Dirty Wars

by Jeremy Scahill

  On August 10, in a town hall meeting with US troops, Admiral Mullen was asked “what regions we as the military can expect to focus on in the coming not year, two years, but five years and 10 years.” Mullen responded that what he had “watched al-Qaeda do in the last five or six years is federate,” adding, “I worry about safe havens being created in Yemen and Somalia, for example. Not unlike what they had in Afghanistan when this started in 2001.” He also mentioned North Africa, the Philippines and Indonesia. “It is a growing network over time,” Mullen said.

  The Obama administration expanded the number of US Special Operations Forces trainers in Yemen. “They [the Yemenis] got free training from the elite of the elite of the US military—the best of the best,” the former aide to a special operations commander told me. “The ‘Advise and Assist’ guys, mostly led by DEVGRU. Their job is to teach you how to blow shit up and fly choppers and do night raids and they are very good at it.” While the training expanded, so too did unilateral, covert, lethal operations by JSOC.

  Suicide or Martyrdom?

  YEMEN, 2009 —As President Obama was settling into the Oval Office, Anwar Awlaki was busy building up his website and spreading his message. He posted an essay on his blog titled “Suicide or Martyrdom?” Although cloaked in the language of a debate about whether suicide is a mortal sin in Islam, it ultimately was a defense of suicide bombing. “Today the world turns upside down when one Muslim performs a martyrdom operation. Can you imagine what would happen if that is done by seven hundred Muslims on the same day?!” Awlaki wrote. “Brothers and sisters whether you agree or not with martyrdom operations let’s leave our differences behind us, and let us support our Muslim brothers who are in the frontlines. Just like we disagree on many other issues, we should not let our disagreements stand in the way of our solidarity in the face of our adversaries.” The post received more than three hundred comments, many of them praising Awlaki. A few weeks before he published that essay, Awlaki had posted links to one of his most popular treatises, “44 Ways to Support Jihad.” In February, Awlaki posted links for free downloads of many of his most popular lectures. With each new blog entry, Awlaki was thumbing his nose at the US authorities who had tried to silence him and bury him away in a Yemeni dungeon. Now, here was Awlaki, operating online in full view, encouraging Muslims to fight against the disbelievers and labeling the United States and its allies a “scourge” and “the greatest terrorists of all.”

  In March 2009, Awlaki addressed a religious conference in Pakistan via Internet stream. “I’m speaking to you from Yemen at the moment, and there are some similarities between Yemen and Pakistan, so when speaking about one, it is like speaking about the other,” Awlaki, his voice tinged with the effects of digitization, told the gathering. “Both countries are important US partners in the war on terror. Both countries have lost their sovereignty to the US by having drones strike within their territory.” Both have “been used as supply stations for America’s war against Muslims. And both countries are ruled by crooks.” Awlaki said he wanted to talk straight to his audience because “sugar coating is not going to do anyone any benefit. So, if we want to change our situation, we really need to sit down and think about it and decide what the illness is, what the symptoms are, and how to cure it.”

  During his speech, he called on all able-bodied Muslims to join the jihad against the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, and he encouraged those who could not fight to donate money to the causes. “We’re following the tails of cows, and we have left jihad in the path of Allah. And that’s why we are being humiliated now. And this humiliation will not be lifted,” he said. The United States and its allies depend on “might—their powerful aircrafts, their carriers in the ocean, their soldiers with their hi-tech weaponry and their advanced missiles. This is might. So how can we restrain their might? Is it through negotiations? Is it through giving up? Is it through surrendering? Is it through bending backwards for them?” Awlaki asked rhetorically. “Brothers and sisters, if we are not going to fight today, then when will we fight? Muslim land is occupied, oppression is wide spread, the laws of Quran are neglected, what other time is better for jihad than today?”

