Two-Year Manhunt Led to Killing of Awlaki in Yemen

The New York Times ^ | 9/30/2011 | MARK MAZZETTI, ERIC SCHMITT and ROBERT F. WORTH

[american_steve]

WASHINGTON — Anwar al-Awlaki did not leave much of a trail, frustrating the American and Yemeni intelligence officials pursuing him over the last two years.

They believed they finally had found him in a village in southern Yemen last year. Yemeni commandos, equipped with tanks and heavy weapons, surrounded the hamlet, but he slipped away, according to a Yemeni official. In May, his pursuers targeted him in a drone attack, but narrowly missed him and other members of his entourage as they drove across a desert.

The search for Mr. Awlaki, the American-born cleric whose fiery sermons made him a larger-than-life figure in the shadowy world of jihad, finally ended on Friday. After several days of surveillance of Mr. Awlaki, armed drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency took off from a new, secret American base in the Arabian Peninsula, crossed into northern Yemen and unleashed a barrage of Hellfire missiles at a car carrying him and other top operatives from Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, including another American militant who had run the group’s English-language Internet magazine.

[american_steve]

If the government declares an American citizen to be an enemy combatant, would you trust the government has made the right decision?

[Mr. Lucky]

Are you suggesting that Awlaki was not an enemy combatant?

What if he were merely a fleeing felon?

[RinaseaofDs]

You’re probably right.

What they should have done was shipped him home, and dumped him about 5 miles or so from Camp Pendleton, and let folks know he was there.

I’d have been there, and I’d have caught him, and bound him up tight, then called the press.

At that point, I would hold a press conference, at which I would have cut his head off and held it up for the camera.

Then I’d submit myself to be judged by 12 of my peers.

I can’t think of a more pointless thing to debate here. He may have been a citizen, but he was clearly an enemy combatant.

[BatGuano]

On next year’s income tax return I will stipulate that my hard earned money, that the government is taking from me, be used toward the purchase of a Hellfire missile. I will feel better on April 15.