Another of Al Qaeda’s highest ranking leaders was killed on Friday by the CIA. Anwar al-Awlaki, an American, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents in 1971 became a radical preacher and used his teachings to recruit followers in the US and Britain. Investigations showed that al-Awlaki was influential in the Fort Hood shooting, where 13 people died at the hands of gunman Nidal Hasan.
CBS News reports;
Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical Islamic preacher who rose to the highest level of al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen, was killed in a CIA-directed strike upon his convoy, carried out with the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command’s firepower, according to a counterterrorist official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
Al-Awlaki had been under observation for three weeks while they waited for the right opportunity to strike, one U.S. official said.
Already, Fox News is trying to credit George Bush and his policy of waterboarding for this capture/killing. On the so-called news network Fox, Gretchen Carlson said that under President Obama’s administration “it seems that we don’t prosecute or ask the same questions that we might have under the Bush Administration, so would we get anything out of him anyway if we captured them?”
Fox was also instrumental in framing the lie that Osama Bin Laden’s capture was solely because of Bush. Somehow, this is not surprising.