  Nasser Awlaki was growing concerned about his son. Everything the elder Awlaki was hearing from his friends and colleagues in the Yemeni government was ominous. Senior intelligence officials were warning him that the Americans intended to kill Anwar. They spoke of drones taking him out in the hinterlands of Shabwah, where Anwar was living. The Yemeni president personally called Nasser and begged him to persuade Anwar to return to Sana’a. “At that time, when the president was calling me, and telling me to bring my son, there was a directive from the minister of interior and the security people to capture him,” Nasser told me. “And the governor of Shabwah called me and said, ‘Look, we have an order from the Ministry of Interior, and the security people to capture your son.’”

  This was no surprise to Anwar. In his family’s village in Shabwah, Anwar was living in his grandfather’s four-story mud house, recording sermons and writing his blog. Soon after he arrived, Yemeni security forces began regularly positioning their vehicles and weapons at the wadi (valley) that ran along the front of the house. Anwar told his father that they would point their automatic weapons at the house, trying to intimidate him. “Look, my son, I don’t want you to be harassed because you either will kill somebody, or somebody will kill you,” Nasser told Anwar in a phone call. “So please keep calm. No matter what they do, please be calm.” Nasser feared that if the Yemeni forces tried to seize Anwar, a firefight could break out between the Aulaq tribe and Yemeni security forces.

  In May 2009, at the behest of the Yemeni president, Nasser and his wife traveled to Shabwah to meet with Anwar and ask him to return to Sana’a with them. “This is what the president wants,” Nasser told his son. “He’s under pressure from the Americans.” They discussed the order for Anwar’s arrest. “You are my father,” Anwar told Nasser. “How can you bring me to Sana’a when these people want to put me in prison? How can you be assured, father, that the Americans will not do something against me?” Nasser told his son that he could not provide him with any guarantees, but he believed it was Anwar’s safest move. Anwar would not budge. “I will not allow the Americans to tell me which direction to position my bed,” Anwar said. “It was a heated discussion,” Nasser later told me. “And that was unfortunate, for me, because it was last time I talked to him, and we were not on very good terms at that time.”

  Saleh bin Fareed also spoke to Anwar and concluded that his nephew wasn’t doing any harm in rural Shabwah. If anything, he thought Anwar would get into less trouble there. Bin Fareed called Yemen’s intelligence chief, General Galib al Qamish. “You and the Americans, I think, are wrong,” he told the general. Anwar “sits there, in a village of 1,000 or 2,000 people. If you think he is dangerous, and he comes to Sana’a, he will be meeting 2 million people. It’s better to leave him there.” Qamish sighed. “It’s not what the Americans want.” Why the Americans were so obsessed with Anwar was not clear to bin Fareed. How could a preacher in rural Yemen pose a threat to the most powerful nation on earth? he wondered.

  Anwar didn’t care what the Americans wanted. When his parents returned to Sana’a, Anwar began plotting his next move. As he saw it, his family had acted as intermediaries for the Yemeni government, which wanted Anwar arrested. The Americans were calling the shots. They knew where he was and their drones could find him. He had no choice: surrender or go underground. His wife and children would be left in Sana’a under the care of his parents. Anwar was being pushed, and eventually he sought the comradeship and protection of other outlaws being hunted in Yemen. “What am I accused of? That I call to the truth? That I call to Jihad for the sake of Allah, and in defense of the Islamic nation’s causes?” Awlaki asserted. “The same goes for the Americans. I have no intention of turning myself in to them. If they want me, let them search for me.”

