"...U.S. intelligence had been tracking him for years. Last July, Awlaki had been seen in Shabwa Province, a restive Al Qaeda stronghold in southern Yemen, where he was said to have recruited hundreds of young loyalists. This May the Yemeni government tipped off U.S. forces that Awlaki was there again, hiding in the village of Abdan. About seventy-five American Special Forces are in Yemen, supposedly on a training mission. When a pickup truck carrying the cleric left Abdan, the drone controlled by either the CIA or Joint Special Operations Command followed. Somebody took a shot at Awlaki..."
"...Wherever he is, Awlaki is only hiding physically. Unlike Bin Laden, who limited himself to the occasional thumb drive, Awlaki has spent the last two years going online routinely, firing off e-mails and posting web videos. His sermons, given in beautiful idiomatic English, are sold in sixteen- and eighteen-part CD collections, with sweet-sounding themes like Islamic motherhood or "Tolerance—A Hallmark of Muslim Character," but he reaches quickly for the big stick. "Allah will take those false gods," he says of non-Muslims, in a sermon ostensibly about police brutality, "and throw them in hellfire, and their people will have to follow them."
"Al Qaeda claims to be a religious organization," he notes, "but they don't have a known cleric. In the absence of Bin Laden, there is this guy who is Yemeni, who can unify the Arabian Peninsula factions, and who is also a cleric who speaks English well. He has a big potential to be the person who might try to fill Bin Laden's shoes."
Read more here.
No comments:
Post a Comment