Killing of Al Qaeda cleric Awlaki unconstitutional, suit charges

WASHINGTON -- A lawsuit filed Wednesday contends that the U.S. violated the constitutional rights of Al Qaeda cleric Anwar Awlaki  and two other U.S. citizens when it killed them with drone strikes in Yemen last year.

The lawsuit questions the legality of two drone strikes, one in September that killed Awlaki and Al Qaeda propagandist Samir Khan, and a second in October whose victims included Awlaki’s 16-year-old son.

All three were U.S. citizens, and the overarching theme of the lawsuit is that the attacks violated the Constitution’s guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law.

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Lawyers for two activist groups, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed the case on behalf of relatives of the dead. The defendants are CIA Director David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Special Operations Commander Adm. William McRaven, and Gen. Joseph Votel, who heads the Joint Special Operations Command, known as JSOC.

The CIA and JSOC are cooperating in carrying out drone strikes in Yemen, U.S. officials have said.

The suit does not name President Obama, who is reported to have made the decision to target Awlaki.

“The Constitution does not permit a bureaucratized program under which Americans far from any battlefield are summarily killed by their own government on the basis of shifting legal standards and allegations never tested in court,” said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. 

The CIA and Pentagon had no comment on the lawsuit.

Among the lawsuit’s arguments is that the U.S. had ample chance to attempt to capture Anwar Awlaki because he had been under surveillance for some time -– as long as three weeks, according to "Kill or Capture," a new book by Newsweek reporter Daniel Klaidman that is cited in the complaint.

Suicide bomber kills 10 police cadets in Yemen, Al Qaeda blamed

A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vest at the gates of a police academy in Yemen's capital, Sana, on Wednesday, killing 10 in the crowd of cadets headed out on weekend furloughs, the Yemeni Embassy in Washington announced.

In a statement condemning the "inhumane killings," Charge D'Affaires Adel Suneini blamed the attack on Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which security analysts now consider the most dangerous vestige of the terror network founded by the late Osama bin Laden.

The bomber, identified in a Yemeni Interior Ministry statement as Mohamed Nasher al-Uthy from Amran province, survived the detonation that blew off the lower part of his body but bled to death after being taken to a nearby hospital.

Nineteen other cadets and police officers were injured in the attack, four of them critically, the embassy statement said.

Yemeni government and security institutions have become frequent targets of Islamic militants who gained control of key coastal territory last year during an uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The former leader left the country earlier this year under a negotiated transition that in February brought to power President Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has been cooperating with the United States and other Western forces to eradicate the terrorists' foothold in Yemen.

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How Yemen became a controversial battleground against Al Qaeda

Yemen is a battleground where the U.S. has attacked an Al Qaeda branch that has tried to blow up U.S. airliners and assassinate targets in Saudi Arabia. Government officials announced Tuesday that Yemeni troops and southern tribesman had driven Al Qaeda militants out of two strategic towns, aided by a U.S. military command center recently established in the southern desert.

But while U.S. and Yemeni officials have celebrated such blows to Al Qaeda, the increasing U.S. attacks, particularly drone strikes, also have fed fears of blowback from Yemenis angered by civilian deaths.

Islamic extremists have long gravitated to Yemen, with its rugged terrain, religious conservatism and close proximity to Saudi Arabia. In one of the most notorious terrorist attacks in Yemen, suicide bombers killed 17 American sailors aboard the U.S. destroyer Cole in the port of Aden in 2000.

The U.S. has been trying to combat Islamists there for more than a decade, partnering with Yemen. In 2002, it used a Hellfire missile to kill six suspected Al Qaeda operatives there, first igniting the debate about whether the U.S. should kill its enemies without trying them in court.

Badly battered nine years ago, Al Qaeda allies in Yemen began regaining strength when a Yemeni prison break in 2006 freed some noted Islamists, according to Princeton University scholar Gregory Johnsen. Three years ago, they regrouped with Al Qaeda members who had fled a Saudi Arabian government crackdown to form the newly named Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The re-energized group quickly became infamous. The Al Qaeda affiliate says it trained the underwear bomber who tried to down a Northwest Airlines jet near Detroit two and a half years ago, along with other attempted bombings that were halted before they could claim lives.

Yemeni extremists got a boost last year, a side effect of the Arab Spring unrest. While Yemeni forces were distracted by infighting and protests, they abandoned the south. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Ansar al Sharia, an apparently related Islamist group that has focused largely on local issues in Yemen, expanded their reach in southern Yemen.

“There was no one watching the store. They saw opportunity and went in,” said Barbara Bodine, a former ambassador to Yemen now teaching at Princeton University. Some Yemenis believe that Saleh allowed it to happen to convince the West that ousting him would be costly.

