Way back in 2002 the United States conducted a drone attack against some militants in Yemen. Since that attack there have been no more drone strikes in Yemen despite the entrenched presence of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Well, no more attacks until last Friday.
Using a Predator drone that was likely based out of Djibouti we took a shot at Anwar al-Awlaki, an American born (Las Cruces, New Mexico) former imam who has become the spiritual leader for AQAP and who has used his native English and knowledge of the West to heavily recruit new members for Al Qaida/jihad/terrorism as well as contritbute heavily to AQAP propaganda efforts.
Awlaki may be target #1 for the United States now that Osama has been eliminated and I find it interesting that this attack, which apparently just missed the guy, occured less than a week after the raid against bin Laden. Probably just good timing, I highly doubt that OBL just happened to have the location of Awlaki on one of his hard drives that were removed from the compound he was in, but you never know. I do have some legality concerns about the targeting of this guy for death though. He's an American citizen, does the government have the right to blow this guy up with a hellfire missile? Does he not have the right of a trial?
Moving on to Afghanistan where NATO and Afghan security forces just finished defending Kandahar from a two day onslaught by Taliban militants. Somewhere between 60-100 fighters plus 9 suicide bombers attacked over the weekend. Clearly the yearly spring offensive is in full swing and the death of Osama isn't even going to slow those guys down.
It's going to get ugly in southern Afghanistan this year.
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