Armies of Liberation

The Yemeni-American teenager is widely perceived in Yemen as an innocent, and therefore his death in a US drone strike is causing mass outrage on a level much, much greater than that of his father. There is a birth certificate showing he was 16 at the time of his death, and many photos have been posted. Like the December 2009 strikes, its the civilian casualties of US drone strikes that provoke mass public outrage. Yemeni would have liked to see some evidence on Awlaki or better yet, to bring him to trial. But killing his teen-age son, or any innocent teen, is way over the top of acceptable counter-terror collateral damage, Yemenis say.

Yemen Post According to the al-Awlaki family back in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, Abdul rahman al-Awlaki, the cleric’s son would have run away from home after news of his father’s death in a desperate bid to find him. The 17 year-old was killed subsequently in an American air raid this Friday. Outraged, his family is now speaking out against what they call a murder.

The family’s statements to the WaPo is here. His family says he ran away from home and was having a picnic when the drone hit. However what he was doing with known terrorist Ibrahim al Banaa and Fahd al Quso’s brother is unknown and not raised in the article.

Related: I posted this below but it belongs in a drone-related post: Marib Press Tribes in Marib issued a statement saying Sheikh Saleh al Taaman was killed in the air rad with Ibrahim al Banaa but not reported killed by the regime. The Sheikh was connected to the state’s security policy and paid by Ghalib al Qamish (PSO) 100K YR/month; tribesmen accuse the regime of the manipulating the terror file and US CT ops to retain power. They say the Sheikh was not listed among the dead and that’s reason to ignore the regime’s fatality lists.

dtd 5/24,

Newser

(Newser) – The FBI has now definitively linked top al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri to a trio of explosives used in two recent attempts to attack the US, via a fingerprint and forensic evidence. Al-Asiri, who works in Yemen with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was already suspected of being involved with the Christmas Day “underwear bomber” in 2009; investigators have pulled one of his fingerprints off that bomb. They also determined that the explosives used in the underwear bomb are chemically identical to those hidden inside two printers shipped from Yemen last year; al-Asiri had also been suspected in that plot.

Many in Yemen underestimate the danger of AQAP because they fail to realize that Anwar al Awlaki and thus AQAP are connected to almost every terror plot in the US over the last five years. Its not only the shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, or the attack by Abdulmutallab on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, or the 2010 plot to bomb six planes with toner cartridges, there are also dozen and dozens of smaller plots in the US that never seem to make the news in Yemen. The US is under attack by AQAP. Ali Saleh’s al Qaeda could be a state creation, but the real al Qaeda live in Yemen too and they are not giving up their plans for a catastrophic attack on the US. Reuters Bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri added to US terrorist listing, already tops Saudi Arabia’s terrorism list.

CP: While the target and timing were unimportant, the mission itself was a highly organized plot that involved one of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists and al-Qaida’s go-to bomb maker, current and former officials said. Before Abdulmutallab set off on his mission, he visited the home of al-Qaida manager Fahd al-Quso to discuss the plot and the workings of the bomb. (Read on …)

Control of the airports was transferred from the Political Security to the National Security several years ago when many jihaddists were overtly traveling to Iraq to target American troops. Since then the National Security has done a great job in prohibiting activists, journalists and opposition politicians from leaving the country.

SCD: The US Government is committed to improving airport security at home and abroad. The Transportation Security Administration announced today that a new security program will be established in Yemen, where an Al-Qaeda affiliate is believed to be based. The affiliate, which goes by the name, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed responsibility for a cargo bomb plot in October, which deployed printer cartridges rigged as bombs. (Read on …)

Awlaki is a bit more than a propaganda threat it seems. I would assume that Feierstein knows more facts than the rest of us. In addition to Awlaki’s role in the cargo plane plot, numerous persons admitted to being “inspired” to murderous violence by Awlaki who has urged and provided a (flawed yet comprehensive) basis for the murder of any American, indeed all Americans. Awlaki has engaged operationally with al Qaeda for years, well before Fort Hood and the Nigerian but he avoided public linkage with al Qaeda and sought protection under the guise of a normal cleric, which the Yemeni government provided.

Xinhuanet — U.S. ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein accused the U.S.-born Yemeni preacher Anwar al-Awlaki of being behind the detected parcel bombs mailed from Yemen to the U.S. late October, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news website reported Wednesday.

Feierstein confirmed in an interview with Al Arabiya that “al- Awlaki was behind the two al-Qaida-made package bombs shipped through cargo planes bound for the United States late October, a plot that was foiled at the airports of Dubai and London following tip-offs from Saudi intelligence officials.”

Feierstein also said the Washington administration will not grant Yemen with Predator drones, but it will do the job from the Yemeni skies by itself while continuing supporting and training the Yemeni ground troops to combat terrorist militants, including al-Awlaki, who poses threats to Yemen, U.S. and Europe.

they’re not sure, its complicated… BTW, he’s not a cleric, just a lunatic. In related news, Farouk the Nigerian fired his lawyers and wants to represent himself in court.

Boston.com WASHINGTON –The Obama administration is considering filing the first criminal charges against radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in case the CIA fails to kill him and he is captured alive in Yemen. The decision continues the White House’s strategy of fighting terrorism both in court and on the battlefield.

Al-Awlaki, a U.S. and Yemeni citizen born in New Mexico, has inspired a wave of attempted attacks against the U.S. and has become al-Qaida’s leading English-speaking voice for recruiting and motivating terrorists. Counterterrorism officials said al-Awlaki, since mid-2009, has become a key operational figure who selects targets and gives orders. (Read on …)

WAPo

For the first time since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, CIA analysts see one of al-Qaeda’s offshoots – rather than the core group now based in Pakistan – as the most urgent threat to U.S. security, officials said.

The sober new assessment of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has helped prompt senior Obama administration officials to call for an escalation of U.S. operations there – including a proposal to add armed CIA drones to a clandestine campaign of U.S. military strikes, the officials said. (Read on …)

Several other foreigners were arrested in Yemen including Americans, Brits, French, Asians and Africans, at the behest of foreign intelligence agencies. Yemeni security said the group was linked to the Nigerian’s airliner terror plot and Anwar Awlaki who repeatedly announces how proud he is to have been Abdulmattalab’s “teacher.”

An Australian woman, Shyloh Giddins, was arrested in Yemen May 15. Her two children are under house arrest alone, with a neighbor tending to them twice a day. Giddens was associated with some Bengali citizens who were later deported from Yemen. ”

Yemen holds Americans, others in al-Qaida probe
By AHMED AL-HAJ (AP)

SAN’A, Yemen — Yemeni authorities have detained several foreigners, including Americans, Britons and an Australian woman, in connection with an investigation into al-Qaida’s increased activity in the country, security officials said Wednesday.

The arrests were made after foreign intelligence agencies provided lists of names of people they wanted detained or put under surveillance, the two security officials said. (Read on …)