The following post is adapted from a paper I wrote in 2011 following the targeting and killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. I borrowed heavily from Berger’s book Jihad Joe for the background information on Awlaki.
United States Foreign Policy and Targeted Killings: The case of Anwar al-Awlaki
On September 30, 2011, the United States launched a successful attack targeting and killing Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. Samir Khan, although not the specified target of the attack, was also killed in the strike. Awlaki and Khan held U.S. citizenship, as well as citizenship in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, respectfully. Immediately following the attack, there were varied criticisms of the strike against U.S. citizens from law experts and media outlets. The two primary objections to the targeting and killing of an American citizen in Yemen that have been raised are: 1) the U.S. is not involved in an armed conflict in Yemen so to use military force violates international law, and 2) the targeted killing of an American violates the Constitution and international human rights law and it isn’t explicitly allowed in the war model of current U.S. foreign policy.
The ongoing war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates has presented unique challenges to carrying out U.S. foreign policy objectives given its borderless nature and the broad definition of affiliates, which is “intended to reflect a broader category of entities against whom the United States must bring various elements of national power, as appropriate and consistent with the law, to counter the threat they pose.”[1]
I. The Rise of Anwar al-Awlaki
In order to better understand both of the objections (see above) raised in response to Awlaki’s death and the reasons the United States targeted him in the first place, it is necessary to detail his rise from engineering student at Colorado State University to global terrorist issuing statements on behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which urged terrorists, among other things, not to “consult anyone in killing the Americans.”[2]
Anwar al-Awlaki was born in 1971 to Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki and his wife in Las Cruces, New Mexico.[3] The family moved to Yemen, their homeland, when Awlaki was seven years old. There it is said that Awlaki “consumed American popular culture voraciously” and returned to the United States in 1991 to study engineering at CSU “on a U.S. government scholarship awarded to foreign students. He lied about his citizenship in order to qualify.”[4] Eventually, Awlaki’s interest in his faith and his personal interpretation of Islamic texts led him to the Ar-Ribat Al-Islami mosque in La Mesa, California, where he was known to encourage some of his followers to partake in jihad.[5] It is important to note that up until this point, Awlaki was not prominently working against U.S. foreign policy objectives abroad. Although he was addressing them through sermons, there remains no proof that at this time he was actively planning or preparing missions abroad to disrupt American interests or objectives in the Middle East. However, This doesn’t mean Awlaki wasn’t being watched.
“At some point in the 1990s, the FBI opened a file on him” but the investigation concluded in March 2000 when the agent on the case “wrote that Awlaki had been ‘fully identified and does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.’”[6]
In hindsight, Awlaki may have played a crucial role by motivating two of the 9/11 hijackers in early 2000, before the FBI closed their investigation of him. It was during this time that two men named Nawaf Al Hazmi and Khalid Al Mindhar visited the Ar-Ribat mosque where Awlaki was preaching. “Both men were members of al-Qaeda—and both would take part in the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77 and its subsequent crash into the Pentagon on September 11.”[7] In The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright attributes significant importance to these men, writing that tracking their movements “offered the most realistic hope for American intelligence to uncover the 9/11 conspiracy.”[8] Unfortunately, the importance of Hazmi and Mindhar wasn’t known across all intelligence agencies. Even the CIA didn’t know Hazmi had flown to Los Angeles on January 15, 2000 until three months after the fact.[9] Had the true threat of Hazmi and Mindhar been known, it is likely that Awlaki would have never met with a hellfire missile in the desert of Yemen eleven years later, but instead would have been arrested in California. In reality though the relationships among the three men remained hazy to the FBI, even though they “wanted badly to arrest Awlaki but couldn’t come up with the hard evidence.”[10] One FBI agent later told the 9/11 Commission “if anyone had knowledge of the plot, it was Awlaki.”[11]
