Father of slain terrorist wants to bury his son

By Nasser Arrabyee,01/10/2011

Yemeni father demanded the dead body of his son to bury him after he was killed in a US drone attack with three others as terrorists  in eastern Yemen, said tribal leaders on Saturday.

Dr Nasser Al Awlaki, father of the slain Anwar Al Awlaki,phone-called the tribal leaders of Al Jawaf, where his was killed,that he and  all Al Awlaki tribal leaders would come to take the remnants of their son.

However, tribal leaders said that the remnants of the four  slain terrorists were taken by Al Qaeda elements and not by the local tribesmen immediately after the drone attack of Friday in Al Jawf province.

" It's Al Qaeda elements who took the remnants and buried them not us, and they disappeared before the local tribesmen came to the site," said the tribal leader Abdullah Al Jamili,one of the tribal leaders who received phone calls from Al Awlaki's father.   

"Dr Nasser Al Awlaki called us today saying he is coming with all his tribesmen to take the remnants of his son," said Al Jamili.

"he said he wants to bury his son on his way," he added.

On Friday September 30th, 2011, An American drone strike in Yemen killed al-Qaeda's leading propagandist and other top leaders of its Arabian operations  dealing a massive blow to the branch of the terror organisation regarded as the greatest threat to Western security.

The deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan and three senior associates were hailed by Barack Obama as a "major blow" to al-Qaeda's most active affiliate since the killing of Osama bin Laden and several other figures in the group's core.

"This is another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al-Qaeda," he said.

Awlaki "repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda", he claimed.

The US president said America had worked with Yemen for a long time tracking Awlaki, but declined to comment on his role in the killing of the American-born militant.

Five bodies were recovered from the site and Western officials believe al-Qaeda's master bombmaker in the Arabian Peninsula may also have been killed.

Awlaki, 40, was the first American citizen targeted by his own government in the absence of criminal charges.

As a charismatic spokesman for the terrorists, who spoke fluent English, he inspired attacks against the West by inspiring "lone wolf" operators.

He was killed by a Hellfire missile fired from an unmanned drone while travelling with fellow terrorists near Khasaf, a desert town in Jawf province, 87 miles east of the capital Sana'a.

Samir Khan, an American citizen of Pakistani origin who edited al-Qaeda's online magazine Inspire, was described as "irreplaceable" in the short term.

Reports last night said the bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri was also killed in the vehicle. If confirmed, it would mean the foreign operations of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had been wiped out.

American officials said the strike was the product of a "joint intelligence operation" with the Yemeni government, which exerts only partial control over the tribal hinterland outside Sana'a.

There were suggestions that Awlaki had moved to a new region and informants provided the crucial intelligence.

Officials in Washington said there had been a round-the-clock surveillance operation on Awlaki since a drone strike missed its target recently.

After his vehicle "drove through" a strike in September, a team drawn up from the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command had followed him.

The same officials that planned and carried out the attack on Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were involved in tracking and closing in on the AQAP leadership. One tribal chief in the area said US aircraft had been patrolling Marib for the past few days.

One witness said Awlaki and his associates had been eating dates on a break in the journey just before the attack.

"US planes have been overhead for days now," a resident said. "Then this morning at about 9:30 what appeared to be a US aircraft fired on the two cars Awlaki and his fellow operatives are believed to have been travelling in."

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, of Yemen, returned to Sana'a after a lengthy stay in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment.

American politicians united to celebrate the death of the "American jihadist" who posed a unique challenge to the place of his birth.

"For the past several years, Awlaki has been more dangerous even than Osama bin Laden had been," said Peter King, Republican House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Chairman. "The killing of Awlaki is a tremendous tribute to President Obama and the men and women of our intelligence community,"

Mr Obama authorised the US military to target Awlaki last year, a controversial and legally fraught move in light of his US citizenship.

Awlaki inspired several attacks, including the 2009 Christmas underwear bomber, an attack in Fort Hood military base by a US army major and the stabbing of Stephen Timms, the MP for East Ham.

Members of his former mosque in Virginia said Awlaki appeared to have embraced al Qaeda while he lived in Britain between 2003 and 2006 before moving to Yemen.

Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate, said the execution of an American citizen on the battlefield set a bad precedent.

One official said Awlaki was involved in the printer bomb packages found at East Midlands airport last year.

The Yemeni outfit had developed bombs that contained no metal and were so hard to detect that police missed the material on first inspection.

To distract police, Awlaki put a copy of Great Expectations in the packages. His finger prints were found on the book.

Nigel Inkster, a former deputy head of MI6, said Awlaki "was the ideologue of al-Qaeda".

"He was very influential because he able to groom and animate so many," he said. "While everyone else in al-Qaeda was dumbstruck by the Arab Spring, he was the one person able to embrace the tsunami that hit the region."

Awlaki's family is well-known in Yemen and his father is a former agriculture minister. Lawyers for Nasser al-Awlaki last year petitioned an American judge for an injunction against the kill order but the case was dismissed.

Awlaki is a former imam of mosques frequented by September 11 hijackers in Denver, San Diego and Virginia.

Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Centre in Virginia where he preached condemned Awlaki's death.

"We have rejected the use of extrajudicial assassination of any human being and especially an American citizen which includes al-Awlaqi," it said.