Anwar al-Awlaki.

Anwar al-Awlaki (also spelled Aulaqi; Arabic:‎ Anwar al-‘Awlaqī; April 22, 1971 – September 30, 2011) was a Yemeni-American imam who was an engineer and educator by training. According to U.S. officials, he was a senior talent recruiter and motivator who was involved with planning operations for the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda. He was implicated in helping to motivate at least three attacks on U.S. soil, and was the first U.S. citizen to be approved for targeted killing. Columnist Glenn Greenwald held that al-Awlaki's killing was in direct violation of the United States Constitution. With a blog, a Facebook page, and many YouTube videos, he had been described as the "bin Laden of the Internet". Barack Obama described Awlaki as “the leader of external operations for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.In 1993, while he was a college student and the same year as the first World Trade Center bombing, al-Awlaki took a vacation trip to Afghanistan like "many other thousands of young Muslim men with jihadist zeal". Much of the nation was under the control of various mujahideen factions, after the withdrawal of the Soviet occupation. Mullah Mohammed Omar would not form the Taliban until 1994. When al-Awlaki returned to campus, he showed increased interest in politics and religion. He wore Afghan hats and Eritrean t-shirts, and quoted Abdullah Azzam—who theologically justified the jihad to liberate Muslim lands such as Afghanistan and Palestine by fighting infidel invaders, and was later known as a mentor to Osama bin Laden.Planning for the 9/11 attack and USS Cole bombing was discussed at the January 2000 Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit. Among the planners were Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, who later died on 9/11 hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon. After the summit they traveled to San Diego, where witnesses told the FBI they had a close relationship with al-Awlaki in 2000. Al-Awlaki served as their spiritual adviser, and the two were also frequently visited there by 9/11 pilot Hani Hanjour. The 9/11 Commission Report indicated that the hijackers "reportedly respected [al-Awlaki] as a religious figure. Authorities say the two hijackers regularly attended the mosque al-Awlaki led in San Diego, and had many long closed-door meetings with him, which led investigators to believe al-Awlaki knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
Al-Awlaki told reporters that he resigned from leading the San Diego mosque "after an uneventful four years", despite his contacts with 9/11 participants. He took a brief sabbatical and a trip overseas to various countries, which have not been identified or explained.In July 2010, his father, Nasser al-Aulaqi, contracted the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to represent his son in a lawsuit which sought to remove Anwar from the targeted killing list. ACLU's Jameel Jaffer said:
the United States is not at war in Yemen, and the government doesn't have a blank check to kill terrorism suspects wherever they are in the world. Among the arguments we'll be making is that, outside actual war zones, the authority to use lethal force is narrowly circumscribed, and preserving the rule of law depends on keeping this authority narrow.
Lawyers for Specially Designated Global Terrorists must obtain a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department before they can represent their clients in court. The lawyers were granted the license on August 4.
On August 30, the groups filed a "targeted killing" lawsuit (Case 1:10-cv-01469-JDB), naming U.S. President Barack Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as defendants. They sought an injunction preventing the targeted killing of al-Awlaki, and also sought to require the government to disclose the standards under which U.S. citizens may be "targeted for deathOn September 30, 2011, in northern al-Jawf province, two Predator drones fired Hellfire missiles at a vehicle containing al-Awlaki and three or four suspected al Qaeda members. A witness said the group had stopped to eat breakfast while traveling to Ma'rib Governorate. The Predator drone was spotted by the group who then tried to flee the scene in the vehicle.
According to U.S. sources, the strike was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA. U.S. President Barack Obama said: "The death of Awlaki is a major blow to Al Qaeda's most active operational affiliate. He took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans ... and he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda." He said the strike is "further proof that Al Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world. Yemen's Defense Ministry announced that al-Awlaki had been killed in the country. Also killed was Samir Khan, an American born in Saudi Arabia, who was an editor of Al Qaeda's English-language web magazine, Inspire.