Anwar al-Awlaki

Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (Arabic: أنور العولقي, romanized: Anwar al-'Awlaqī; April 21, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni Islamic cleric and lecturer assassinated in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki was the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and assassinated by a U.S. government drone strike. U.S. government officials alleged that al-Awlaki, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen, was a key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.

Al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S., in 1971 to parents from Yemen. Growing up partly in the United States and partly in Yemen, he attended various U.S. universities in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also worked as an imam despite having no religious qualifications and almost no religious education. Al-Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004 and became a university lecturer after a brief stint as a public speaker in the United Kingdom. He was detained by Yemeni authorities in 2006 and spent 18 months in prison before being released without facing trial.

Following his release from Yemeni custody, Al-Awlaki had significantly radicalized, and began to speak overtly in support of violence, also condemning the U.S. government's foreign policy towards Muslims. He was linked to Nidal Hasan, the convicted perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The Yemeni government tried al-Awlaki in absentia in November 2010 for plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda. A Yemeni judge ordered that he be captured "dead or alive". U.S. officials said that in 2009, al-Awlaki was promoted to the rank of "regional commander" within al-Qaeda. He repeatedly called for jihad against the United States. In April 2010, al-Awlaki was placed on a CIA kill list by President Obama. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court. The U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft (drones) in Yemen to search for and kill him, firing at and failing to kill him at least once. Al-Awlaki was killed on September 30, 2011.

In June 2014, a previously classified memorandum from the U.S. Department of Justice was released; the memorandum described al-Awlaki's killing as a lawful act of war. Civil liberties advocates have called the killing of al-Awlaki an extrajudicial execution that breached al-Awlaki's constitutional rights. The New York Times wrote in 2015 that al-Awlaki's public statements and videos had been more influential in inspiring acts of Islamic terrorism in the wake of his killing than they were before his death.

Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1971 to parents from Yemen, while his father, Nasser al-Awlaki, was doing graduate work at U.S. universities. His father was a Fulbright Scholar who earned a master's degree in agricultural economics at New Mexico State University in 1971, received a doctorate at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and worked at the University of Minnesota from 1975 to 1977. Nasser al-Awlaki served as Agriculture Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. He was also President of Sana'a University. Yemen's prime minister from 2007 to 2011, Ali Mohammed Mujur, was a relative.

The family returned to Yemen in 1978, when al-Awlaki was seven years old. He lived there for 11 years, and studied at Azal Modern School.

Around 1990, al-Awlaki went to the U.S. to attend college. He earned a B.S. in civil engineering from Colorado State University (1994), where he was president of the Muslim Student Association. In 1993, while still a college student in Colorado State's civil engineering program, al-Awlaki visited Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation. He spent some time training with the mujahideen who had fought the Soviets. He was depressed by the country's poverty and hunger, and "wouldn't have gone with al-Qaeda," according to friends from Colorado State, who said he was profoundly affected by the trip. Mullah Mohammed Omar did not form the Taliban until 1994. When Al-Awlaki returned to campus, he showed increased interest in religion and politics. Al-Awlaki studied Education Leadership at San Diego State University, earning a master's degree. He worked on a doctorate in Human Resource Development at The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development in 2001.

In 1994, al-Awlaki married a cousin from Yemen, and began service as a part-time imam of the Denver Islamic Society. In 1996, he was chastised by an elder for encouraging a Saudi student to fight in Chechnya against the Russians. He left Denver soon after, moving to San Diego.