Death of Al Qaeda No. 2 means more decentralization, experts say

The killing of Abu Yahya al Libi, the latest blow to Al Qaeda's leadership, is likely to result in a  continuation of the decentralization that U.S. officials and experts have already witnessed.

The chief threat was already shifting to Al Qaeda affiliates in other countries such as Yemen when Osama bin Laden was killed last year. The death of Libi, second only to Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri, is likely to continue that trend as the rattled central organization tries to replace him, experts said.

“Someone can always move into a No. 2 spot. That’s not the issue,” said Brian Michael Jenkins, senior advisor to the president of Rand Corp. “But his skills are hard to replace. And the disruption pushes their heads even lower.”

The shift in Al Qaeda toward regional groups, in turn, could change the focus of global terrorism, leaving local groups to attack local governments, said Daniel L. Byman, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. The Al Qaeda core has sought to unite its branches across the world behind global attacks on the United States rather than focusing on more local issues.  

But its power to do so has long been limited. The Al Qaeda core in Pakistan has strong connections to nearby groups such as the Pakistan Taliban, but lacks the numbers and capacity to manage its far-flung affiliates in Somalia or Yemen, said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council.

“We haven’t been talking for some time about direction from some core group hiding out in South Asia,” said Paul Pillar, a senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “Their role is best described as exhortation –- not direction.”

With a crippled core, the Al Qaeda branches are still dangerous. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen affiliate that claimed responsibility for training the underwear bomber who tried to down a jet near Detroit three years ago, is now seen as the greatest threat to the U.S.

But those different, distant branches of Al Qaeda may not mobilize as easily behind complex, coordinated attacks on the West, experts said. Rand Corp. terrorism researcher Brian Jackson said the result could be sporadic “popcorn violence” that lacks a greater strategy.

"It's an organization that has very big aspirations," Jackson said. "That doesn't get achieved by a lot of little pieces of the group acting on their own."

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Photo: A video still dated Oct. 18, 2011, shows Al Qaeda's deputy leader Abu Yahya Libi speaking at an undisclosed location. Credit: IntelCenter

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International sting operation brought down underwear bomb plot

WASHINGTON -- The successful blocking of an ambitious Al Qaeda plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner was an international sting operation worthy of Hollywood, with spies tricking terrorists into showing their cards.

Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agency, working closely with the CIA, used an informant to pose as a would-be suicide bomber. His job was to convince the Al Qaeda franchise in Yemen to give him a new kind of non-metallic bomb that the militants were designing to easily pass through airport security.

But the double agent instead arranged to deliver the explosive device to U.S. and other intelligence authorities waiting in another country, officials said Tuesday. The agent is now safely outside Yemen and is being debriefed.

Experts are analyzing the sophisticated device at the FBI’s bomb laboratory at Quantico, Va., to determine if it really could evade current security measures. It appears an upgraded version of the so-called “underwear bomb” that failed to take down a passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

Like that bomb, this device bears the forensic signature of feared Al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan Asiri, who was born in Saudi Arabia and is believed to be hiding in Yemen. But the double agent apparently never got close to Asiri, who remains one of the top CIA targets.

The operation had an added benefit, however. It produced intelligence that helped U.S. authorities finally locate Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, a top Al Qaeda operative in Yemen. Quso had been on the FBI’s most wanted list for his alleged involvement in the bombing of the guided missile destroyer USS Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000. The FBI had offered a $5-million bounty for information leading to his capture.

On Sunday, a CIA drone aircraft fired a missile that killed Quso as he stepped out of his car in Yemen, U.S. officials said.

The drone strike and the effort to obtain the explosive device “are part of the same operation,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who heads the House Homeland Security Committee.

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Photo: This undated file photo released in October 2010 by Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior purports to show Al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan Asiri. Credit:Saudi Arabia Ministry of Interior.

 

U.S. thinks underwear bomb was built by Al Qaeda in Yemen

WASHINGTON -- The FBI is analyzing a sophisticated underwear bomb that U.S. officials believe was built by Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen in an effort to target Western aviation.

U.S. officials said Monday that there was no imminent threat to U.S. jetliners. But the explosive device, which the CIA obtained from another government, demonstrates Al Qaeda’s continued interest in building a bomb that can pass through airport security and bring down a passenger jet, the officials said.

The FBI said in a statement that “the device is very similar to IEDs that have been used previously by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in attempted terrorist attacks, including against aircraft and for targeted assassinations." An IED is an improvised explosive device.

