Dirty Wars

by Jeremy Scahill

  Brothers and Sisters this leads to the belief that the punishment of Allah is hovering over America. When? And how? Allah knows best.

  So if you are one of those unfortunate folks who turned out to be living in the wrong place at the wrong time then it is advisable for you to leave. That is obviously if you take heed. Many don’t and are still living the utopia of the American dream. I am not talking about Mo and Mike who are still shaking to the tunes of MTV with their coke and big mac and are only Muslim by name, but I am talking about the practicing Muslims who sadly enough still think that the America of George W is the Abyssinia of the Negus.

  The US intelligence community saw Awlaki’s web sermons as a threat. Some officials began a whisper campaign against him in the US press. “There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies,” an anonymous US counterterrorism official told the Washington Post in February 2008, though no evidence was presented.

  On his blog and through e-mails, Awlaki fielded questions on whether Western Muslims should participate in jihad and began debating the merits of traveling to the front lines to fight. A new generation of young disenfranchised Muslims was eagerly seeking out Awlaki’s videos and audio recordings. One of the most popular was “Constants on the Path of Jihad,” an audio lecture believed to have been recorded in 2005. The lecture was based on the teachings of Yusuf al Ayyiri, the first operational leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and an articulate guerrilla warfare strategist who was killed by Saudi security forces in 2003. In the lecture, Awlaki advanced Ayyiri’s teachings on jihad, weaving the stories of epic battles fought by Islamic warriors defending their faith into a current context. “Whenever you see the word terrorist, replace it with the word mujahid,” Awlaki declared. “Whenever you see the word terrorism, replace it with the word jihad.” Every “government in the world is united to fight against Islam,” Awlaki added. “People try to find a way of bailing out of Jihad because they do not like it. The reality of war is horrible and that’s why people try to avoid it, but fighting is proscribed upon you, it is an instruction from Allah.” True Muslims, Awlaki said, citing Ayyiri’s writings, define victory not as simple military triumph but as the act of sacrifice. “The Mujahid sacrificing ‘his self’ and his wealth is victory. Victory of your idea, your religion. If you die for your religion, your death will spread the da’wa [proselytizing on behalf of Islam].... Allah chooses Shuhada [martyrs] from amongst the believers. This is a victory.”

  CIA and FBI counterterrorism analysts began poring over Awlaki’s sermons, looking for clues the preacher may have dropped about his potential connections to al Qaeda. They discovered no specifics, but they saw a threat in his influence and the inspiration others found in him. Intercepts from multiple terror investigations kept producing references to Awlaki’s sermons, particularly the “Constants” lecture. “In a sense, al Awlaki crosses this bridge, speaking in Arabic but he also speaks in English and he’s an American citizen and so he knows, therefore, how to address the youth,” Dr. Emile Nakhleh, the former senior CIA officer who ran the Agency’s Political Islam Division, told me. “And so the danger is not that he is another bin Laden—the fear of Awlaki among some people in the government is that he represents this new phenomenon of recruitment, recruiting ordinary people who fall under the radar.”

  As Awlaki’s online popularity grew—many of his posts had hundreds of commenters asking him for advice—the United States was putting tremendous pressure on the Yemeni intelligence services to rearrest him. “The Americans were very, very angry with the [Yemeni] government,” recalled Saleh bin Fareed, the leader of the Aulaq tribe, who would meet regularly with both US and Yemeni officials to resolve disputes between the government and Yemeni tribes. “They were really annoyed. And I think they put a lot of pressure on the [Yemeni] president to take him back” into custody. Awlaki was followed everywhere he went. “He was harassed, and he was under surveillance all the time he was in Sana’a. And he could not do anything,” recalled Awlaki’s father, Nasser, who lived with his son at the time. “They were watching him very closely,” added bin Fareed. “And he did not like that. Wherever he goes, intelligence would be on his left and right. He goes to the mosque, they are with him; he goes by car, they are behind him; he goes to eat, they also eat. I think he did not feel free.”

