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Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected Monday to provide the most detailed explanation yet of the Obama administration’s secret decision-making leading up to the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen last year in Yemen. Holder’s speech Monday afternoon at Northwestern Law School in Chicago is the result of months of internal Obama administration deliberations over how much can be made public about the decisions leading up to the strike. The Justice Department wrote a still-classified memo that provided the legal rationale for the targeting of American-born Anwar al-Awlaki that also included intelligence material about his operational role within...

A 26-year-old Chicago man was trying to help finance al-Qaida and hoped to blow himself up in a suicide mission, authorities say. Shaker Masri was arrested Tuesday evening and charged by federal prosecutors on Wednesday with knowingly intending to use a weapon of mass destruction outside the United States. Authorities said Masri told an FBI informant that he planned to go to Somalia and help al-Qaida, and asked the informant for money to help buy guns once they got there. He also told the informant that he hoped to become a martyr by wearing a suicide vest, the criminal complaint...

SNIPPET: "In July, the British government warned that Al Qaeda’s exploitation of social networking websites is on the rise." SNIPPET: "The massive and multifarious network of websites and social media has presented a challenge to authorities in trying to combat it. Additionally, civil liberty concerns have conflicted with government efforts to spy on communications. Reducing terrorist activity on social media sites has been particularly difficult because users have adopted new forms of communication to conform with the new formats. Many Arabic speakers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other sites use Arabizi, a form of colloquial Arabic written in the Latin...

A Dominican with an anti-American grudge has been busted for building a bomb in his upper Manhattan apartment to blow up a police station, sources said Sunday night. -snip- The suspect was identified through one of the al-Awlaki web sites, where he posted anti-American comments, the source said.

Trivia question: What do Anwar al-Awlaki, Yaser Esam Hamdi, and newborn twin daughters of Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman have in common? You were probably ready to hit the buzzer and answer something like "What is Islamic terrorism"-until you finished reading the entire question. The correct answer: "What is 'presumed' US citizenship." The adjective "presumed" was used by Justice Scalia to describe Hamdi's US citizenship in the famous 2004 case of Hamdi v. Rumsfeld. Although Justice Scalia did not elaborate on his usage of "presumed" in the opening of his dissenting opinion in Hamdi, the government's Respondent brief and both...

The just assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was a defining moment for American Muslims. We should have been leading the cheers -- but instead many of our self-appointed “spokesmen” squandered their bandwidth. This one is personal. As one of us, Awlaki’s extreme form of Islamism swayed many Muslims to hate America and the West. Worse -- in flagrant defiance of the central tenets of our Islam -- he taught many Muslims to diminish the value of human life. Yet where most Americans saw a traitor who turned on his nation in order to fight our sons and daughters on the battlefield,...

Obama’s State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) has contacted the family of al-Qaeda propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to “express its condolences” to his family. Samir Khan a right hand man to Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed along with his jihadist buddy in an air strike in Yemen that took place on September 30.

WASHINGTON — Anwar al-Awlaki did not leave much of a trail, frustrating the American and Yemeni intelligence officials pursuing him over the last two years. They believed they finally had found him in a village in southern Yemen last year. Yemeni commandos, equipped with tanks and heavy weapons, surrounded the hamlet, but he slipped away, according to a Yemeni official. In May, his pursuers targeted him in a drone attack, but narrowly missed him and other members of his entourage as they drove across a desert. The search for Mr. Awlaki, the American-born cleric whose fiery sermons made him a...

Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has confirmed the deaths of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, the young American propagandist killed alongside him in a U.S. drone strike late last month. Al-Qaeda has also criticized the Obama administration for killing U.S. citizens, saying doing so “contradicts” American law. “Where are what they keep talking about regarding freedom, justice, human rights and respect of freedoms?!” the statement says, according to a translation by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Web sites.

