Awlaki Death: A Hammer Blow To Al Qaeda

**bb1** Fri Sep 30, 2011 7:27 pm

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16080254

Sam Kiley, security editor

The death of Anwar al Awlaki is a hammer blow to the ambitions of al Qaeda to shift its operations to self-starting cells, trained in terrorist skills over the internet using guides produced by the US-born extremist.

Al Qaeda strategists will be rocked back on their heels by the killing of al Awlaki, 40, who has already been closely associated with numerous attacks and attempts to blow up airliners.
He is reported to have been bombed by American aircraft in a remote part of Yemen, which has been engulfed in civil war and political violence for months this year.
The shockwaves of the killing are, ironically, less likely to be felt in the Yemen's capital, Sanaa, than in the US and Europe.
Roshonara Choudhry, who was convicted for the attempted murder of MP Stephen Timms last year, admitted she had been inspired by sermons by al Awlaki which she had watched on the internet.

A leading light of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Awlaki was never a significant terror activist himself.
But he campaigned to switch al Qaeda's style of operations from training terrorists in remote camps in Pakistan or Somalia, to training in their own homes over the internet.
He is believed to have met Umar Farouk Amdumutallab, the Nigerian who allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner over Detroit in 2009 wearing explosive-laden underpants.
He had been in contact with Nidal Hassan, the former US army psychiatrist who allegedly murdered 13 soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas.

He has also been linked to Faisal Shahzad's attempt to bomb Times Square in New York and to the 'printer bomb' plots last year.
But in many ways his reach was far wider.
Al Awlaki, who was born to Yemeni parents in New Mexico, used 21st century technology to spread a message to disciples who wanted to take much of the world back to the sixth century.
In addition to his internet preaching, he published Inspire magazine, an English-language in-house al Qaeda product which celebrated "martyrdom" and focused on how-to guides for would-be terrorists.

Earlier this year, the publishing operation run from Yemen also produced a 100+ page guide to highly-sophisticated bomb-making.
The aim of such work was to encourage self-starting terrorists to avoid the attention of security services by travelling to where they could train - by training themselves.
Known as "clean skins", such terror operators are considered a significant threat in Europe and the US.
The danger, now, is that some of his disciples are likely to want to avenge his death.

He had been in contact with Nidal Hassan, the former US army psychiatrist who allegedly murdered 13 soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas

Thought the World's Worst Profiler said that had nothing to do with terrorism?