Awlaki’s next move was to Falls Church, Virginia, to be an imam at Dar Al Hijrah mosque. It was here where Awlaki, a week after the 9/11 attacks, criticizing media and government explanations for why America was attacked, preached, “We were told this was an attack on American civilization. We were told this was an attack on American freedom, on the American way of life. This wasn’t an attack on any of this. This was an attack on U.S. foreign policy.”[12] Under pressure from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, the U.S. issued a warrant for Awlaki’s arrest based on passport fraud in Colorado due to the lack of evidence tying the imam to 9/11.[13] Awlaki had been preaching abroad and when he returned to the U.S. in October of 2002 he was held by immigration officials for four hours, but released when it was discovered that his arrest warrant had been revoked one day earlier. The warrant was revoked by “an assistant U.S. attorney in Denver, David Gaouette, who said in 2009 that his office “couldn’t prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt and we asked the court to withdraw the complaint,” adding that he couldn’t prosecute someone for a ‘bad reputation.’”[14] At this point, Awlaki caught on to the ongoing interest the intelligence community had in him and he moved his family to London and then to Yemen two years later in 2004. Once in Yemen, Awlaki quickly became a significant barrier to the U.S. and meeting foreign policy goals in the region. He is reported to have been a motivator for Nidal Hasan who was responsible for the Fort Hood shootings. And after the failed attempt to take down a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit in December 2009, the perpetrator Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, “told the FBI after his arrest” that Awlaki “had explicitly directed him to carry out the attack.”[15]
Throughout 2009 and 2010, Awlaki was added to several lists, which put him squarely in the crosshairs of American guns, or to be more specific, on the infrared cameras of U.S. drones buzzing around the skies of the Middle East. Even prior to the December 2009 incident, the Obama administration had “authorized the capture or killing of [the] U.S. –born Muslim cleric” in April 2009.[16] And, “On July 16, 2010, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued an order designating Anwar al-Aulaqi a ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorist’ for, inter alia, ‘acting for or on behalf of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula…and for providing financial, material or technological support for, or other services to or in support of, acts of terrorism [.]’”[17] And a few days later Awlaki was added to the “United Nations 1267 Committee’s Consolidated List of individuals and entities associated with al Qa’ida or the Taliban.”[18]
The aforementioned listings and increasingly violent ideology coming from Awlaki came to a head on September 30, 2011. According to The Guardian and the Yemini government, Awlaki “was ‘targeted and killed’ around 9:55am outside the town of Khasaf in a desert stretch of Jawf province, 87 miles (140km) east of the capital Sana’a.”[19] President Obama referred to Awlaki’s death as “‘another significant milestone’ in America’s fight against al-Qaida.”[20] However, many in the U.S. and abroad did not receive the news of Awlaki’s death as positively as President Obama did, specifically disagreeing with the placement of Awlaki into the framework of the United States’ war model in the region and the goals of disrupting and defeating al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
II. Criticisms of the Strike on Awlaki
When taking into consideration the objections to targeting and killing a U.S. citizen abroad, it is valuable to note that by late September and early October of 2011 the U.S. government was already quite practiced in defending at least the placement of Awlaki on a capture or kill list due to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi, Anwar’s father, who brought “this action on his own behalf and as next friend to his son.”[21] The Washington Post reported, “The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights filed” the lawsuit “challenging the U.S. government’s authority to target and kill U.S. citizens outside of war zones when they are suspected of involvement in terrorism.”[22] Echoing the first primary objection to the killing mentioned above, the lawyers wrote, “The United States is not at war with Yemen, or within it. Nonetheless, U.S. government officials have disclosed the government’s intention to carry out the targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi, who is hiding there.”[23] The lawyers said that the targeting alone was a violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments and a violation of the Alien Tort Statute against extrajudicial killing. However, each objection stating that the targeting of Awlaki was illegal also had this pertinent phrase at the end: “in circumstances in which they [the targeted person/s] do not present concrete, specific, and imminent threats to life or physical safety, and where there are means other than lethal force that could reasonably be employed to neutralize any such threat.”[24] Thus, the targeting of Awlaki—the lawyers admitted—was legal if Awlaki was shown to be a “concrete, specific, and imminent threat to life or physical safety.” This made it rather easy for the government to dismiss this objection because of the general framework of the U.S. war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
The ACLU, having lost the lawsuit mentioned above, was quick to write the day Awlaki died, “The targeted killing program violates both U.S. and international law. As we’ve seen today, this is a program under which American citizens far from any battlefield can be executed by their own government without judicial process, and on the basis of standards and evidence that are kept secret not just from the public but from the courts.”[25]
