http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581053,00.html
“Imam Linked to Ft. Hood Rampage Believed Among 30 Al Qaeda Killed in Airstrike”
Thursday, December 24, 2009
SNIPPET: “Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical imam in Yemen with alleged terror links, whom Maj. Nidal Hasan corresponded with.
The radical Muslim imam linked to the rampage at Fort Hood is believed to have been killed in a Yemen airstrike that may have also taken out the region’s top Al Qaeda leader and 30 other militants, a security official told Reuters on Thursday.
The raid in Yemen’s east targeted an Al Qaeda leadership meeting held to organize terror attacks. It is believed to have killed Anwar al-Awlaki and at least two senior members in the organization, including the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“Awlaki is suspected to be dead [in the air raid],” Reuters quoted an unnamed Yemeni official as saying.
The head of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wahishi and his deputy, Saeed al-Saudi Shahrani, were present at the meeting and are believed to have died, but their deaths could not immediately be confirmed.”
UPDATE to post no. 2766:
Note: Photo included.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/12/radical_us_cleric_su.php
“Radical US cleric survived airstrike in Yemen: family”
By BILL ROGGIO
December 25, 2009 8:05 PM
SNIPPET: “The radical US cleric who is thought to have advised three of the Sept. 11 hijackers as well as the Muslim-American US Army major who went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, survived Thursday’s airstrike in Yemen’s Shabwa province.
Friends and relatives of Ansar al Awlaki claimed he was not killed in the attack, but they refused to disclose if he was in attendance at a meeting of al Qaeda leaders when it was hit by what the Yemeni government claimed were Yemeni Air Force fighter-bombers.
Awlaki was thought to have been attending a high-level meeting of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Dec. 24. He was at the meeting to provide the needed religious justification for a planned al Qaeda campaign to conduct attacks against Yemeni and US targets in response to the controversial Dec. 17 airstrikes against al Qaeda in Abyan and Sana’a, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.
Among those believed to be at the meeting were Nasir al Wuhayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula; his deputy Said al Shihri; and Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al Quso, an al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI for his role in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Wuhayshi and Quso are also thought to have escaped the strike, while the status of Shihri is still unknown.”