Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Anwar al-Awlaki is wanted dead or alive

The claim by Dana Priest at the Washington Post and at CBS that subsequent to the airstrike in Shabwah on 24 December "he has since been added to a shortlist of U.S. citizens specifically targeted for killing or capture by the JSOC" is correct.

Comment 2010.01.27:

Now that al-Awlaki is wanted by the USA, other al-Qa'ida members can trust him more than they could previously. AQ could well use a new anglophone propagandist; at the moment all they've got are Adam Gadahn and Omar Hammami. Meanwhile al-Awlaki would be safer in Somalia with the vicious Wahhabi Shabaab gang with whom he has at least a little affiliation, and he would then be able to communicate with his followers in the English-speaking world via the internet and via al-Jazeera.