WASHINGTON — When Anwar al-Awlaki walked out of a home in the northern Yemeni town of Khashef and stepped into a Toyota pickup Friday morning, he had finally entered the cross hairs of an armed drone that flew noiselessly overhead.
Few violent jihadists had been hunted more assiduously than al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who through his reported role in a succession of plots targeting the United States had risen near the top of the list of American terrorist targets.
The CIA drone strike that killed al-Awlaki and a second American came after days of careful surveillance and many months of searching. It stripped al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula of two of its major propagandists and proponents of hitting Western targets, according to intelligence officials and terrorism experts.
But those individuals also cautioned that the group, which has a number of prominent members with a deep hatred for the U.S., will continue to seize any opportunity to wound the West.
“Eliminating any single person doesn’t have a game-changing impact, and this won’t. But it’s a significant strike against al-Qaeda,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of the House intelligence committee.
Killed alongside al-Awlaki was Samir Khan, a 25-year-old American editor of “Inspire,” al-Qaeda’s English-language Web magazine, which seemed designed to galvanize potential recruits across the West, particularly in the U.S.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, is composed of hard-core locals with years of militant opposition to the central government, Saudi jihadists on the run and focused on overthrowing the royal family, and a melange of other foreigners.
“AQAP’s shift from a local target set to an international target set was because of al-Awlaki, who was so focused on the West,” said Christopher Boucek, an expert on Yemen at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Without al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, there is no one obvious person who fills that gap. But it’s a very opportunist group.”
U.S. officials said they have been unable to confirm early reports that a Saudi bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, was killed as well in the drone strike Friday. He reportedly created the innovative explosive devices used in the Christmas Day and cargo plane plots.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, doubts that the United States will become less of a target for AQAP with al-Awlaki dead. He noted that part of the group’s leadership was held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and that they have “an implacable, visceral desire to get revenge for their treatment.”
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and terrorism expert, agreed that AQAP will likely remain focused on U.S. targets.
“I’m not sure how much AQAP will continue to be interested in a glitzy English-language Web journal,” Riedel said. “But it’s still going to be interested in attacking the United States.”
