Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A frame of Anwar al-Awlaki from a newly-released video message downloaded from a jihadist Web site by SITE Intelligence Group.
Updated | 1:57 p.m. In a new video message posted on a jihadist Web forum on Monday, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric based in Yemen whose most inflammatory sermons were withdrawn from YouTube last week, said that the killing of Americans by Muslims requires no special sanction.
According to The Associated Press, Mr. Awlaki told jihadists in his latest, Arabic-language video: “Don’t consult with anybody in killing the Americans, fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation or prayers seeking divine guidance. They are the party of the devils.”
Despite the fact that he was born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, and educated in both the United States and Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has apparently renounced the American part of his identity, telling his Arab-speaking audience, “We are two opposites who will never come together.”
The message was discovered by SITE Intelligence Group, a private organization in Washington that tracks militant Web sites. (SITE, or the Search for International Terrorist Entities, was founded by Rita Katz, an Arabic-speaking Israeli researcher who was born in Iraq and now lives in Washington. A 2006 New Yorker profile of Ms. Katz looked at her work.)
The video carries no date, but it was apparently recorded before Yemen’s Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, with which Mr. Awlaki is associated, smuggled explosives onto two U.S.-bound cargo jets late last month, since, according to SITE, a brief excerpt from the 23-minute recording was posted online before the plot was uncovered.
SITE reports that the video was not released by the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and does not bear its logo.
YouTube has apparently stepped up the policing of its site to prevent users sympathetic to Mr. Awlaki from posting videos like this one. On Monday, the company deleted the account of a user not long after he uploaded a copy of the new message to the video-sharing site, and posted an ominous-sounding note explaining that the user “has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of our Community Guidelines.”
On Saturday a Yemeni judge ordered Mr. Awlaki’s capture, days after he was indicted for inciting the murder of a French oil company worker in Yemen’s capital.
On Monday, a federal judge will hear arguments in a lawsuit brought by civil libertarians who claim that the Obama administration does not have the right to order the targeted assassination of Mr. Awlaki and other suspected militants, Reuters reported.
Writing about the case in August, Jonathan Turley, a law professor in Washington, observed on his blog:
The lawsuit focuses on the reported kill order targeting U.S.-born cleric [Anwar al-Awlaki], who is reportedly hiding in Yemen. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed this interesting action, naming the President of the United States, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the secretary of the Department of Defense.
This could make for a very interesting case if the groups can establish standing, which is likely to be challenged by Attorney General Eric Holder. As usual, Congress has done little to explore the constitutionality of a president who claims the unilateral power to kill U.S. citizens upon sight.
If a President can unilaterally kill a U.S. citizens on his own authority, our court system (and indeed our constitutional rights) become entirely discretionary. The position of the Administration contains no substantial limitations on such authority other than its own promise to make such decisions with care.
