New York, Oct.1 (ANI): The fatal strike on American-Yemeni Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki was the culmination of a desperate over two-year-long manhunt, marked not only by near misses and dead ends, but also by a wrenching legal debate in Washington about the legality - and morality - of putting an American citizen on a list of top militants marked for death.
According to a New York Times report, the drone strike, a a major blow to Al Qaeda's most active operational affiliate, was the first C.I.A. strike in Yemen since 2002.
Friday's operation was the first time the agency had carried out a deadly strike from a new base in the region. The agency began constructing the base this year, officials said, when it became apparent to intelligence and counter-terrorism officials that the threat from Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen had eclipsed that coming from its core group of operatives hiding in Pakistan.
American officials said that the missile strike also killed Samir Khan, an American citizen of Pakistani origin who was an editor of Inspire, Al Qaeda's English-language online magazine.
Khan, who grew up in Queens and North Carolina, proclaimed in the magazine last year that he was "proud to be a traitor to America," and edited articles with titles like "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."
American officials also said that Friday's strike may also have killed Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a Saudi bomb maker responsible for the weapon carried by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called underwear bomber in the jetliner plot.
He is also thought to have built the printer-cartridge bombs that, 10 months later, were intended to be put on cargo planes headed to the United States. Neither of those plots were successful.
A senior Yemeni security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Awlaki was killed while traveling between Marib and Jawf Provinces in northern Yemen - areas known for having a Qaeda presence and where there is very little central government control.
There had been an intense debate among lawyers in the months before the Obama administration decided to put Awlaki on a target list in early 2010.
Awlaki's death comes in the midst of a deepening political crisis in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been resisting repeated calls to relinquish power.
Another fact that has emerged is that many of the Yemeni security service personnel were trained by American Special Forces soldiers, and appeared to have pursued Awlaki for almost two years in a hunt that was often hindered by the shifting allegiances of Yemen's tribes and the deep unpopularity of Saleh's government.
In 2009 and 2010, Awlaki seems to have been mostly in the southern heartland of his own powerful tribe, the Awaliq, where killing him would have been politically costly for the government, and capturing him nearly impossible.
The area where Awlaki was finally killed, in the remote north, did not afford him the same tribal protection.
There are also many tribal leaders in the far north who receive stipends from Saudi Arabia - the terrorist group's chief target - and who would therefore have had more motive to assist in killing him.
The hunt for Awlaki involved some close calls, including the failed American drone strike in May, and the previously unreported operation in the Yemeni village.
Yemen's political crisis has seriously hampered counterterrorism efforts, and may have slowed down the hunt for Awlaki.
The elite counter-terrorism unit was not deployed until August, because of fears of civil war in capital Sana'a.
Fresh information about Awlaki's location surfaced about three weeks ago, allowing the C.I.A. to track him in earnest, waiting for an opportunity to strike with minimal risks to civilians, American officials said.
A senior American military official who monitors Yemen closely said Awlaki's death would send an important message to the surviving leaders and foot soldiers in the Qaeda affiliate. (ANI)
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