Anwar Al-Awlaki Obituary

Anwar Al-Awlaki, 40, had just finished breakfast when he died Friday Sep. 30 2011 in northern Yemen when the car he was traveling in was struck by a hellfire missile fired from a United States drone. 

Anwar was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents on April 21, 1971. At the age of seven he moved with his parents back to Yemen where he studied at Azal Modern School. After 11 years in Yemen he returned to the United States, and in 1991 he attended Colorado State University where he acquired a B.S. in Civil Engineering. During his college years he traveled to Afghanistan and witnessed the destruction of the Soviet occupation, he became sympathetic to radical Islamists and their call for jihad against foreign invaders.

After graduating college Al-Awlaki became an imam of the Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque at the edge of San Diego, California. His friends describe him as well known for his recorded lectures, discussions of his travels, interest in fishing, and time spent helping the youth. 

Anwar’s sympathy toward jihadism caught the attention of American intelligence services such as the FBI when his phone number was discovered when searching through the possessions of a hijacker in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. He was interviewed multiple times by FBI agents but they did not find any evidence of involvement in the attacks. In fact, in 2001 The New York Times described Al-Awlaki as being “held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West."

In 2004 Anwar returned to Yemen to live in his ancestral village with his wife and five children. He was arrested in 2006 on charges of kidnapping a Shiite teenager for ransom, and although the charges were not confirmed he was kept imprisoned because of American pressure on Yemeni officials. Friends say that his time in prison radicalized his beliefs and made him vehemently anti-American.

After his release from prison, American intelligence services began hunting for Al-Awlaki claiming that he had connections to terrorist attacks against America such as the “Chistmas day Underwear Bomber.” The CIA took the opportunity to eliminate Anwar along with four other individuals travelling with him on Sep. 30, 2011. His son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, 16, was also killed in a separate CIA drone strike.

Anwar is survived by his wife and three children as well as his father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, who has begun a legal campaign against the Obama Administration for his son’s death.

Funeral services were held in the Shabwa Province of southern Yemen where his ancestral village is located.

Jason Roche