Court papers show Awlaki was more than an al Qaeda propagandist
Critics of the decision by President Obama to kill al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike argued that Awlaki was more of an ideologue than an operative and thus should not have been killed because he was not directly involved in combat.
In a 2013 speech, President Obama responded that Awlaki was indeed a terrorist operative. “He was continuously trying to kill people,” Obama declared at the National Defense University, “He helped oversee the 2010 plot to detonate explosive devices on two U.S.-bound cargo planes. He was involved in planning to blow up an airliner in 2009.”
But few details of Awlaki’s operational role have been publicly revealed – until now. A court filing in the sentencing of one of Awlaki’s terrorist protégés, Minh Quang Pham – who has pleaded guilty in Federal court in New York to three counts of terrorism-releated charges – has shed new light on Awlaki’s direct role in terrorist operations.
Anwar al-Awlaki in a still image taken from video, September 30, 2011. Reuters.
The New York Times reports:
The Qaeda bomb-making instructor carefully demonstrated for his student how to mix the chemicals to make a volatile powder, then supervised a test explosion and added a sinister final tip: tape bolts around the homemade bomb to produce lethal shrapnel.
The explosive expert’s identity, revealed by a Qaeda operative facing sentencing next week, came as a surprise: He was Anwar al-Awlaki, the American imam who had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen and become the terrorist network’s leading English-language propagandist….
[N]ew court filings in New York offer the most detailed account yet of a hidden side of Mr. Awlaki’s work inside Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen — as a hands-on trainer who taught recruits how to make bombs, gave them money for missions and offered suggestions about how to carry out suicide attacks.
The papers, part of a sentencing memorandum submitted by the government, were filed Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan in the case of Mr. Awlaki’s former bomb-making student, Minh Quang Pham, a Vietnamese-British convert to Islam….
Mr. Pham told F.B.I. agents in interviews last year that Mr. Awlaki himself conducted the bomb training in Yemen’s Marib Province.
“During the training, Aulaqi showed Pham how to mix chemicals to make an explosive powder,” an F.B.I. agent wrote, using an alternative spelling for the cleric’s name. They set off a small test using a tin can, and “the explosion generated enough force to launch the tin can away from Pham and into the air.”
Mr. Pham described Mr. Awlaki as the only Qaeda member he had met “who was qualified and capable of planning jihadist operations against the West because Aulaqi had lived in America,” one F.B.I. summary says.
Mr. Awlaki directed Mr. Pham to use “great caution” while in Yemen in his communications with outsiders. Mr. Pham drafted emails and saved them on a USB thumb drive, which he then gave to other Qaeda members who were tasked with sending the messages on Pham’s behalf, prosecutors said in their memo.
Later, when Mr. Pham prepared to leave Yemen, Mr. Awlaki gave him 6,000 British pounds, about $10,000 at the time, which he directed him to use to attack Heathrow Airport near London. Mr. Pham told investigators that Mr. Awlaki had told him to target crowds in the arrivals area for flights from the United States or Israel. Mr. Pham told agents he had changed his views and never tried to carry out the attack.
Mr. Awlaki also gave Mr. Pham a new “clean” laptop to take with him to Britain, “so that Pham would not have any issues if authorities searched his computer,” the government wrote.
You can read the court filings, including a 15-page handwritten letter to the judge by Pham, here.
Senator Rand Paul opposed the targeted killing of Awlaki, and filibustered the judicial nomination of David Barron – the Justice Department official who wrote legal opinion authorizing the drone strikes that killed Awlaki. “I rise today to say that there is no legal precedent for killing American citizens not directly involved in combat,” Paul said at the time.
It is now clear that Anwar al Awlaki was directly involved in combat against the United States of America – and that the strike that took him out was both morally and legally justified.
