pro-democracy protest movement and step down from power, but counterterrorism operations are led by close Saleh relatives.
Mr. Awlaki, who had been on the run for months in Yemen’s remote tribal regions, was killed at approximately 9:55 a.m. local time outside a village in the northeastern province of Jawf, a Yemeni official said.
At least four people were killed in the operation, Yemeni officials said. These included a second American, Samir Kahn, who was an editor and illustrator for «Inspire,» the online magazine of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The strike represented the first test of a new covert CIA drone program in Yemen, an effort that works closely with military Special Operations forces, officials said, blurring the lines between military and intelligence operations. CIA-controlled drones carried out the strike, a U.S. official said, but other military attack «platforms,» presumably aircraft, also were nearby and were prepared to take action if needed.
Both U.S. and Yemeni officials characterized the operation as a joint U.S.-Yemeni effort. The key tip that led to the strike on Mr. Awlaki came from Yemeni intelligence, according to U.S. officials.
The operation raises questions about the continued tenure of Mr. Saleh. The U.S., in large part, has funded and trained Yemen’s counterterrorism forces. As Mr. Saleh has battled to stay in power this year, his son and nephews, who command these counterterrorism forces, have lobbied their U.S. counterparts to remain in position as the best guarantor of robust action against Al Qaeda threats.
U.S. officials attribute the increase in Yemeni cooperation in part to Mr. Saleh’s desire to curry U.S. favor as he seeks to stay in power. It also reflects Mr. Saleh’s realization that AQAP was starting to seize territory and therefore posed a more serious threat to his regime.
The White House said Friday that the operation in no way changed the U.S. call from Mr. Saleh to step down immediately.
«Our cooperation with Yemen and with civilian-military intelligence counterparts in Yemen is … not limited to one person and it has never been about one person,» said Press Secretary Jay Carney. «It’s been about a partnership around the goal of dealing with a threat.»
Mr. Awlaki isn’t the first American killed in a drone strike in Yemen. In November 2002, a Predator drone fired a Hellfire missile at a SUV carrying an al Qaeda lieutenant, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, accused of helping plot the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole.
Among the six people killed in that strike was an American named Kamal Derwish. Mr. Derwish, however, wasn’t the primary target in the strike and wasn’t considered a leading militant figure.
Within the Yemeni al Qaeda branch, Mr. Awlaki played a leadership role in foreign operations but had a limited role in the group’s local activities, according to AQAP members and Yemeni officials. The military leader of AQAP who directs local and regional operations against Saudi Arabia and Western targets in Yemen remains at large.
Mr. Awlaki was instrumental in recruiting foreign volunteers who have helped transform the group’s local and regional reach into a threat for Western countries. The loss of an al Qaeda operative fluent not just in English but also in American culture stands to hamper the group’s efforts to inspire so-called homegrown terrorists to mount solo attacks in the U.S.
«His death deals a real blow to al Qaeda’s lone-wolf strategy,» said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington.
Mr. Awlaki, who ran mosques in the U.S. before leaving in 2002, has long been among the top U.S. targets in Yemen. He has been on the run in Yemen since 2009, when U.S. officials publicly linked him to multiple terrorist incidents in the U.S., including the Fort Hood shootings in which 13 people were killed, the Christmas 2009 plot to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane and a separate plan to blow up a U.S.-bound cargo plane.
He also was considered the inspiration behind Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad’s 2010 failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Times Square.
Military and intelligence operatives followed Mr. Awlaki for weeks before striking their target, whom they referred to internally as «Objective Troy.»
Details about Friday’s attack remain murky, but a senior Yemeni official said that Americans have been «directly» involved with tracking Mr. Awlaki around the country. They learned that he had moved to Jawf earlier this month, the official said. The area is near a historic smuggling route along a mountain range stretching the length of the country and located about 90 miles from the capital, San’a.
The U.S. narrowly missed him in a strike in May, when a U.S. drone fired on a vehicle in the southern Yemen province of Shebwa that the cleric had been driving in earlier that day. Since then, Mr. Awlaki moved hundreds of miles northeast, and earlier this month U.S. officials located him in the mountain range located in Jawf province, according to the Yemeni official.
Around daybreak Friday, Mr. Awlaki, Mr. Khan and a handful of fellow supporters set off in a multi-car convoy, say local residents and Yemeni officials.
The car carrying Mr. Awlaki and Mr. Khan was hit by a missile a few miles outside a mountainous village called Khashef, said Yemeni officials. Another vehicle was hit by a drone missile a few miles away across the border into Mareb province, according to several local residents who saw the strike and the charred hull of bodies and a Toyota pickup truck.
A U.S. official said Mr. Awlaki was identified based on facial recognition rather than DNA testing. Though Yemeni government officials say that at least four people were killed, local residents said they saw five corpses. Local residents say there was no sign of soldiers in the vicinity of the missile strikes.
—Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Keith Johnson contributed to this article.
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