  Awlaki’s friend Shaykh Harith al Nadari recalled, “We were under intensified surveillance and harassment,” and Awlaki determined that “Sana’a was no longer a suitable place for us to stay.” Anwar ultimately decided to leave Sana’a to go to Ataq, the provincial capital of Shabwah, his family’s tribal land in southern Yemen, near the Arabian Sea. He thought he would be left alone by the Yemeni intelligence services and the US government. He was wrong.

  Washington was relentless in its pressure on the Yemeni regime. When Anwar left Sana’a, US intelligence demanded that Yemen’s security services return him there. The head of Yemen’s elite US-trained and -funded Counter Terrorism Unit, Yahya Saleh, told Nasser, “If your son does not come to us, he will be killed by the Americans.” Nasser and bin Fareed both traveled to Shabwah to try to compel Anwar to return to Sana’a. “I went to Shabwah. I met Anwar. I tried to convince him,” bin Fareed told me. “He told me, ‘Uncle, I will not. I was born a free man. I don’t want anybody to tell me where to sleep, where to put my head, which direction I will put it. I assure you I have nothing to do with terrorism, I have nothing to do with al Qaeda—I go from my house to the mosque, and those who attend are all from the village. I post on the Internet [and] people ask me questions, I answer. I preach Islam, and that’s my job.” Anwar told his powerful uncle, If you find any evidence I am involved with terrorism, “you come and take me and you put me in jail.”

  Awlaki had originally brought his wife and children with him to Ataq, but they eventually moved back to Sana’a to live with his parents. In Ataq, family sources told me, Anwar was subjected to continued surveillance by Yemeni intelligence agents. Awlaki decided to move further away to elude their grasp—leaving Ataq and moving to the family’s small village, al Saeed, in rural Shabwah. “It’s a small village. I mean, there are a few thousand people who live in the valley there. All of them are from the same tribe,” bin Fareed told me. “If somebody comes from another village, it’s known that he’s a stranger. So, they know each other. I think the Americans did not like this.” In his family’s village, Awlaki continued his blogging, growing ever more radical. He began telling friends and family that he believed the United States was tracking him.

  THE US HUNT FOR AWLAKI coincided with al Qaeda’s own escalation of attacks in Yemen. On September 17, 2008, the group launched a massive kamikaze attack on the US Embassy in Sana’a. The fortresslike compound was hit in a coordinated assault with vehicle bombs, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and automatic weapons, resulting in the deaths of thirteen guards and civilians, one of whom was an American. The six attackers all died as well. Al Qaeda declared it a successful strike. “This attack is a reminder that we are at war with extremists who will murder innocent people to achieve their ideological objectives,” President Bush said as he sat next to General David Petraeus at the White House. “One objective of these extremists as they kill is to try to cause the United States to lose our nerve and to withdraw from regions of the world.”

  Petraeus would soon assume command of CENTCOM, where he would oversee the US wars—declared and undeclared—in the Middle East. One of his jobs would be to coordinate an expansion of covert US military strikes in Yemen. In May, shortly after he received word that he would become CENTCOM commander, Petraeus met in Qatar with the CIA director, Michael Hayden, as well as with JSOC’s commander, Admiral McRaven, and others, to discuss plans for increasing the strikes against al Qaeda suspects wherever they operated.

  As news of the embassy bombing broke in the United States, Petraeus’s future bo
ss, Senator Barack Obama, was on the campaign trail. “It just reminds us that we have to redouble our efforts to root out and destroy international terrorist organizations,” Obama commented during a stop in Grand Junction, Colorado. Yemen was beginning to rise above its status as a back-burner issue.