Sana’a — Yemen’s security agencies have no substantial evidence that Al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki was killed in a recent airstrike in the eastern province of Mareb, an official security source said yesterday. “The latest information available to the security agencies is that Al Awlaki was driving in a motorcade of three cars when a US drone targeted them (on September 30),” the source told the Yemeni website Mareb Press on condition of anonymity. He added that one car had been hit, while the other two escaped. “There is no irrefutable information that Al Awlaki was inside the hit...

Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has provided documents or witnesses for an official congressional investigation launched by the House Homeland Security Committee into the American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a CIA-led mission last Friday, Fox News has learned. The congressional investigation -- opened in May -- questioned whether the cleric's contacts with three of the five hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, were coincidental or part of the terror plot's development. The House Homeland Security Committee, led by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., is also seeking to...

"There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House's National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate."

  Arrest Al-Awlaki and Put Him on Trial? David C. Stolinsky Oct. 6, 2011 On Sept. 30, Anwar Al-Awlaki was killed in an airstrike by an unmanned U.S. drone. He had been located in Yemen by U.S. intelligence. Al-Awlaki was born here, but his parents took him back to Yemen when he was seven, so he had joint U.S. and Yemeni citizenship. Awlaki was the imam at the Maryland mosque where Major Hassan was radicalized, then went on to murder 14 Americans at Fort Hood. He also had contact with three of the 9/11 hijackers, as well as the...

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, in a column that appeared in USA Today (below, highlights added), takes the position that Anwar al-Awlaki and others like him should be accorded constitutional protections such as due process. He is wrong. A cursory study of American history shows that “enemy combatants” are not entitled to constitutional protections. Anwar al-Awlaki was an “enemy combatant”—not just “any American” as Awad claims. It’s revealing that CAIR wastes no time rallying to the “rights” of people like al-Awlaki while remaining conspicuously silent as an Iranian Christian, a former Muslim, faces the death penalty for being an “apostate.”...

Former U.S. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) urged the Obama administration on Sunday to release the private legal memo sanctioning the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and al Qaeda leader in Yemen. "The Justice Department should release that memo," said Harman, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee. "The debate on the legal grounds for that strategy should be more in the open." Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union," Harman said the "targeted killing of anyone should give us pause," but that the al-Awlaki was a "good...

Former vice president Dick Cheney on Sunday called last week’s CIA drone strike against al-Qaeda operative Anwar Awlaki a validation of the George W. Bush administration’s terrorist-fighting strategy, and said that President Obama should apologize for his past criticism of those policies. Cheney endorsed the killing of Awlaki as “justified,” despite Awlaki’s U.S. citizenship, and suggested that the Obama White House was being hypocritical when it approved a deadly strike against the New Mexico-born Awlaki while condemning Bush’s use of so-called enhanced interrogation methods of al-Qaeda prisoners.

SNIPPET: "AN EXTREMIST Islamic group suspected of planning a crime spree across Sydney to raise money for the Taliban has been uncovered by counter-terrorism police. The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that NSW Police and national security agencies have been investigating the group members for over a year, with the case currently active. The extremists have been the subject of a top secret operation led by the NSW Police Force, ASIO, Australian Federal Police and the NSW Crime Commission. A group of men, aged between 20 and 30, all Australian citizens of Middle Eastern-descent, have been identified as the core members."...

.....I don't trust Obama with determining what protections I should be allowed as a citizen any more than I trust him with our general defense, the economy, health care, job growth - or anything else. The usual justification for such abuse of the rule of law is that the post-9/11 period demands a different code of conduct to ensure people's safety. But politicians can always find excuses for why they should be allowed to disobey the Constitution..... Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/10/02/2011-10-02_an_unconstitutional_killing.html#ixzz1Zeydd8Ny

Judge Napolitano, "When the president can kill whoever he wants, he's not a president anymore, he's a King." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnem1Ohm3Q0&feature=player_embedded

Liberals are up in arms over the Al-Awlaki killing. And so are many conservatives... Uber liberal Glenn Greenwald sums up the case against Obama, leveling the charge of Due-Process-Free Assassination: No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was “considering” indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even had any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. This controversy involves two questions. One of law, and one of motives and legitimacy. Let's look...

