Awlaki Justifies Deaths of Millions

Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric, has drawn attention for providing spiritual guidance to many of the recent homegrown jihadists targeting the United States. The additional scrutiny, and prestige, resulting from a number of his followers being arrested while attempting terrorist attacks against the United States, appears to have exacted changes to Awlaki’s status within the jihadist community. Messages and interviews in recent months indicate that Awlaki’s views have been increasingly moving towards those held by some of the most extreme ideologues of al-Qaeda. Best illustrated in his May 22, 2010 video interview with a representative of the al-Malahem Foundation, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) media wing, Awlaki expressed views closely approximating the official al-Qaeda justification for September 11, 2001. Through the interview, Awlaki repeatedly called on followers to either carry out attacks or leave the West for jihad. In support of his calls to jihad, Awlaki provided his followers with a ruling justifying the deaths of millions of civilians as well as a near-boundless permission for followers to attack the United States.

In addition to legitimating attacks targeting civilians, Awlaki’s interview releases followers from having to contact him for permission for specific acts, such as an attack that might harm civilians. Traditionally, as seen from the case of the forth hoodsuspected Fort Hood shooter, Malik Niadal Malik Hassan, and others, Alwlaalki’s followers were communicating with him for religious legitimacy about whether their actions are permissible in Islam. However, , Awlaki’s interview by al-Malahem Foundation j provided his followers the support for attacks carried out without consideration for that number of civilians harmed. Essentially, through the interview, Awlaki green-lighted any attacks planned by his followers and bypassed the possible security risks that correspondence might entail.

Beyond releasing followers from the need to validate actions that might appear to bypass Islamic rules of warfare, the language of the interview suggests that Awlaki is trying to expand his audience and position himself as a natural successor to the diminished cohort of al-Qaeda scholars. Stylistically, his rulings in the video echoing the language of former al-Qaeda ideologue Yusuf al-Ayiri’s defense of the religious legitimacy of the September 11th attacks, drawing Awlaki closer to the most hardcore fringe of al-Qaeda. Linguistically, by recording and distributing the interview in Arabic, Awlaki might be suggesting that he is attempting to and cultivate an audience and greater credibility within the Arabic-speaking jihadist community. Hailed as “...the main man who translated the jihad into English”, Awlaki’s traditional base of support has been strongest in the English speaking jihadist world. Reflecting the demographic of his followers, the majority of Awlaki’s past communications have been issued in English. Distribution in Arabic would not necessarily restrict the interview to Arabic-speaking audiences as English-language jihadist forums have developed sophisticated translation networks that can release English translations of jihadist material from Arabic to English within days. Thus, Awlaki could reasonably expect that his message would be received by his primary Anglophone audience.

Underscoring Awlaki’s transitioning audience, the visual interview opened with an introduction from the narrator, providing a biographical sketch for Awlaki. The biography, presented in bullet points, informed viewers of his Yemeni tribal membership, that he was born in the United States and spent 21 years in the country, his educational history and religious training, the locations where he had worked as imam, and the jihadists whom he counted as followers. After introducing Awlaki, the narrator described the featured interview as al-Malahem Foundation’s first with Awlaki:

Throughout the video, Awlaki expressed clear endorsements for attacks targeting civilians and reiterated the importance of jihad against the West. These views are significant as they encourage his followers to carry out attacks targeting non-combatants. Claiming that the imbalance of suffering that Muslims have incurred because of actions of the United States means that Muslims are owed a vast number of American lives, Awlaki impressed upon the interviewer that concern for the lives of civilians should not restrict action. Taking his ruling even further, Awlaki finishes his thought by calling upon listeners to “attack them in the very same way they attack us”, a reference to alleged American attacks upon women and children that serve as a call to arms on jihadist forums:

“The bill between us and Americans, as far as women and children only are concerned, has reached over a million. Those who could have been killed in that plane are a drop in the sea and we should treat them the same way they treat us and attack them the very same way they attack us.”

Later in the interview, after confirming that Umar al-Farouk Abdulmutallab and Nidal Hasan are among his students, the interviewer began questioning Awlaki over the appropriateness of attacks against non-combatants. Discussing al-Farouk’s attempted bombing of a Delta Airlines plane flying between Amsterdam and Detroit, the interviewer explicitly asked Awlaki for his views on the permissibility of attacks that target civilians, asking:

In response, Awlaki strongly endorsed attacks against civilian targets, marshaling three main points of justification. In two of these points, actions made by the United States allow jihadists to view the country as having surrendered the religious protections that Islam affords to non-combatants. As a democracy, Awlaki presumes the government can only carry out policies that the majority of the population supports and funds. On this basis, he argued that democratic governance undermines the logic of religious protection for non-combatants and thereby permits attacking American civilians. Secondly, he claimed that the American military gave up protections afforded to American civilians by killing Muslim civilians when, according to Awlaki’s judgment, the American military has the ability to distinguish between fighters and non-combatants. Muslims, he argued, are permitted to re­ciprocate such indiscriminate targeting. Finally, on the issue of reciprocity, Awlaki claimed that so many Muslim civilians have been killed through the actions of the American military and the alliance of the American government, that Muslim fighters are permitted their due.

