Friday, September 30, 2011

Al Qaeda-linked cleric killed in Yemen planned attacks against US, Washington says

Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born cleric linked to al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, has been killed, Yemen's Defense Ministry said on Friday.

"The terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed along with some of his companions," it said in a statement sent by text message to journalists, but gave no details.

A Yemeni security official said Awlaki, who is of Yemeni descent, was hit in an air raid in the northern al-Jawf province that borders oil giant Saudi Arabia. He said four others killed with him were suspected al Qaeda members.

It was not immediately clear if Yemeni forces had carried out the raid or if Awlaki had been killed by a US drone strike. A US drone aircraft targeted but missed Alwaki in May.

According to a US official, Anwar al-Awlaki planned and directed attacks on US interests as "chief of external operations" for al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, a senior US official said.

"Awlaki played a significant operational role in the attempted attack on a US airliner in December 2009 (and) helped oversee the October 2010 plot to detonate explosive devices aboard US cargo aircraft," the official said.

The US government also learned that Awlaki sought to use poisons including cyanide and ricin to attack Westerners and corresponded by e-mail with a military psychiatrist later accused of carrying out a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at the Fort Hood army base in Texas.