Here are two facts: (1) Anwar al-Awlaki is an American citizen and an al-Qaeda propagandist. (2) Pres. Barack Obama proposes to assassinate him. Between the first fact and the second falls the shadow. The Awlaki case has led many conservatives into dangerous error, as has the War on Terror more generally. That conservatives are for the most part either offering mute consent or cheering as the Obama administration draws up a list of U.S. citizens to be assassinated suggests not only that have we gone awry in our thinking about national security, limitations on state power, and the role of...

Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, on Friday criticized the Obama administration’s action in killing Anwar Awlaki, the American-born cleric who advocated jihad against the United States. Paul was the strongest critic on the Republican side in condemning the attack, which was praised by other candidates including Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a libertarian like Paul, also questioned the tactic of killing a U.S. citizen without due process.

The New York Times reports this morning that officials in both Yemen and Washington claim that American-born Al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki has reached room temperature somewhere in Yemen: In a significant and dramatic strike in the campaign against Al Qaeda, the Defense Ministry here said American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading figure in the group’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning.In Washington a senior Obama administration official confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was dead. But the circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear.It was not immediately known whether Yemeni forces carried out the attack or if American intelligence forces, which have been...

The most important thing to know about the "death by drone" of Anwar al-Awlaki is that this is really about citizenship and anchor babies. Anwar, America's enemy, is a US citizen by virtue of his Yemeni dad pursuing higher education in the US at the time of Anwar's birth. Anwar was born in New Mexico in April of 1971. That made him a US citizen. It doesn't matter that he returned to Yemen and that his parents had no intention of ever becoming US citizens while they lived here. What matters is the address of the hospital in which little...

The US-born radical Islamist cleric and suspected al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki has been killed in Yemen, the country's defence ministry has said. A statement said only that he died "along with some of his companions".

The U.S. nearly took out Anwar Al-Awlaki, a top Al Qaeda target in Yemen, in an assassination attempt days after the killing of Usama bin Laden, senior U.S. defense and intelligence sources tell Fox News. On May 5, Marine Harrier jets were sent on a mission to follow Awlaki using intelligence provided by Yemenis hoping to keep President Ali Abdullah Saleh in power. The aircraft were able to locate Awlaki traveling in a truck. But fuel storage and technical problems with the jets’ Griffin missiles – a new and improved version of a Hellfire missile -- caused the operation to...

I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution, " Mueller said.

The American-born Jihadist cleric Anwar Awlaki likely played an important support role in the September 11 attacks nearly ten years ago, according to a new book that examines the threat of home-grown terrorism. The book, “The Next Wave,” by Fox News national security reporter, Catherine Herridge, reveals new documents that find Mr. Awlaki was nearly arrested after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon for providing false information on his passport application. Today Mr. Awlaki is one of the leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Mr. Awlaki is also the only known American citizen on a...

“The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” Then Sen. Obama 2007 talking about a possible war against Iran Obama, the peace president, has now begun his fourth war in Yemen. No imminent threat here. His third war in Libya is not going great and there’s no imminent threat there either. In a story with little national coverage, the media has just learned that Obama has started a 4th war in Yemen. It’s a story for perhaps...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials. The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few...

U.S. Drone Strike in Yemen Reportedly Was Aimed at Radical Cleric Seen as Post-Bin Laden Threat Published May 06, 2011 | The Wall Street Journal A U.S. drone strike in Yemen on Thursday was aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical cleric who is suspected of orchestrating terrorist attacks on the U.S, but the missile missed its target, Yemeni and U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal. The drone strike comes less than a week after U.S. Navy SEALs killed Usama bin Laden at a compound in Pakistan. Had the drone strike in Yemen been successful, the U.S. would...