Getting less attention, but perhaps as important, is the killing of Samir Khan. The Economist asked, “What precisely…were the grounds for killing the other American jihadist, a website editor against whom the evidence seems less definitive?”[26] For terrorists, the event lent itself as an opportunity to criticize the U.S. and also as a recruiting tool, in their minds showing how hypocritical the U.S. is in regards to its own judicial process. The SITE Intelligence Group, “which monitors and translates jihadist online forums” referred to a statement that said, “The Americans killed the preaching sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, and they did not prove the accusation against them, and did not present evidence against them in their unjust laws of their freedom.”[27]
Also concerning to critics is the idea that the U.S. didn’t attempt to arrest Awlaki before going ahead with the strike. In his journal article on “Targeted Killings and International Human Rights Law,” Michael Ramsden addresses the popular argument that killing Awlaki not only violated the U.S. foreign policy war model, but it also paid no attention to international law. In order for the strike to be justified, Ramsden wrote, “The state must establish that all measures to arrest or incapacitate the suspected terrorist were exhausted prior to using lethal force…For instance, if it was possible to arrest the suspected terrorist at any earlier stage, and it was a foreseeable consequence that lethal force would have to be used later, then there would be a violation of the right to life.”[28] According to some of the cables leaked in the massive release from WikiLeaks in December 2010, the government had exercised other options and President of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh told John Brennan in September 2009, “I have given you an open door on terrorism.”[29] That said, Saleh couldn’t allow US troops on the ground in Yemen due to the inevitable outcry from domestic critics. So it was agreed that US drones would “circle out of sight outside Yemeni territory ready to engage AQAP targets should actionable intelligence become available.”[30] Ramsden also cites credible evidence that Yemen wasn’t prepared militarily to act on actionable intelligence. “To cite just one example, in December 2001, Yemen forces attempted to capture Al-Harithi, an Al-Qaeda leader and the mastermind of the USS Cole bombings. Yet, it was reported that over 18 soldiers died in a failed capture attempt.”[31] The strike that did finally take Harithi out was accomplished by a hellfire missile launched from a CIA predator drone, the same type of strike used against Awlaki. The November 2002 attack also killed a U.S. citizen, Ahmed Hijazi, who was riding in the car with Harithi, “100 miles east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa”[32] and roughly in the same region as where Awlaki met his end.
The critiques of the targeting and killing of American citizens abroad are quite numerous and this post is not the appropriate place for an in depth look at all of them. However, to examine a few of them shows the overarching theme espoused by the critics, that the killing violates U.S. and international law and that United States foreign policy objectives in the region don’t allow for American citizens or foreigners to be targeted in a country the U.S. isn’t currently at war in.
III. The United States Defends the Strike
What most of these criticisms overlook are the primary documents responsible for framing U.S. security goals in the Middle East. First among them is the Senate Joint Resolution 23, signed in the aftermath of 9/11 and more commonly referred to as the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which reads:
The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.[33]
This resolution allows for a high degree of flexibility in terms of what methods are used and who is deemed a terrorist connected to the September 11 attacks or connected to any future acts of international terrorism. When faced with criticism of the sort mentioned in the previous section, the AUMF is the trump card. For example, the day Awlaki was killed an Obama administration official told The Washington Post, “As a general matter, it would be entirely lawful for the United States to target high-level leaders of enemy forces, regardless of their nationality, who are plotting to kill Americans both under the authority provided by Congress in its use of military force in the armed conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces.”[34]
Both the National Strategy For Counterterrorism (2011) and the National Security Strategy (2010) are broadly inclusive in terms of potential targets and foreign policy goals. It is important, however, to remember that these documents do not have the status of law that the AUMF has.
The strategy on counterterrorism states, “The preeminent security threat to the United States continues to be from al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents.”[35] And included within that “broader category of entities” is AQAP and it is mentioned throughout the counterterrorism strategy as a substantial threat. “The United States faces a sustained threat from Yemen-based AQAP, which has shown the intent and capability to plan attacks against the U.S. Homeland and U.S. partners.”[36]
AQAP is linked with al-Qaeda in the National Security Strategy as well, which says, “Wherever al-Qa’ida or its terrorist affiliates attempt to establish a safe haven—as they have in Yemen, Somalia, the Maghreb, and the Sahel—we will meet them with growing pressure.”[37] The framing here, and in the counterterrorism strategy, of where the United States’ war with al-Qaeda is actually taking place is clear. The war is wherever al-Qaeda and the furthest reaches of its terrorist network reside.