The three justifications for attacking civilian targets presented by Awlaki are strongly reminiscent of another’s argument for an airborne attack against civilians: the September 11th justification by Yusuf al-Ayiri in 2002. Ayiri’s 2002 essay justifying the attacks on New York and Washington represent al-Qaeda’s official religious justification for the attacks on September 11, 2001. The unique judgment, part of a larger book on al-Qaeda’s military designs, denies that the religious protections afforded to non-combatants - particularly women, children, and the elderly - apply against American and Israeli targets. In his argument that American civilians are not protected by the rules of war, Ayiri argued that by targeting Muslims, Americans and the West had forfeited religious pro­tections. Similarly the judgment ruled that protected people forfeited their non-combatant status upon giving any support, whether in “deed, word, (or) mind”, to a government at war with Muslims.

In order to compare the two documents, excerpts from each are placed side by side below. Although similar in word and tone, Yusuf al-Ayiri’s ruling on targeting civilians adheres to a more traditional structure by providing evidence of similar events in narratives ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions during the first years of Islam. Conversely, the declarations of Awlaki conspicuously skirt Islamic juridical tradition by not providing support from the Qur’an or Hadith.

Awlaki’s first argument that the American civilians should not be considered exempt from attack because they voted for the administration and finance American wars:

This argument is made even more forcefully in Ayiri’s jus­tification for the September 11, 2001 attacks, and has become a central plank in the jihadist justification for attacks against civilians living in Western democracies:

Awlaki continued to argue that the United States has forfeited protection to their non-combatants by claiming that the United States military has access to precise weaponry and that the American military would be able to discriminate between military and non-military targets if they wished. He concludes that the existence of American attacks against Muslim non-combatants indicates that the United States is not interested in minimizing Muslim casualties. For Awlaki, that the United States allegedly does not distinguish between civilians and fighters releases the mujahideen from having to do the same:

Similarly, Ayiri argued that an inability to differentiate between permissible and non-permissible targets allows for collateral damage as long as it occurs “incidentally and unintentionally” or if the combatants had used weapons that do not distinguish between combatants and protected civilians. Interestingly, while Awlaki’s argument is essentially based on casualty reciprocity, Ayiri’s argument appears to refer entirely to the weapons and technology available to the mujahideen, and is separate from an argument about reciprocity in casualties:

Thirdly, during his interview Awlaki asserted that the imbalance between Muslim and American casualties must be equalized. Laying out his argument, he responded to the interviewer:

“The bill between us and America contains no less than a million woman and children, and we did not mention the men. The bill between us and Americans, as far as women and children only are concerned, has reached over a million. Those who could have been killed in that plane are a drop in the sea and we should treat them the same way they treat us and attack them the very same way they attack us.
 
For Ayiri, the reciprocity argument is of primary importance, and the first that he makes:

As in previous interviews, such as a December 23, 2009 interview with a Yemeni journalist, Awlaki has repeated confirmed that he provided spiritual guidance to jihadists who have sought to carry out solitary attacks against the United States. Aacknowledging his ties to Nidal Hasan and Umar Farouk Abdumutullab, Awlaki noted that he strongly endorsed their actions. The unidentified al-Malahem Foundation interviewer asked Awlaki to clarify his connection to Abdumutullab, and Awlaki’s views on the attempted attack. Expressing approval for the attempted bombing Awlaki claimed:

In a similar passage later in the interview, Awlaki acknowledged that Nidal Hasan was one of his students. As with Abdumutullab, Awlaki specifically reiterated his support for his attack. Beyond expressing support, he took the opportunity to call upon all Muslims - specifically those serving with the American military- to carry out similar operations. Further encouraging such attacks, Awlaki wrote that using their access to carry out an attack would expunge Muslims from the “evil” of participation in a military that brought suffering to Muslims, saying:

In conclusion, messages from and about Anwar al-Awlaki during May 2010 suggest a jihadist leader in transition. With a strong following among English-speaking jihadist sympathizers and an involvement in many homegrown attacks against the United States, Awlaki has a position of great influence among Western jihadists. His Arabic-language interview with the media arm of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula indicates that he may be attempting to broaden his base of support among Arabic-speaking jihadists. Additionally, given that many of Awlaki’s means of reaching followers have either been disrupted or compromised by security services, Awlaki may be seeking closer relationships with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in order to connect with the larger online jihadist infrastructure. Finally, even if he fails to generate a new means of contacting supporters, Awlaki’s recent interviews have provided a clear set of religious rulings authorizing plotters to stage attacks against Western civilians. With clear permission from Awlaki, potential attackers no longer need to risk contacting Awlaki directly for permission to carry out attacks, as did Nidal Hasan and Umar al-Farouk.