SNIPPET: "An examination of online activities by binyamine leads to the conclusion that he is likely involved with Dar al-Murabiteen, and that he links multiple terrorist networks together through his work translating, transcribing, and distributing jihadi media content. He is linked, in no particular order, to • Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan • The Pakistan and Afghan Taliban • as-Sahab, al-Emara, and al-Malahem media outfits • al-Shabaab and their al-Qimmah forum This is what Granovetter meant by a bridging weak tie - the kind of "weak" tie that is strong, as he links multiple networks. Among other things, all this...

You might think that a top terrorist targeted for assassination by the Obama administration would be on the FBI’s list of “Most Wanted Terrorists.” You might think he would be under indictment by the Department of Justice, which has a penchant for prosecuting war criminals in civil court. But in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), you’d be wrong. United States counterterrorism officials agree that Awlaki, a dual U.S.-Yemeni citizen, is one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Attorney General Eric Holder says Awlaki is right up there with Osama bin Laden. It...

In the bookstore I run, I used to carry lectures on CD by Anwar al-Awlaki. That's the pre-radical al-Awlaki, who recorded lectures about prophets and the hereafter and Islam in general. Now, that al-Awlaki is gone and has been replaced by a terrorist who publicly justifies killing American civilians. ...I was most worried about what the public, the authorities, and other Muslims would think. On the other hand, by removing the CDs I was censoring, and censorship is, generally speaking, a bad thing. I asked a retired bookseller friend what she thought... She recalled that when her store was open...

An Indiana grandmother who married a suspected German jihadist and converted to the Muslim religion is under investigation for possible ties to terrorists, according to FoxNews.com . Kathie Smith, 46, is a U.S. citizen and lives in Indianapolis.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have brought suit against the Obama administration for ordering the targeted killing of American-born al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to be holed up in Yemen. These groups argue that the president doesn't have the legal authority to order the assassination of American citizens. That's right, so in order for the kill order to stand, Awlaki should be stripped of his citizenship.President Obama has exceeded his power in ordering Awlaki's assassination. Americans abroad are protected by constitutional guarantees of due process, at least when faced with...

An Al Qaeda leader, the head of a designated terror organization and a confessed jihadist-in-training are among a "Who's Who" of controversial figures who have participated in weekly prayer sessions on Capitol Hill since the 2001 terror attacks, an investigation by FoxNews.com reveals. The Congressional Muslim Staff Association (CMSA) has held weekly Friday Jummah prayers for more than a decade, and guest preachers are often invited to lead the service. The group held prayers informally for about eight years before gaining official status in 2006 under the sponsorship of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., one of two Muslims currently serving in...

<p>Even before the bomb scares that set off security alarms on Friday, U.S. security officials have been increasingly concerned about terrorism strikes originating in Yemen. With this incident, suspicions will focus in particular on a U.S.-born radical Islamic cleric in Yemen, who has emerged as a prominent and eloquent advocate for violence against American civilians.</p>

(CNN) -- SNIPPET: "The charge centers around a one-way ticket that authorities allege Abdel Hameed Shehadeh purchased from Queens, New York, to Islamabad, Pakistan. Shehadeh originally told investigators that the purpose of his trip was to visit an Islamic university and attend a friend's engagement party. But he later admitted to FBI agents in Hawaii that he bought the ticket in order to join a fighting group such as the Taliban, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in New York Monday."

Islamic preacher Anwar al-Awlaki has compiled a long list, that shows Muslims how they can support the jihad. If you scroll through the list, you will see that Muslims do not have to be violent to take part in the jihad. Number 30 is particularly disturbing, but not surprising. Sheikh Anwar Al awlaki_-_44_Ways_To_Support_Jihad

Al Qaeda's American mouthpiece Saturday urged wannabe terrorists in a new video to act alone instead of trying to join cells attempting 9/11-type spectacular strikes. Californian Adam Gadahn urged individual violent jihad in a 40-minute tape, which endorsed an Al Qaeda ally's call last week for sympathizers to mimic the Ft. Hood killings and attempted bombings over Detroit last Christmas and in Times Square in May. "My brothers: know that Jihad is your duty," Gadahn ranted in Arabic. "You have an opportunity to strike the leaders of unbelief and retaliate against them on their own soil."

