Yemeni tribe warns against harming Imam Anwar Awlaqi
Yemen tribe warns against harming cleric on US wants dead
(AFP) – 6 hours ago
SANAA — A powerful tribe in Yemen threatened violence on Saturday against anyone trying to harm a radical US-born Muslim cleric whom Washington has reportedly placed on its hit list.
The heavily armed Al-Awaliq tribe, active in the Abyan and Shabwa regions that are key Al-Qaeda strongholds in Yemen, warned against any attempt against Anwar al-Awlaqi, a Yemen-based US citizen with suspected Al-Qaeda ties.
In an official statement published after a meeting of tribal leaders, the tribe said it would "not remain with arms crossed if a hair of Anwar al-Awlaqi is touched, or if anyone plots or spies against him."
"Whoever risks denouncing our son (Awlaqi) will be the target of Al-Awaliq weapons," the statement said, and warned "anyone against cooperating with the Americans" in the capture or killing of the cleric.
A US official said on Wednesday that President Barack Obama's administration had authorised the targeted killing of the cleric, even though he is an American citizen.
"The US government would be remiss if it didn't go after terrorist threats like Awlaqi," the counter-terrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
It was not immediately clear if the tribe was actually harbouring Awlaqi in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden where tribal ties and laws largely hold sway.
In 2002, a US missile attack in Yemen killed six suspected Al-Qaeda operatives, including Sunyan al-Harthi whom Washington had linked to an attack two years earlier on American warship the USS Cole in Yemeni waters.
The rare step of targeting Awlaqi was reportedly approved after US intelligence agencies concluded he was now directly involved in plots against the United States, not merely publicly encouraging such attacks.
Awlaqi rose to prominence last year after it emerged he had had prolonged communications with Major Nidal Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist accused of opening fire on colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people.
He is also accused of having had ties to the September 11 hijackers, and to Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight with explosives last December 25.
Subject: Yemeni tribe warns against harming Imam Anwar Awlaqi 
Sun Apr 11, 2010 5:48 pm