  NIDAL HASAN, the US a
rmy psychiatrist, kept writing to Anwar Awlaki, even though his e-mails were receiving no responses. He posed questions to Awlaki about theology and about Hamas’s fight against the Israeli government, asking, among other things, “Is it Permissible to Fire Unguided Rockets into Israel?” After a few lengthy e-mails, Hasan shifted gears and started asking Awlaki how he could donate money to his causes. He suggested that Awlaki give an address where money orders or checks could be sent, rather than using online services. “This can assure privacy for some who are concerned,” Hasan wrote. That same day, Hasan wrote Awlaki again. “InshAllah, A $5,000.00 scholarship prize is being awarded for the best essay/piece entitled ‘Why is Anwar Al Awlaki a great activist and leader’. We would be honored if you would award the prize.” Hasan added a P.S.: “We met briefly a very long time ago when you were the Imam at Dar al-Hijra. I doubt if you remember me. In any case I have since graduated medical school and finished residency training.” Awlaki finally replied. “I pray this message reaches you at the best state of emaan [health],” he wrote Hasan. “Jazakum Allahu khairan [May Allah reward you in goodness] for thinking good of me. I don’t travel so I wont be able to physically award the prize and I am too ‘embarrassed’ for a lack of the better word to award it anyway. May Allah assist you in your efforts.”

  Awlaki gave no indication that he remembered Hasan at all. Hasan wrote back, once again offering money to Awlaki and adding a postscript saying he was “looking for a wife that is willing to strive with me to please Allah.... I will strongly consider a recommendation coming from you.” Awlaki replied, “Thanks for the offer for help. Well it is needed but I just don’t know how to do it. There are poor people, orphans, widows, dawa [proselytizing on behalf of Islam] projects, and the list goes on. So if you have any ideas on how to get help across and in accordance to law in a climate that is strict to start with please let me know. Tell more about yourself. I will keep an eye for a sister.” Sent on February 22, 2009, that was the last e-mail Awlaki is known to have sent to Hasan.

  Over the next several months Hasan continued to e-mail Awlaki. “I know your busy. Please keep me in your rolodex in case you find me useful and feel free to call me collect,” Hasan wrote. From there on out, the communications were a one-way road. The tone of Hasan’s e-mails became like that of a patient in therapy attempting to work through difficult life decisions. In one e-mail, sent in May 2009, Hasan pontificated on the morality of suicide bombings and raised “the issue of ‘collateral damage’ where a decision is made to allow the killing of innocents for a valuable target. [In] the Qur’an it states to fight your enemies as they fight you but don’t transgress. So, I would assume that suicide bomber whose aim is to kill enemy soldiers or their helpers but also kill innocents in the process is acceptable. Furthermore, if enemy soldiers are using other tactics that are unethical/unconscionable than those same tactics may be used.” Hasan ended his note by telling Awlaki, “We miss hearing from you!”

  AWLAKI’S BLOG had become far less active than it had been throughout 2008. With the US and Yemeni governments breathing down his neck, he had more pressing issues to deal with. Awlaki began moving throughout his family’s tribal areas, while keeping a low profile. When he could get access to an Internet connection, he would post an essay or two.

  As Awlaki began preparing for a life underground, the Obama administration was ratcheting up the pressure on the Yemeni government to hunt down al Qaeda–linked militants in the country. On August 1, 2009, Awlaki posted an analysis of battles between the Yemeni government and “the Mujahideen” in Marib, writing, “The first face to face fight between the army and the mujahideen ended in a resounding victory for the mujahideen. May Allah bless them with further victories. The army pulled out after asking for a truce from the mujahideen.” Awlaki concluded: “May this be the beginning of the greatest Jihad, the Jihad of the Arabian Peninsula that would free the heart of the Islamic world from the tyrants who are deceiving the ummah and standing between us and victory.” For Awlaki, the jihad he had advocated in speeches over the years was becoming a reality. As he saw it, a war was now beginning in Yemen, and he would need to decide if the blog was mightier than the sword.

  On October 7, Awlaki popped up again with an essay titled “Could Yemen be the Next Surprise of the Season?” He wrote:

  The American people gave G.W. Bush unanimous backing to fight against the mujahedeen and gave him a blank check to spend as much as needed to fulfill that objective. The result? He failed, and he failed miserably. So if America failed to defeat the mujahedeen when it gave its president unlimited support, how can it win with Obama who is on a short leash? If America failed to win when it was at its pinnacle of economic strength, how can it win today with a recession—if not a depression—at hand?