  Michael Scheuer, the twenty-two-year CIA veteran and the former head of the Agency’s bin Laden unit, observed that “Al-Qaeda’s organization in Yemen seems to have stabilized after the period of turmoil and governmental suppression that followed the November 2002 death of its leader Abu Ali Harithi.” Scheuer added: “For al-Qaeda, Yemen provides a pivotal, central base that links its theaters of operation in Afghanistan, Iraq, East Africa and the Far East; it also provides a base for training Yemeni fighters and for the rest and refit of fighters from multiple Islamist groups after their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia.” In all, there were dozens of documented al Qaeda attacks on Yemeni soil from 2000 through the end of the Bush administration. Over the years, US military aid and CIA financing was increased. “When [al Qaeda] starts creating problems in Yemen, the US money starts flowing,” asserted the former senior counterterrorism official. “For Saleh, al Qaeda is the gift that keeps on giving. They are his number one fund-raiser to get Saudi and US money.”

  In October 2008, the US base at Djibouti was officially placed under the control of AFRICOM, the Pentagon’s sixth unified geographic command. Yemen remained under CENTCOM’s area of responsibility and would become a major focus for Special Operations Forces under the banner of SOC(FWD)-Yemen (Special Operations Command-Forward Yemen). While Saleh managed his complex relations with the United States through official channels, on occasion, according to US Special Operations Forces veterans, JSOC teams carried out “unilateral, direct actions” against al Qaeda suspects in Yemen. These operations were never mentioned in public, and some may have been conducted without Saleh’s knowledge or direct authorization. “During that period we were training and building the indigenous security forces in Yemen,” a former aide to a senior JSOC leader told me. “Simultaneously we were targeting and then killing people who were suspected or had been confirmed to be al Qaeda extremists in and around the Peninsula, and within Yemen itself.” Although Yemen was increasingly surfacing on the radar of JSOC and the CIA, the country would remain largely out of the headlines. During the three presidential debates between Barack Obama and John McCain in the 2008 election, Yemen was not mentioned once.

  Barack Obama campaigned on the idea that Bush had drained resources in Iraq that should have been used to fight al Qaeda. “There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade,” Obama had declared in February 2008. “They took their eye off the people who were responsible for 9/11, and that would be Al Qaeda.” The new president pledged to rearrange US priorities to Afghanistan, where he would place JSOC’s former commander, General McChrystal, in charge of the war, but Obama would soon realize that his pledge to take the fight to al Qaeda would not be limited to Afghanistan. The tiny Arab nation of Yemen would become a major piece on Obama’s counterterrorism chessboard.

  AS THE EIGHT-YEAR-LONG BUSH ERA drew to a close, and the US election campaign entered its final weeks, Awlaki railed against the hopes that Muslims in the United States and globally were voicing about the candidacy of Barack Obama. “The promoters of participation in American elections argue that we are choosing the least of the two evils. This principle is correct but what they are missing is that in the process of choosing the lesser of the two evils they are committing an even greater evil,” Awlaki wrote in October 2008. “The types of candidates that American politics has been spitting out is absolutely disgusting. I wonder how any Muslim with a grain of iman [faith] in his heart could walk up to a ballot box and cast his vote in endorsement of creatures such as McCain or Obama?!” He added: “No matter how irrelevant your vote is, on the Day of Judgment you will be called to answer for it. You, under no coercion or duress, consciously chose to vote for the leader of a nation that is leading the war against Islam.” In a subsequent post, Awlaki wrote that “on most of the issues that concern Muslims there is very little difference” between McCain and Obama. “For example they have similar views on the war on terror and the issue of Palestine. Anyone with a simple understanding of the history of American politics would realize that on the major issues both parties share the same agenda.”

  As Awlaki escalated his rhetoric, the US intelligence community was elevating his perceived threat level. A month before Barack Obama’s election, a tiny window was opened into how Awlaki was viewed when Charles Allen, the undersecretary of homeland security for intelligence and analysis, described Awlaki as “an al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers.” This was the first time a US official had publicly linked Awlaki to terrorism. Allen charged that Awlaki “targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen.” When Allen’s remarks were published, Awlaki shot back on his blog. Regarding the characterization of him as a “spiritual adviser” to some of the hijackers, Awlaki wrote: “This is a baseless claim that I have refuted again and again during the FBI’s interrogations and with the media. The US government and the media still insist on spreading this lie around.” As for encouraging terrorist attacks, Awlaki responded, “I would challenge him to come up with one such lecture where I encourage ‘terrorist attacks.’” But, in the eyes of the US government, Awlaki’s calls for jihad amounted to encouraging such attacks.