NOTE The following text is a quote: Virginia Man Accused of Providing Material Support to Terrorists ALEXANDRIA, VA—Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, Va., was arrested today on charges that he provided material support to al Shabaab, a designated foreign terrorist organization. Neil H. MacBride, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Shawn Henry, Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, made the announcement after Chesser was arrested and the charging documents were made public. “This case exposes the disturbing reality that extreme radicalization can happen anywhere, including Northern Virginia,” said U.S. Attorney...

SNIPPET - quote: October 11, 2010 North Carolina Muslim Admits Working with al Qaeda: "Proud to be an American Traitor" [Full text] ****Jawa Report Exclusive**** I think we can quit with the speculation about where he went and why Update by Rusty: The full text of Khan's story can be found at the end of this post. (Excerpt) Read more at mypetjawa.mu.nu ...

Norris and all Americans currently live under the "Rushdie Rules," which punish whoever disrespects Islam, Muhammad, or the Koran. Make fun of Muhammad and you're on your own. Local and national politicians had nothing to say about her plight. Journalists, usually keen to protect one of their own, went silent. No organization sprung up to raise money for her protection.

A federal law is needed to cover threats against free-speech rights. Across media and geographies, Islamic extremists are increasingly using intimidation to stifle free expression. Earlier this year, after Comedy Central altered an episode of "South Park" that had prompted threats because of the way it depicted Islam's prophet Muhammad, Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris proposed an "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." The idea was, as she put it, to stand up for the 1st Amendment and "water down the pool of targets" for extremists. The proposal got Norris targeted for assassination by radical Yemeni American cleric Anwar Awlaki, who has been...

"The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil." Cicero On 5 November 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army Psychiatrist and devout Muslim, opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, TX, killing thirteen and wounding 32. As he fired, he shouted "Allahu Akbar," which means "God is Great," an Islamic declaration of faith. On 10 August 2010, the Department of Defense (DoD) released 23-pages of recommendations from an independent review of the Fort Hood massacre. It is not as pure a whitewash as the first Fort Hood report, called "Protecting the Force". It actually...

If al-Qaida looks and sounds different as we approach 9/11's ninth anniversary, it's because it's under new American management. No fewer than four U.S. citizens and a permanent U.S. resident have risen to senior leadership posts. These five English-speaking leaders are actively planning or facilitating attacks against their countrymen, while recruiting and radicalizing other American turncoats to carry them out. By remaking itself into an American enterprise, al-Qaida is now more lethal than ever. Its new generation of leaders understands the way America works, having lived here for decades. They have a better sense of our security blind spots. They...

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department on Wednesday granted permission to a group of human rights lawyers who want to file a lawsuit on behalf of a radical Muslim cleric thought to be hiding in Yemen. The Obama administration has authorized killing the cleric as a terrorist despite his American citizenship. The department approved a license to the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights to challenge the targeting of the man, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and is accused of having ties to Al Qaeda. Last month, Mr. Awlaki’s father retained the two groups...

"Ghazawat Washington Conference" SNIPPET: "Be advised that the Ghazawat Washington Conference is scheduled for July 31 beginning at 10 AM EDT. Note that "Ghazawat" is defined as 'battles to expand Muslim territory.'" SNIPPET: "Obviously, the conference is not going to address peace, diversity and tolerance. The conference will discuss victory over non-believers and taking control. The names of the participants are likely familiar. The event will be broadcast globally on Paltalk room "Authentic Tawheed" and also live streamed on: www.authentictawheed.com, www.salafimedia.com, and www.revolutionmuslim.com."

Sound too conspiratorial to be true? Like the cover-up ops of spy novels? Well, it's reality. And it is possibly the most bizarre, inhumane and abusive way that the White House is expanding its power over the American people. It's not an extremist belief or theory of the far right. It's a fact that has been confirmed by The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC and even documented by the far-left online magazine Salon.com. And it's the gravest nightmare of U.S. citizens and abandonment of our Constitution to date: a presidential assassination program in which U.S. citizens are...