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Al-Qaida's Yemen chiefs still menace US

by KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The killing of American-born al-Qaida preacher Anwar al-Awlaki may weaken the Yemen branch's ability to attack the United States, but the only way to eliminate the threat is to take out its Yemen leaders, according to a new report by a top Army counterterrorism center.

Terror chief Nasir al-Wahayshi, who used to work for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and other key figures are the real secret to the group's survival, and are equally committed to attacks on the U.S. homeland, according to the report released Monday by the U.S. Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center.

A year in the making and written before Friday's drone strike that killed al-Awlaki and fellow U.S.-born propagandist Samir Khan, the report also suggests that its leaders' strength is key to the group's end. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's "reliance on this capable leadership is simultaneously the group's central vulnerability," said study editor Gabriel Koehler-Derrick.

"Removing these leaders from the battlefield ... would rapidly bring about the group's defeat," according to the study, made available exclusively to The Associated Press.

Al-Wahayshi was in charge when the group launched its first official attack, the dual suicide bombing of U.S. oil facilities in Yemen in 2006.

Another key figure still at large is military leader Abdullah al-Rimi, who is wanted for questioning in connection with the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in 2000, in which 17 American sailors were killed.

Audio statements by both men "demonstrate unequivocal calls for jihad and attacks against the U.S." but have received less attention because they're in Arabic, Koehler-Derrick said.

In addition to targeting those leaders, the study's authors argue the Yemeni government can help defeat the group by cutting deals with a growing list of local opponents. Since unrest started in Yemen as part of the cascade of revolts known as the Arab Spring, al-Qaida's recent military campaign to seize and hold territory inside Yemen has won it many new enemies, the study authors assert.

Bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri has backed seizing territory in Yemen to start down the road of establishing an Islamic caliphate, according to a senior intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified matters.

But that has woken two sleeping giants: the Yemeni government and the country's powerful tribes.

Before al-Qaida attacked the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, there was an unwritten understanding that the government would largely leave al-Qaida alone as long as it left the regime in peace, according to two U.S. counterterrorism officials. They spoke anonymously to discuss a sensitive policy clash with the Yemeni government, which frustrated the Americans because it meant there were certain parts of Yemeni territory where the U.S. was unable to operate.

The Yemeni government started allowing the U.S. a freer hand after al-Qaida attempted to send explosive devices hidden in printer cartridges aboard U.S.-bound cargo planes last year, but only "allowed the U.S. to take the gloves off" once al-Qaida joined in the uprising and started seizing large swaths of Abyan province, one of the officials said.

That's when the Yemeni government started sharing much more intelligence with U.S. counterterrorism officials, and allowed them increase the presence of CIA officers and military advisers inside the country, working alongside Yemeni forces.

The Yemenis still don't allow the U.S. to fly armed drones and spy planes from Yemeni territory, instead forcing them to fly from a nearby secret CIA base in a nearby country, as well as bases in Djibouti and a temporary post in the Seychelles. But Yemen has allowed the U.S. to increase the number of flights and the territory they cover, even suggesting occasional targets which may or may not be al-Qaida-related — so much so that the U.S. has had to guard against the Saleh government employing U.S. firepower against other internal rivals to stay in power, the two U.S. officials said.

As for Yemen's tribes, al-Qaida has "utterly failed" at winning them over, Koehler-Derrick said. "None of its prominent leaders are tribesmen and it enjoys no formal alliance with Yemen's tribes," he said.

And in the power struggle among Yemeni tribes and opposition political parties, al-Qaida falls to the bottom of the heap in terms of public popularity, Koehler-Derrick added.

If the Yemeni government cuts deals with its opponents, as Saleh has done in the past, they'd form a majority that would overwhelm al-Qaida, the report suggests. That would also undermine al-Qaida's message that change only comes through jihad — a religious struggle. Instead, as in the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, it would signal that change can come through a far more secular form of revolution.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmC1BzG835egHbyRPXHuAQhMfShg?docId=2819668e56b4423e94f263c00f690974

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Anwar Al-Awlaki: Critics Say Killing Breaches Norms, Sets Wrong Precedent

by Jijo Jacob

The killing of terrorist mastermind Anwar Al-Awlaki, in Yemen last week, by the United States has raised legal questions, with many international law experts saying that the ideal course of action would have been to bring Awlaki to a U.S. court.

Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico, held citizenship status with both the U.S. and Yemen. He fled the U.S. shortly before the 9/11 terrorist attack. The U.S., recently, issued a kill order against him, soon after the al-Qaeda attack.

He was later also linked to shootings at Fort Hood, Tx., in 2009, that saw the death of 13 people, as well as the attempted Times Square bombing. The U.S. had accused Awlaki of masterminding the operations of the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and trying to launch terrorist attacks on the country.

Citizenship

Those who criticize the killing of Awlaki highlight the point that he was, after all, a U.S. citizen.

"As we've seen today, it's a program under which U.S. citizens far removed from the battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process and on the basis of standards and evidence that are secret," Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Reuters.

However, supporters of the decision to execute Awlaki and similar terrorists on the foreign soil say he was a traitor and a long-drawn out war against terrorists has been going on.

A Reuters source, who is a former U.S. national security official, said Awlaki's killing followed the procedures put in place to deal with such situations. According to the source, before Awlaki's name was placed on the CIA list of terrorists to be killed, it was sent to the White House for approval, as he was a U.S. citizen.

Armed Conflict

Some experts have argued that the killing of Awlaki in Yemen amounts to an instance of extra judicial killing, as the U.S. is not engaged in an armed conflict there, unlike Iraq or Afghanistan.

"... every American knows that the U.S. is not engaged in an armed conflict in Yemen - not a real armed conflict. Nevertheless, President Obama placed an American citizen in Yemen on a kill list," Mary Ellen O'Connell wrote in a blog on CNN.

O'Connell argues that killing in war is justifiable morally and legally because of the extraordinary situation of real hostilities. However, when no such situation exists, killing a terrorist by order of the President sets a bad precedent. If the logic behind the killing of Awlaki is applied in a different context, terrorists inside the country can be targeted as well and this amounts to violation of law, she argued.

"And what about within the U.S.? If the president can target suspects in Yemen, why not here? And why just the president? Why can't governors order missile strikes on suspected terrorists and other criminals?" she asked, in her blog.

Unconstitutional

The killing violates the Fifth Amendment, Francis Boyle, an expert in international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign, said.

"No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law," he argued, adding that the killing of Awlaki "is a real body blow against the United States Constitution by the Obama administration---the murder and assassination of a U.S. citizen in gross violation of the Fifth Amendment."

Sherwood Ross, writing in Global Research, says that by Awlaki's killing President Obama has "once again authorized a murder."

"Where Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo failed miserably, Presidents Bush and Obama have brilliantly succeeded in turning America into a totalitarian state that can execute on a president's whim," Ross added.

Bin Laden Killing

Many observers compare Awlaki's killing to the execution of Osama bin Laden earlier in the year, in Pakistan's Abottabad, and ask why the U.S. is not focused on nabbing the terror masterminds alive and making them undergo the legal process in the United States.

Nicholas Schmidle wrote in The New Yorker that the operation to capture bin Laden had always been a shoot-and-kill deal. He pointed out that the Navy SEALs had the opportunity to capture bin Laden in the Abottabad complex but chose to shoot him dead.

However, the counter argument is that capturing Awlaki alive and bringing him to justice in the U.S. were near impossibilities and that Awlaki's potential to cause harm to U.S. citizens was quite established.

The Wall Street Journal quoted a senior US official as saying: “His death takes a committed terrorist, intent on attacking the United States, off the battlefield. Awlaki and AQAP [Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] are also responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Yemen and throughout the region, which have killed scores of Muslims.”

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/223724/20111003/anwar-al-awlaki-critics-say-killing-breaches-norms-sets-wrong-precedent-al-qaida-yemen-drone.htm

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