SAN'A, Yemen—Al Qaeda figure Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the most wanted terrorists on a U.S. target list, has been killed in Yemen in what was likely a drone strike, marking another significant blow to the global terrorist group after the assassination of Osama bin Laden earlier this year.
Site Intelligence Group/Associated Press
Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in October 2008.
Mr. Awlaki, who has been on the run and hiding in Yemen's remote tribal highlands for years, was killed at approximately 9:55 a.m. local time outside a village in the northeastern province of Jawf, according to a Yemeni official familiar with the situation. The area is near a historic smuggling route along a mountain range stretching the length of the country and located some 140 kilometers (87 miles) from the capital San'a.
A U.S. official confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was killed Friday, although U.S. officials wouldn't specify exactly how the American-born cleric was killed.
"It's been confirmed that [al Qaeda in the Arabian's] chief of external operations, Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed today in Yemen," said the U.S. official.
The official added that counterterrorism cooperations with the Yemeni government have been strong despite the turmoil there.
"His death takes a committed terrorist, intent on attacking the United States, off the battlefield," the official said. "Awlaki and AQAP are also responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Yemen and throughout the region, which have killed scores of Muslims."
Yemeni government officials say that at least four people were killed in the counterterrorism operation, including two Americans. In addition to Mr. Awlaki, Samir Khan was also killed, they said. Mr. Khan ran an anti-American web site from his home in Charlotte, N.C., before leaving the U.S. for Yemen several months ago. Intelligence officials believe Mr. Khan was one of the editors and illustrators for AQAP's online website called Inspire.
A senior Yemeni official said that U.S. officials were "directly" involved with tracking Mr. Awlaki as he moved around Yemen. They learned that he had moved to Jawf earlier this month, the official said.
WSJ reporter Margaret Coker has details of the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a key al Qaeda operative. (Photo: Associated Press)
The U.S. narrowly missed Mr. Awlaki in a failed assassination attempt back in May. U.S. drones fired on a vehicle in the southern Yemen province of Shebwa that the cleric had been driving in earlier the same day. Shebwa is hundreds of kilometers from the site where Mr. Awlaki was located and killed on Friday.
"We have been trying to get him for months, but every time he somehow finds a way to escape death," the Yemeni official said.
Mr. Awlaki has long been among the top of the U.S. target list in Yemen, which AQAP uses as its base, and has emerged as a leading charismatic recruiter for AQAP, the branch of the terror group the U.S. considers the gravest threat to the American homeland.
U.S. officials have linked Mr. Awlaki to at least three major terrorist incidents: the Fort Hood, Texas, 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. Mr. Awlaki's U.S. roots and fluent English made him a special concern of U.S. counterterrorism officials.
The U.S. hasn't made public formal charges or any specific evidence it has against Mr. Awlaki. Previous attempts to target and kill Mr. Awlaki have raised questions in the U.S. about the legal parameters of America's unilateral killing of terrorist suspects, particularly one who is an American citizen.
Last year, the U.S. District Court in Washington dismissed a law suit brought by Mr. Awlaki's father and the American Civil Liberties Union. They had argued for an injunction of the covert program, citing legal statutes prohibiting American agencies from killing U.S. citizens without any judicial process. The judge dismissed the case on procedural grounds, saying that Mr. Awlaki's father, who is a Yemeni citizen, didn't have standing in the U.S. court. The judge also said the propriety of his extrajudicial killing wasn't a question for the courts.
Western officials have worried that the political upheaval in Yemen would derail their counterterrorism efforts in the remote, impoverished country. The country has descended into chaotic factional fighting as several key groups have turned on President Ali Abdullah Saleh and demanded the end of his 33-year rule.
Throughout the spring and summer, fighting has raged in southern provinces and the capital, and key areas next to Yemen's largest port and the country's oil-producing areas have increasingly come under the sway of militant Islamist groups, including fighters connected to AQAP.
At the same time, counterterrorism teams have stepped up their hunt for key figures and have killed several in the past few months.
U.S. and Saudi officials traditionally have worked closely with forces commanded by President Saleh's son and nephews in their counterterrorism work. Those elite Yemeni forces, however, have in many cases been redeployed from counterterrorism duties to help protect the president and his family from pro-democracy demonstrators in and around San'a.
Some antiregime activists in Yemen believe that a lack of international effort to remove the leader from power is connected to the U.S. drive to rid the country of its al Qaeda threat.
Mr. Awlaki came to prominence in 2009 due to his role as an Internet-based spiritual guide aiding the radicalization of a new generation of Islamist extremists.
Although he isn't the head of AQAP, U.S. officials say Mr. Awlaki has assumed an operational leadership role in the terror group. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused of killing 13 people in a November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, corresponded with Mr. Awlaki before his attack.
The U.S. added Mr. Awlaki to the CIA's target list after AQAP's failed attempt a month later to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger airliner.
Part of Mr. Awlaki's appeal, say U.S. officials and terrorism experts, is his ability to act as a bridge between the mainly Arab leaders of al Qaeda and willing potential jihadists in the West.
Born in New Mexico, he preached at a mosque in Northern Virginia until 2002, when he left the U.S. to spend time building a following in the U.K., before returning to Yemen in 2004.
Yemen authorities arrested him at the behest of the U.S., but then released him in December 2007 saying they didn't have enough evidence to hold him.
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