  As president-elect Obama began to build his foreign policy and counterterrorism teams, Yemen would emerge as a major priority. Although most of the United States and the world had never heard of Anwar Awlaki, the new administration was monitoring his movements in Yemen. US authorities presented no concrete evidence that Awlaki was actively involved in any terror plots, but they asserted that he was an inspirational figure whose sermons kept popping up in investigations into various terror plots: in 2006, a group of Canadian Muslims charged with plotting to storm parliament and behead the prime minister were found to have listened to Awlaki speeches. In addition, some of the men convicted in the 2007 plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey were heard praising Awlaki, according to a recording made by a government informant. Other references to Awlaki were registering on the radar in investigations in the United Kingdom, as well as in Chicago and Atlanta. Awlaki was openly praising al Shabab in Somalia, where the United States was becoming increasingly concerned about Western Muslims joining the jihad. A group of young Somali Americans from Minneapolis who had traveled to Somalia to join al Shabab were allegedly inspired by Awlaki’s “Constants on the Path of Jihad.”

  In a December 21, 2008, blog post titled “Salutations to al-Shabab of Somalia,” Awlaki wrote that the group’s seizing of territory in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia “fills our hearts with immense joy. We would like to congratulate you for your victories and achievements.... Al-Shabab not only have succeeded in expanding the areas that fall under their rule but they have succeeded in implementing the sharia and giving us a living example of how we as Muslims should proceed to change our situation. The ballot has failed us but the bullet has not.” He contrasted al Shabab’s armed insurrection against US proxies with the teachings of “Islamic universities run by Green Zone Scholars under governments headed by pimps,” whose teachings advocated “weakness and humiliation.” Awlaki asserted that the “university of Somalia” would “graduate an alumni” of “fighters who are hardened by the field and ready to carry on with no fear and hesitation. It will provide its graduates with the hands-on experience that the ummah [the global Muslim community] greatly needs for its next stage. But their success depends on your support. It is the responsibility of the ummah to help them with men and money.”

  Al Shabab replied to Awlaki’s message and Awlaki posted the answer on his site. Addressing him as “beloved Sheikh Anwar,” al Shabab’s statement said, “We look to you as one of the
very few scholars who stand firm upon the truth and defend the honor of the Mujahideen and the Muslims by continuously uncovering the feeble plots of the enemies of Allah. Allah knows how many of the brothers and sisters have been affected by your work so we ask you to continue the important effort you are doing wherever you are and never to fear the blame of the blamers.” It concluded, “O Sheikh, we would not only look at you as only a soldier, but as the likes of Ibn Taymiya [an Islamic scholar known for resisting the Mongols in the thirteenth century].”

  During the Israeli siege of Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead, which began in late 2008, Awlaki’s tone grew markedly more radical and warlike. “The illegal state of Israel needs to be eradicated. Just like Rasulullah drove them out of the Arabian peninsula the Jews of Palestine need to be driven out to the sea,” Awlaki wrote. “There are no Israeli civilians unless they are Muslim. When the enemy targets our women and children we should target theirs.”

  Awlaki was influential among jihadist circles and with young, conservative Western Muslims, including those contemplating participating in the armed struggles against the United States and Israel and their proxies. His sermons had gone viral on jihadist web forums, which were heavily monitored by US intelligence. But there was no hard evidence presented that Awlaki had done anything that was not protected speech under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, or that would not require a major court battle to prove it was unconstitutional. There was, however, enough smoke around Awlaki for US intelligence to want him silenced, as he was during his eighteen months in a Yemeni prison. Now that Awlaki was out of jail and becoming more popular with every blog post, the digital surveillance on him intensified.