  The simple answer is: America cannot and will not win. The tables have turned and there is no rolling back of the worldwide Jihad movement. The ideas of Jihad are proliferating around the world, the mujahedeen movements are gaining strength and the battlefields are expanding with the mujahedeen introducing new fronts....

  The Jihad of this era started in Palestine, followed by Afghanistan, then Chechnya, then Iraq, then Somalia, then the Maghreb, and the new front might very well turn out to be Yemen.

  And when this new front of Jihad starts in Yemen it might become the single most important front of Jihad in the world.... The Arabian Peninsula has always been a land of mujahedeen even though there has been no fighting occurring on its soil. In Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, and Iraq the participation of mujahedeen from the Arabian Peninsula represented the largest block of foreign mujahedeen. When Jihad starts in the Arabian Peninsula, Jihad would be coming back to its home....The Arabian Peninsula is home to Makkah and Madinah [Mecca and Medina, the Islamic holy cities]. To free the Holy places from the rule of apostasy and tyranny is to free the heart of Islam....

  America and its allies in the area are plotting against the mujahedeen, nevertheless their growth increases by the day. May Allah grant the true believers victory and grant them steadfastness on His path.

  By accident or design, Anwar Awlaki found himself on the run just as al Qaeda in Yemen was growing into a real force with its core in Shabwah and Abyan, the Aulaq tribal areas. Fahd al Quso, who was still being hunted by the United States for his role in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, was a member of Awlaki’s tribe, as were several other key figures in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

  Many Yemenis had fought the jihad elsewhere in the world, as Awlaki pointed out, but now Yemen would see the rise of an al Qaeda affiliate within its own borders. “If we go back to 2001 or 2002, Al Qaeda was not more than ten or twenty individuals in Yemen, and it was not an organization,” journalist Abdul Rezzaq al Jamal, an independent Yemeni reporter who interviewed many of the founding members of AQAP, told me. “It had no structure until 2009.” As AQAP formed, Awlaki believed it was his obligation to support his brother jihadists in their struggle against the Yemeni regime and what he believed would be a coming American war against them. “I lived in the US for twenty-one years. America was my home,” Awlaki later recalled. “I was a preacher of Islam, involved in non-violent Islamic activism. However, with the American invasion of Iraq, and continued US aggression against Muslims, I could not reconcile between living in the US and being a Muslim... and I came to the conclusion that Jihad against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding on every other able Muslim.”

  Awlaki had long been viewed as a nuisance by the US government, and the US counterterrorism community wanted him silenced. But as AQAP rose in Yemen, the perception was that Awlaki was becoming an increasingly active threat. The events of the last two months of 2009 would seal Awlaki’s fate. Awlaki’s own words also crossed a line during this time, as he lent his powerful endorsement to specific acts of terrorism on US targets.

  Less than a year into President Obama’s term, Yemen would be catapulted to the top of the list of trouble spots on the US counterterrorism radar and Awlaki wo
uld become an epic figure, with senior US officials eventually comparing him to Osama bin Laden and labeling him one of the greatest terrorist threats facing the country.

  Obama Embraces JSOC

  SOMALIA, EARLY 2009 —For the first year of the Obama presidency, much of the administration’s foreign policy attention was directed at Afghanistan and the president’s pledge to escalate the war there. Despite estimates that there were fewer than one hundred al Qaeda operatives remaining in the country, Obama was weighing a dramatic increase in the number of US troops he would deploy to Afghanistan, to continue an intervention Obama had characterized as the “right war” during his presidential campaign. But while Afghanistan was the administration’s top international concern, the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula were experiencing a dramatic uptick in al Qaeda mobilizations.

  With the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia decimated, al Shabab had become the dominant armed group in Somalia and was in control of substantial territory in Mogadishu and elsewhere. The United States and its African Union proxies were supporting a weak transitional government headed by Sheikh Sharif, the former chair of the ICU. In May 2009, fighting in the capital between Sharif’s government and al Shabab–linked groups became so intense that the United Nations accused al Shabab of trying “to seize power by force” in “a coup attempt.”