American-Yemeni imam and suspected Islamist extremist (1971–2011)
Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (; April 21 or 22, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni lecturer and jihadist who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government. U.S. government officials have claimed that al-Awlaki was a key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.
Al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 1971 to parents from Yemen. Growing up partly in the United States and partly in Yemen, he attended various U.S. universities in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also worked as an imam despite having no religious qualifications and almost no religious education. Al-Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004 and became a university lecturer after a brief stint as a public speaker in the United Kingdom. He was detained by Yemeni authorities in 2006 and spent 18 months in prison before being released without facing trial.
Following his release by the authorities in Yemen, Al-Awlaki's message became overtly supportive of violence, and he condemned the U.S. government's foreign policy towards Muslims. He was linked to Nidal Hasan, the convicted perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate a bomb on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. The Yemeni government tried al-Awlaki "in absentia" in November 2010 for plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda. A Yemeni judge ordered that he be captured "dead or alive". U.S. officials said that in 2009, al-Awlaki was promoted to the rank of "regional commander" within al-Qaeda. He repeatedly called for "jihad" against the United States. In April 2010, al-Awlaki was placed on a CIA kill list by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki's father and civil rights groups challenged the order in court. The U.S. deployed unmanned aircraft (drones) in Yemen to search for and kill him, firing at and failing to kill him at least once. Al-Awlaki was killed on September 30, 2011.
In June 2014, a previously classified memorandum from the U.S. Department of Justice was released; the memorandum described al-Awlaki's killing as a lawful act of war. Civil liberties advocates have called the killing of al-Awlaki an extrajudicial execution that breached al-Awlaki's constitutional rights. "The New York Times" wrote in 2015 that al-Awlaki's public statements and videos had been more influential in inspiring acts of Islamic terrorism in the wake of his killing than they were before his death.
Early life.
Anwar al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, US in 1971 to parents from Yemen, while his father, Nasser al-Awlaki, was doing graduate work at U.S. universities. His father was a Fulbright Scholar who earned a master's degree in agricultural economics at New Mexico State University in 1971, received a doctorate at the University of Nebraska, and worked at the University of Minnesota from 1975 to 1977. Nasser al-Awlaki served as Agriculture Minister in Ali Abdullah Saleh's government. He was also President of Sana'a University. Yemen's prime minister from 2007 to 2011, Ali Mohammed Mujur, was a relative.
The family returned to Yemen in 1978, when al-Awlaki was seven years old. He lived there for 11 years, and studied at Azal Modern School.
Life in the United States 1990–2002.
Education.
In 1991, al-Awlaki went to the U.S. to attend college. He earned a B.S. in civil engineering from Colorado State University (1994), where he was president of the Muslim Student Association. 
In 1993, while still a college student in Colorado State's civil engineering program, al-Awlaki visited Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Soviet occupation. He spent some time training with the "mujahideen" who had fought the Soviets. He was depressed by the country's poverty and hunger, and "wouldn't have gone with al-Qaeda," according to friends from Colorado State, who said he was profoundly affected by the trip. Mullah Mohammed Omar did not form the Taliban until 1994. When Al-Awlaki returned to campus, he showed increased interest in religion and politics. Al-Awlaki studied Education Leadership at San Diego State University, earning a master's degree. He worked on a doctorate in Human Resource Development at The George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development in 2001.
Time as imam.
In 1994, al-Awlaki married a cousin from Yemen, and began service as a part-time imam of the Denver Islamic Society. In 1996, he was chastised by an elder for encouraging a Saudi student to fight in Chechnya against the Russians. He left Denver soon after, moving to San Diego.
From 1996 to 2000, al-Awlaki was imam of the Masjid Ar-Ribat al-Islami mosque in San Diego, California, where he had a following of 200–300 people. U.S. officials later alleged that Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, attended his sermons and personally met him during this period, although Al-Awlaki told authorities their conversations were trivial in nature. Hazmi later lived in Northern Virginia and attended al-Awlaki's mosque there. The "9/11 Commission Report" said that the hijackers "reportedly respected [al-Awlaki] as a religious figure". While in San Diego, al-Awlaki volunteered with youth organizations, fished, discussed his travels with friends, and created a popular and lucrative series of recorded lectures.
In 1998 and 1999, he served as vice-president for the Charitable Society for Social Welfare. Although the FBI investigated al-Awlaki from June 1999 through March 2000 for possible links to Hamas, the Bin Laden contact Ziyad Khaleel, and a visit by an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, it did not find sufficient evidence for a criminal prosecution. In 2004, the FBI described this group as a "front organization to funnel money to terrorists". Al-Awlaki told reporters that he resigned from leading the San Diego mosque "after an uneventful four years," and took a brief sabbatical, traveling overseas to various countries.