When critics of the Awlaki hit, like Mary Ellen O’Connell, vice chairman of the American Society of International Law, say, “The United States is not involved in any armed conflict in Yemen so to use military force to carry out these killings violates international law,” they seem to underappreciate the scope of the U.S. operation approved in the AUMF. This isn’t saying O’Connell has to agree with them, of course she has her choice, but the U.S. has so broadly defined the targets in this war and the physical battlefield that her argument falls flat. Remarks made by John O. Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, at Harvard Law School in September 2011, are largely viewed as the oral defense of targeted killings. In regards to the battlefield, he admits:
An area in which there is some disagreement is the geographic scope of the conflict. The United States does not view our authority to use military force against al-Qa’ida as being restricted solely to “hot” battlefields like Afghanistan. Because we are engaged in an armed conflict with al-Qa’ida, the United States takes the legal position that—in accordance with international law—we have the authority to take action against al-Qa’ida and its associated forces without doing a separate self-defense analysis each time. And as President Obama has stated on numerous occasions, we reserve the right to take unilateral action if or when other governments are unwilling or unable to take the necessary actions themselves.[38]
The U.S. doesn’t need to redefine its foreign policy to justify a strike in any country as long as it deems the target as one linked with al-Qaeda and its affiliates as it did in its brief dismissing the lawsuit filed by Awlaki’s father, “Anwar al-Aulaqi has pledged an oath of loyalty to AQAP emir, Nasir al-Wahishi, and is playing a key role in setting the strategic direction for AQAP” and Awlaki “is a leader of AQAP, a Yemen-based terrorist group that has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist acts against Saudi, Korean, Yemeni, and U.S. targets since January 2009.”[39]
When carrying out missions like the one against Awlaki, the United States not only relies on the expansive wording of its foreign policy objectives, it also strategically uses certain branches of U.S. intelligence and defense in order to justify actions. The Guardian rightly pointed out in the immediate aftermath of the Awlaki event, that the hunt for him “would have been overseen by the CIA, in large part to enable it to be classified as ‘covert action’ that not only gives the American pursuers a freer hand in how they operate, but means they are not obliged to seek the approval of the Yemeni government.”[40] Essentially, covert action is a loophole, which enables the U.S. to bypass traditional obstacles like government approval from Yemen in this case. This is allowed by U.S. Code, Title 50, 413b “Presidential approval and reporting of covert actions,” which states:
The President may not authorize the conduct of a covert action by departments, agencies, or entities of the United States Government unless the President determines such an action is necessary to support identifiable foreign policy objectives of the United States and is important to the national security of the United States, which determination shall be set forth in a finding.[41]
This was not the first time the U.S. used this strategy in the war against al-Qaeda. It was the CIA that fired the hellfire missile in the November 2002 Yemen strike that killed Hirithi and an American citizen.
The biggest critique of Title 50, 413b, in the Awlaki case, is that the “finding,” which identifies foreign policy objectives met by the targeted killing of the individual, isn’t available to the public because the Obama administration has invoked the state secrets privilege. This has drawn ire from many in the legal sector. Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project said, “Whatever people think about the merits of the program [targeted killing], we think at a minimum Americans have a right to know under what circumstances the government has the right to impose the death penalty without charge or trial.”[42] The AUMF of 2001 provides a more solid foundation for rebutting critics than the administration does when it uses the state secrets privilege. However, Brennan assured the audience at Harvard Law School that the administration “instituted a new process to consider invocation of the so-called ‘state secrets privilege,’… This process ensures that this privilege is never used simply to hide embarrassing or unlawful government activities. But, it also recognizes that its use is absolutely necessary in certain cases for the protection of national security.”[43]
Despite the newly found prudence of the Obama administration, the state secrets privilege was invoked twice within the last two years in the Awlaki case. Once, in the September 2009 brief filed in response to the lawsuit from Awlaki’s father, “contending that the case should be dismissed to avoid disclosure of sensitive information.”[44] Although the privilege was invoked in this instance, the administration “urged Judge [John D.] Bates to dismiss the case on different grounds.”[45] There was an attempt to do just that because the Obama administration filed a 64-page brief citing other reasons the lawsuit could be dismissed. Among those reasons, one was perhaps the most damning. Recall that the lawsuit brought against the Obama administration said the targeting of Awlaki was a violation of his rights unless he posed a “concrete” and “imminent” threat to America or American interests. The lawyers for the Obama administration elaborated on the concept:
Even assuming…that [the] plaintiff has appropriately described the legal contours of the President’s authority to use force…the questions he would have the court evaluate—such as whether a threat to life or physical safety may be “concrete,” “imminent,” or “specific,” or whether there are “reasonable alternatives” to force—can only be assessed based upon military and foreign policy considerations, intelligence and other sources of sensitive information, and real-time judgments that the Judiciary is not well-suited to evaluate.[46]
Perhaps feeling the need to cover the bases one more time, the lawyers argued that the invocation of the state secrets privilege met the new criteria as determined by the Attorney General that “(1) there must be a ‘formal claim of privilege’; (2) the claim must be ‘lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter’; and (3) the claim must be made ‘after actual personal consideration by that officer.’”[47] Although the case was dismissed, Judge Bates observed that it raised “stark, and perplexing questions”—including whether the president could “order the assassination of a U.S. citizen without first affording him any form of judicial process whatsoever, based [on] the mere assertion that he is a dangerous member of a terrorist organization.”[48] Again, looking at the AUMF and pairing that with statements from President Obama who referred to Awlaki as the “external operations” chief for AQAP would best inform a critic of the strike.[49] Since AQAP is defined as an affiliate of al-Qaeda and since Awlaki is proven to have some role in AQAP, there exists a system that can legally target and kill an American citizen provided the justification for his killing is known. This leads to the second invocation of the state secrets privilege.
