How’s that “muslim outreach” going, Obama?
Yemeni forces are not going after a radical U.S.-born cleric who has reportedly been added to the CIA’s list of targets to be killed or captured, the foreign minister said Saturday.
The United States has not handed over evidence to support allegations that Anwar al-Awlaki is recruiting for al-Qaida’s offshoot in the impoverished country on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, the minister said.
The Obama administration has authorized his killing because it believes he has shifted from encouraging attacks on the U.S. to participating in them, The New York Times reported earlier this week.
Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said Saturday that al-Awlaki is not a terrorist and is not on Yemen’s own wanted list. Yemeni security officials believe he is hiding in an area of the mountainous country that has become a refuge for Islamic militants.
“Anwar al-Awlaki has to us been always looked at as a preacher rather than a terrorist and shouldn’t be looked at as a terrorist unless the Americans have evidence that he has been involved in terrorism,” al-Qirbi said.
Al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, came to the attention of U.S. officials after being linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as well as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people in November at Fort Hood, Texas.
He has used his personal Web site to encourage Muslims around the world to kill U.S. troops in Iraq.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/10/yemen-wont-radical-born-cleric/
This so-called “preacher” is an Al Qaeda operative and now he’s holed up with them in the mountains. Must be one of those “religious retreats”.