Al-Awlaki decided to pursue his PhD and was accepted at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and was soon recruited to be the imam of the nearby suburban Dar al-Hijrah mosque in 2000. One of the mosque's board members who hired Al-Awlaki stated he was convinced that al-Awlaki had no inclinations or activities to do with terrorism. The new imam, who was described as alluring and charming at this time, began to draw young people to Dar Al-Hijrah while connecting with the sophisticated Muslim community of Northern Virginia. His proficiency as a public speaker and command of the English language helped him attract followers who did not speak Arabic. "He was the magic bullet", according to the mosque spokesman Johari Abdul-Malik. "He had everything all in a box." Al-Awlaki was considered a moderate during his time at Dar Al-Hijrah, publicly condemned the September 11 attacks and Al-Qaeda, was even invited to speak at the United States Department of Defense and became the first imam to conduct a prayer service for the Congressional Muslim Staffer Association at the U.S. Capitol. He led academic discussions frequented by FBI Director of Counter-Intelligence for the Middle East Gordon M. Snow. Al-Awlaki also served as the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. Soon after the 9/11 attacks, al-Awlaki was sought in Washington, D.C., by the media to answer questions about Islam, its rituals, and its relation to the attacks. He was interviewed by "National Geographic", "The New York Times", and other media. Al-Awlaki condemned the attacks. According to an NPR report in 2010, in 2001 al-Awlaki appeared to be a moderate who could "bridge the gap between the United States and the worldwide community of Muslims." "The New York Times" said at the time that he was "held up as a new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West." In 2010, Fox News and the "New York Daily News" reported that some months after the 9/11 attacks, a Pentagon employee invited al-Awlaki to a luncheon in the Secretary's Office of General Counsel. The U.S. Secretary of the Army had suggested that a moderate Muslim be invited to give a talk.
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There is no way that the people who did this could be Muslim, and if they claim to be Muslim, then they have perverted their religion.
Anwar al-Awlaki on the 9/11 hijackers 
Al-Awlaki appeared on law enforcement's radars when federal investigators discovered two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers had attended the same mosque in San Diego during the same time Al-Awlaki served as imam, as well as Dar Al-Hijrah (along with a third alleged hijacker). When police investigating the 9/11 attacks raided the Hamburg apartment of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, they found the telephone number of al-Awlaki among bin al-Shibh's personal contacts. Six days after the 9/11 attacks, al-Awlaki suggested in writing on the "IslamOnline.net" website that Israeli intelligence agents might have been responsible for the attacks, and that the FBI "went into the roster of the airplanes, and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default". The FBI interviewed al-Awlaki four times in the eight days following the 9/11 attacks. FBI agents conducted repeated interviews and placed the imam under surveillance. Although some law enforcement and public officials have been outspoken about their suspicions of Al-Awlaki's role in the 9/11 plot, no solid evidence emerged linking him to the plot. Al-Awlaki resigned from Dar Al-Hijrah in early 2002 due to post-9/11 media attention that distracted the imam from his duties, according to the mosque's outreach director.
Later in 2002, al-Awlaki posted an essay in Arabic on the "Islam Today" website titled "Why Muslims Love Death", lauding the fervor of Palestinian suicide bombers. He expressed a similar opinion in a speech at a London mosque later that year. By July 2002, al-Awlaki was under investigation in the United States for having received money from the subject of a U.S. Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation. His name was added to the list of terrorism suspects.
Passport fraud issues.
In June 2002, a Denver federal judge signed an arrest warrant for al-Awlaki for passport fraud. On October 9, the Denver U.S. Attorney's Office filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and vacate the arrest warrant. Prosecutors believed that they lacked sufficient evidence of a crime, according to U.S. Attorney Dave Gaouette, who authorized its withdrawal. Al-Awlaki had listed Yemen rather than the United States as his place of birth on his 1990 application for a U.S. Social Security number, soon after arriving in the US. Al-Awlaki used this documentation to obtain a passport in 1993. He later corrected his place of birth to Las Cruces, New Mexico. "The bizarre thing is if you put Yemen down (on the application), it would be harder to get a Social Security number than to say you are a native-born citizen of Las Cruces", Gaouette said.
Prosecutors could not charge him in October 2002, when he returned from a trip abroad, because a 10-year statute of limitations on lying to the Social Security Administration had expired. According to a 2012 investigative report by Fox News, the arrest warrant for passport fraud was still in effect on the morning of October 10, 2002, when FBI Agent Wade Ammerman ordered al-Awlaki's release. U.S. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and several congressional committees urged FBI Director Robert Mueller to provide an explanation about the bureau's interactions with al-Awlaki, including why he was released from federal custody when there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest. The motion for rescinding the arrest warrant was approved by a magistrate judge on October 10 and filed on October 11.
"ABC News" reported in 2009 that the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego disagreed with the decision to cancel the warrant. They were monitoring al-Awlaki and wanted to "look at him under a microscope". But U.S. Attorney Gaouette said that no objection had been raised to the rescinding of the warrant during a meeting that included Ray Fournier, the San Diego federal diplomatic security agent whose allegation had set in motion the effort to obtain a warrant. Gaouette said that if al-Awlaki had been convicted at the time, he would have faced about six months in custody.
"The New York Times" suggested later that al-Awlaki had claimed birth in Yemen (his family's place of origin) to qualify for scholarship money granted to foreign citizens. U.S. Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) wrote in May 2010 that by claiming to be foreign-born, al-Awlaki fraudulently obtained more than $20,000 in scholarship funds reserved for foreign