The document justifying the Awlaki strike was reviewed by “senior lawyers across the administration” and “there was no dissent about the legality of killing” Awlaki.[50] The government, however, has chosen to also keep this document hidden from the public. Anticipating the public frustration with this decision and future decisions invoking state secrets, Brennan reminded the public that one of President Obama’s first acts was to issue “a new Executive Order on classified information that, among other things, reestablished the principle that all classified information will ultimately be declassified.”[51] For now, this explanation will have to suffice until the government decides in the future to release the specific justification for killing Awlaki that would have to show he posed a “concrete, specific, and imminent threat to life.”
IV. Conclusion
The foreign policy goals stated in national security documents and paired with the AUMF permit the targeting and killing of an American citizen as long as he or she is deemed a threat to the United States. Since the AUMF in 2001, the targets of the United States’ war against al-Qaeda have been covered by the umbrella term “affiliates,” making it considerably more difficult for rights groups or individuals to win lawsuits, which would bring an end to the targeted killing program. However, within the justifying documents and Brennan’s speech to Harvard Law School, there are several contradictory statements, which do appear to have been disregarded in the rational for killing Awlaki.
Speaking on the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Brennan said, “We must not cut corners by setting aside our values and flouting our laws, treating them like luxuries we cannot afford.”[52] Toward the conclusion of this same speech he says, “As a people, as a nation, we cannot—and we must not—succumb to the temptation to set aside our laws and our values when we face threats to our security, including and especially from groups as depraved as al-Qa’ida.”[53] The U.S. has thus taken a selective approach to its principles. While the U.S. upholds the principle of security at home and abroad in our allied countries, it has been argued that the country’s leaders, in their effort to maintain that security, have disregarded the right against unreasonable searches and seizures as afforded the U.S. citizen in the Fourth Amendment[54] and the right to due-process as afforded the U.S. citizen in the Fifth Amendment.[55] As shown by the result of the lawsuit brought by Nasser al-Awlaki, this argument can be dismissed if the government deems that the information used to justify the killing should remain secret.
For the times when the U.S. citizen becomes a terrorist and is affiliated with al-Qaeda, the AUMF of 2001 allows for the government to act outside of its typical bounds. To meet the unconventional threat of 4th generation warfare, the U.S. has had to adapt some unconventional policies and they have written them with soft definitions in order to justify targeted killings. The U.S. government could further strengthen their case if a U.S. citizen’s overseas involvement in one of these terrorist groups automatically forfeits their citizenship.
The definition of imminence could be called soft because as the threat to the U.S. evolves, so must the definition of imminent to justify such killings. The government recognizes this as well, “We are finding increasing recognition in the international community that a more flexible understanding of ‘imminence’ may be appropriate when dealing with terrorist groups.”[56] Along with having a flexible understanding of imminence, much of the government’s policies in regards to targeted killings calls for the citizen to trust the government’s actions. The U.S. citizen needs to trust that Awlaki did pose an imminent and concrete threat and that the U.S. exercised all other options before killing him. The sovereignty of the country depends on our unwavering trust that in order to guarantee one principle—security—the government isn’t lazily discarding other principles to, above all, maintain its power and economic interests in the Middle East. This trust is also necessary from the international community in order for the U.S. to be perceived as having not violated international law. Michael Ramsden writes that by assuming that “Al-Awlaki is an operational leader of AQAP and has directed acts of terrorism, an arguable case can be made that his targeted killing would be justified under the framework of IHRL [International Human Rights Law].”[57] Even though there is an all-inclusive framework when it comes to the war against al-Qaeda, it still requires the citizens of the United States and other countries to trust that the U.S. government is maintaining honorable, if still flexible, definitions of “imminence” and “concrete,” when carrying out foreign policy initiatives.