“We have no specific, credible information regarding an active terrorist plot against the U.S. at this time, although we continue to monitor efforts by Al Qaeda and its affiliates to carry out terrorist attacks, both in the homeland and abroad,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “Since this IED demonstrates our adversaries’ interest in targeting the aviation sector, DHS continues, at the direction of the president, to employ a risk-based, layered approach to ensure the security of the traveling public.”

In December 2009, a would-be suicide bomber aboard a Detroit-bound airliner attempted to detonate an explosive device in his underwear. The bomb failed to detonate, and officials later traced the device to the Al Qaeda group in Yemen.

Despite the timing, U.S. officials said they had no direct evidence of a plot tied to the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden last week.

In a statement, the White House said President Obama was first informed of the latest plot in April by his Homeland Security and counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan.

“While the president was assured that the device did not pose a threat to the public, he directed the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take whatever steps necessary to guard against this type of attack,” said Caitlin Hayden, deputy spokeswoman of the National Security Council. “The disruption of this IED plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad.”

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Photo: Underwear worn by convicted Nigerian-born terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab when he attempted to detonate explosives while flying into Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. The image was made available on May 7, 2012. Credit: FBI

Al Qaeda posts video of kidnapped American development worker

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- An American development worker kidnapped last year from his home in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore has appeared in a video released by Al Qaeda, saying his captors will kill him if President Obama does not meet their demands.

Warren Weinstein, 70, was abducted from his home in an upscale neighborhood last August, just days before he was slated to finish his work in Pakistan and leave for the U.S. In December, Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri appeared in a video and stated that his terror network was holding Weinstein.

Pakistani officials have said they believe that Weinstein is being held somewhere in the country's volatile tribal region along the Afghan border, where Al Qaeda militants and other Islamic extremist groups maintain strongholds.

The 2-minute, 40-second video of Weinstein, released on Sunday, shows him dressed in a traditional Pakistani tunic as he calmly urges Obama to acquiesce to Al Qaeda's demands. In the December video, Zawahiri demanded an end to all U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as the release of all Al Qaeda and Taliban militants currently being detained.

"If you accept the demands, I live," Weinstein said in the video, directing his remarks to Obama. "If you don't accept the demands, then I die."

Weinstein appears alone in the video, which was posted on jihadist Internet forums by Al-Sahab, Al Qaeda's media wing. It is not known when the video was made.

Addressing his wife, Elaine, Weinstein said, "I'm fine, I'm well, I'm getting all my medications. I'm being taken care of." Weinstein, whose home is in Rockville, Md., suffers from asthma and high blood pressure.

Counter-terrorism official says drones help prevent deeper conflicts

WASHINGTON -- President Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor defended using drones to launch deadly missiles against militants and terrorist leaders in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, arguing Monday that the unmanned aircraft have helped prevent deeper military conflicts.

The comments by John Brennan, shortly before the first anniversary of the raid by U.S. Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden, marked the first time that a senior White House official has spoken at length in public about drone operations, which have been widely reported but are officially covert.

The administration’s growing reliance on drones has stirred deep controversy at home and abroad. On Sunday, unmanned aircraft killed at least three suspected militants in the tribal region of northern Pakistan despite the Pakistani government's insistence that the U.S. attacks have infringed on the country's sovereignty and killed or injured hundreds of civilians over the last three years.

But in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington-based think tank, Brennan said civilian casualties from drone strikes were “exceedingly rare.”

“We take it seriously,” he said. “We go back and review our actions.”

Brennan strained to answer critics who have sought information for years on how U.S. officials decide whom to target, and how often civilians have been accidentally killed.

“We only authorize a particular operation against a specific individual if we have a high degree of confidence that the individual being targeted is indeed the terrorist we are pursuing,” he said. “This is a very high bar.”

Brennan said the campaign of targeted drone strikes has reduced danger to U.S. pilots, limited civilian casualties and helped prevent deeper U.S. military actions overseas.

“Large, intrusive military deployments risk playing into Al Qaeda’s strategy of trying to draw us into long, costly wars that drain us financially, inflame anti-American resentment and inspire the next generation of terrorists,” he said.

Until recently, no Obama administration official publicly acknowledged the covert drone program, although hundreds of CIA drone strikes have been reported in Pakistan since 2009.

Obama acknowledged the classified program Jan. 30 when he said the U.S. has to be “judicious in how we use drones,” in response to a question about attacks in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Brennan said he was speaking about the drone program because Obama had instructed officials to be more open about it. 

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Photo: Marc Grossman, right, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, holds talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, left, in Islamabad, Pakistan, on April 26. Pakistan reiterated its opposition to U.S. drone attacks in its territory. Credit: Sajjad Qayyumsajjad Qayyum / AFP