Anwar al-Awlaqi

Anwar Nasser Abdulla al-Awlaki (Arabic: أنور العولقي, romanized: Anwar al-'Awlaqī; April 21, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was an American-Yemeni Islamic cleric and lecturer. He was assassinated in Yemen in 2011 by a U.S. drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki was the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and assassinated by a U.S. government drone strike. Al-Awlaki, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen, was a key organizer for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda.

Al-Awlaki was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S., 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 for allegedly kidnapping a Shiite teenager for ransom, and allegedly participating in an al-Qaeda plot to kidnap a U.S. military attaché, before being released without facing trial.