Finally, whether one agrees or disagrees with the current U.S. war model, the government—from the outset—recognized the porousness of borders, specifically those in the Middle East, and the capability of the extremism espoused by al-Qaeda and its affiliates to saturate even parts of the U.S. population—no matter how small the percentage. In doing so, the legal framework was made extremely far-reaching and comprehensive, enveloping American citizens and long-term residents involved in any terrorist activity, so that the U.S. government is not in the position in which it would have to continually modify its foreign policy objectives and defined threats in order to give grounds for targeted killings.
References
Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, Gates, & Panetta. Civ. A. No. 10-cv-1469. Document 15-1, (2010).
Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, Panetta, & Gates. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. No.10-cv-____. August 30, 2010.
Berger, J.M. Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2011.
Booth, Robert and Black, Ian. “WikiLeaks cables: Yemen offered US ‘open door’ to attack al-Qaida on its soil.” The Guardian, December 3, 2010. Accessed November 5, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-yemen-us-attack-al-qaida.
Brennan, John O. “Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values and Laws.” Lecture at Program on Law and Security, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 16, 2011. Accessed November 5, 2011. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/16/remarks-john-o-brennan-strengthening-our-security-adhering-our-values-an.
Cloud, David S. “U.S. citizen Anwar Awlaki added to CIA target list.” The Los Angeles Times, April 6, 2010. Accessed November 9, 2011. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/06/world/la-fg-yemen-cleric7-2010apr07.
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Finn, Peter. “Secret U.S. memo sanctioned killing of Aulaqi.” The Washington Post, September 30, 2011. Accessed November 5, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/aulaqi-killing-reignites-debate-on-limits-of-executive-power/2011/09/30/gIQAx1bUAL_story.html.
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Ito, Suzanne. “ACLU Lens: American Citizen Anwar Al-Aulaqi Killed Without Judicial Process.” ACLU Blog of Rights, September 30, 2011. Accessed November 4, 2011. http://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/aclu-lens-american-citizen-anwar-al-aulaqi-killed-without-judicial-process.
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Priest, Dana. “U.S. Citizen Among Those Killed In Yemen Predator Missile Strike.” The Washington Post, November 4, 2002. Accessed November 10, 2011. http://tech.mit.edu/V122/N54/long4-54.54w.html.
Ramsden, Michael. “Targeted Killings and International Human Rights Law: The Case of Anwar Al-Awlaki.” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 16.2 (2011): 385-406.
Rushe, Dominic and McGreal, Chris and Burke, Jason and Harding, Luke. “Anwar al-Awlaki death: US keeps role under wraps to manage Yemen fallout.” The Guardian, September 30, 2011. Accessed November 5, 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/anwar-al-awlaki-yemen?newsfeed=true.
Savage, Charlie. “Al Qaeda Group Confirms Deaths of Two American Citizens.” The New York Times, October 10, 2011. Accessed November 5, 2011. http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/al-qaeda-group-confirms-deaths-of-two-american-citizens/.
Savage, Charlie. “Suit Over Targeted Killings Is Thrown Out.” The New York Times, December 7, 2010. Accessed November 6, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/world/middleeast/08killing.html.
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United States Code, Title 50, Chapter 15, Subchapter III, § 413B, “Presidential approval and reporting of covert actions.” Accessed November 6, 2011. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00000413—b000-.html.
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Notes
[1] United States National Security Council, National Strategy For Counterterrorism, June 2011, 3.
[2] J.M. Berger, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam, (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2011), 148.
[8] Lawrence Wright. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 309.
[17] Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, Gates, & Panetta, Civ. A. No. 10-cv-1469, Document 15-1, (2010), 6-7.
[21] Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, Panetta, & Gates, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, No.10-cv-____, (August 30, 2010), 2.
[28] Michael Ramsden, “Targeted Killings and International Human Rights Law: The Case of Anwar Al-Awlaki,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 16.2 (2011), 400.
[37] United States National Security Council, National Security Strategy, May 2010, 21.
[38] John O. Brennan, “Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values and Laws,” (lecture at Program on Law and Security, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 16, 2011), accessed November 5, 2011, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/16/remarks-john-o-brennan-strengthening-our-security-adhering-our-values-an.
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