Tag: Nidal Hassan

Obama Tells CIA to Kill US Citizen

The Obama administration has lowered another legal barrier shielding  Americans from extrajudicial punitive action by their own  government, in this case authorizing the CIA to kill a US citizen suspected of  having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United  States last year.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico but now living in Yemen, may  be the first US citizen targeted for  assassination by the CIA under a counter-terror policy established by  President George W. Bush and since embraced by President Barack Obama.

Awlaki was previously  viewed simply as an Islamic preacher  espousing a radical religious viewpoint, but the reassessment of his status  began last year when it was disclosed that Army Maj. Nidal Hassan had been communicating with  Awlaki via e-mail before the Army psychiatrist allegedly shot and  killed 12 soldiers and one civilian at Fort Hood in Texas last November.

A month later, on Christmas Day, a  young Nigerian man, Umar  Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up a  Northwest Airlines jetliner over  Detroit, and US intelligence  officials revealed that Abdulmutallab  had been a student of Awlaki’s in Yemen. Though Awlaki denied ordering the attack, word began to spread that the CIA was adding Awlaki to a list of about  two dozen  people targeted for assassination.

Multiple press reports now indicate  that Awlaki has been put  on the death list, a move that the Obama  administration justifies by claiming  to have information that Awlaki  has shifted from denouncing the United  States to plotting violent acts against Americans.

Read all of it here:

Obama Administration Authorizes CIA to Kill US Citizen

by Jason Leopold, April 7, 2010