By Mohammed al-Kibsi
Breaking news
UPDATESD/ The US born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was reported killed in an air raid today, said a security source on Friday.
The source said that Awlaki that is a leader at al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed along with the US citizen of Pakistani origin Sameer Khan and two other al-Qaeda fighters in al-Jawf province in the north of Yemen.
Tribal sources said that Awlaki was killed along with other fighters in an airstrike targeted two cars carrying al-Awlaki and some other al-Qaeda fighters in al-Jawf province but not in Shabwah province where Awlaki used to be hiding.
AL-Jawf, and Marib provinces are two strongholds of al-Qaeda in the north of Yemen while Shabwah and Abyan provinces are other two strongholds of al-Qaeda in the South of Yemen.
AL-Jawf is bordering Arhab district of Sana’a province where fierce confrontations have been taking place between the Yemeni forces loyal to president Saleh and between Islamic militants affiliated to Sheikh Abdulmajid al-Zindani backed by the defected army troopers lead by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.
It is not clear yet whether the airstrike was by Yemeni air force or by US drone.
Since going on the run in Yemen in December 2007, Mr Awlaki's overt endorsement of violence as a religious duty in his sermons and on the internet is thought to have inspired new recruits to Islamist militancy.
US officials say he is also a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an offshoot of the militant network in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and helped recruit Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of attempting to blow up an airliner as it flew into Detroit on 25 December 2009.
His internet sermons have also said to have inspired Roshonara Choudhry to stab east London Labour MP Stephen Timms, her trial heard last year, and he also plotted with British Airways employee Rajib Karim to attack planes flying from Heathrow.
When and how Awlaki went from being a mainstream and moderate preacher to openly justifying attacks on civilians is a matter of contention.
A new report has said al-Awlaki was radicalized during his time in London.
The report by the International Centre for the study of Radicalisation, due out on Monday September 26 but seen by BBC London, claims it was much earlier, and in London, that he began his journey to extremism.
The report's author Alexander Hitchens says that when Awlaki arrived in the capital - after 9/11 but before the 7/7 London attacks - he found figures such as Abu Hamza "openly preaching support for Al Qaeda with the authorities taking little action against them.
He said: "So Awlaki felt safe exploring and expressing extreme views.
Roshonara Choudhry Roshonara Choudhry was jailed for life for stabbing MP Stephen Timms
"He was promoted by a number of institutions in London at the time and that enabled him to gain a large following of British Muslims - some of whom are still with him to this day."
But Muddassar Ahmed, who runs a PR firm in Shoreditch, east London, said he remembers the cleric in a very different way.
He attended a series of lectures on early Islamic history given by Awlaki back in 1999 while visiting from the US, and says he showed no signs of extremism.
He said: "At the time he was a very charismatic, knowledgeable, charming preacher.
"Years later when I realised Anwar al-Awlaki was now public enemy number one and the Bin Laden of the internet I was shocked."
Increasing pressure
News agencies last week said that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is building a secret air base in the Middle East to serve as a launching pad for strikes in Yemen using armed drones, an American official said Tuesday.
The construction of the base is a sign that the Obama administration is planning an extended war in Yemen against an affiliate of Al Qaeda that has repeatedly tried to carry out terrorist plots against the United States.
The clandestine American operations in Yemen are currently being run by the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, with the C.I.A.’s assistance and with the approval of Yemen’s fragile authoritarian government.
The reports added that with Yemen’s embattled government on the brink of collapse, Obama administration officials are concerned that a future government might not support American operations. By putting the operations under C.I.A. control, they could be carried out as a “covert action,” which can be undertaken without the support of the host government.
The construction of the base, first reported by The Associated Press, is further evidence that the administration sees armed drones as the weapon of choice to hunt and kill militants in countries where a large American military presence is untenable.
Since he took office, President Obama has drastically escalated the C.I.A.’s bombing campaign in Pakistan using armed drones, and the spy agency has carried out more than 25 strikes there this year.
Last month, the US military renewed its campaign of airstrikes in Yemen, using drone aircraft and fighter jets to attack Qaeda militants. One of the attacks was aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who is one of the most prominent members of the Qaeda affiliate group, which is called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S counterterrorism officials already see AQAP in Yemen as the most immediate threat to the United States. Under the guidance of American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the group attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and in October 2010 dispatched two printer bomb packages from Yemen's capital, Sanaa, that were timed to explode over the Eastern seaboard of the United States.
The group has taken advantage of political turmoil in Yemen to expand its safe haven in the southern part of the country. "Our highest priority is the United States. Anything there, even on a smaller scale compared to what we may do in the United Kingdom, would be our choice, " al-Awlaki told an operative based in the UK in an encrypted Internet communication in 2010.
Writer is available to be correspondent for any interested media outlet
For contacts mohammedhalkibsi@gmail.com or kibsi_j@hotmail.com
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