Death date: September 30, Birth place: Las Cruces, New Mexico. Birth name: Anwar al-Awlaki. Read More. Father: Nasser al-Awlaki a former government minister and university president. Marriage: Married to a cousin September 30, , his death. Children: Five some sources say three. Education: Colorado State University, B. But on Wednesday, they acknowledged that an investigation team had "concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed" too, adding that children might have been among the casualties.
Yemeni medics and officials had earlier said that at least 10 women and children were killed. But it was the locally-reported death of one particular individual - eight-year-old Nawar al-Awlaki - that provoked particular fury among Yemenis. Her grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, told several news outlets that Nawar was shot in the neck during the raid. In an interview with the Guardian , he added that he did not believe the US special forces members had meant to kill his granddaughter.
Nawar's uncle, Ammar al-Awlaki, also wrote about upsetting details of how he said she had died in a Facebook post that was widely shared in Yemen. Nawar's father, Anwar al-Awlaki , was a Yemeni-American cleric and suspected senior al-Qaeda leader who was touted as a potential successor to Osama bin Laden before being killed in a US drone strike in The strike was said to have been personally ordered by President Obama.
Two weeks after the strike, his year-old son Abdulrahman - also an American citizen - was killed by another US drone. Some Yemenis on social media denounced the US, accusing it of targeting the Awlaki children because of their father's activities. Visit the Trending Facebook page. The killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki drew international criticism, with some journalists claiming that he was not a member of the militant group and had no part of his father's activities - although this has never been verified.
When we study an ideological message or rhetorical style that we know had a big impact in isolation, any claim about what it was about the message that produced the impact becomes difficult to disprove. There is no easy solution, and my own work suffers from the same problem. In the case of Awlaki, there is one hypothesis that features in Incitement that could have gotten even more in-depth, explicit treatment.
It is charisma, that good, old-fashioned concept that we all recognize but cannot capture with measuring instruments. If you have ever listened through a lecture by Awlaki, you will know what I mean. For this review I went back to my archive and put on one of his lectures again. There still is something instantly appealing about him. The language also has a verbal agility and a lightheartedness that ooze social intelligence.
Add the absolutely beautiful classical Arabic and you have an extremely compelling voice in the broad sense of the word. All I can say is that in my 20 years of studying jihadism, I have listened to hundreds of jihadi preachers, and there is only one other person who had the same instant likeability as Awlaki.
My own biographical subject , Abdallah Azzam, does not come close. Moreover, the fact that he enjoyed commercial success with his history lectures in the mainstream proselytization market — where competition is cutthroat — suggests he was special.
Shoot me if you want, social scientists, but this guy had the X factor. The question, of course, is who will be the next jihadi leader with mass appeal. Lord knows the movement needs one. The current bench is abysmal: Zawahiri has the charisma of a block of wood, while the new ISIL leader Amir al-Mawla has yet to issue a single statement. However, it could be that we will never see another Awlaki or bin Laden, since whoever shows sign of being one will be marked for assassination by the U.
Whatever one thinks of the ethics and effectiveness of leadership decapitation — a pillar of U. Jihadism has become more faceless, and it is hard to picture any current Islamic State figure becoming the subject of a monograph in the future.
The age of the jihadi superstar may have ended with Anwar al-Awlaki.
0コメント