Can the U.S. Kill American Citizens Without Due Process? – Anwar Al-Awlaki Killing Raises Troubling Questions
Anwar Al-Awaki was an American citizen, born in the U.S. to Yemeni parents, who was killed in Yemen by a CIA drone strike in a “targeted killing” on this day.
His death raised serious questions about whether the U.S. military had the authority to kill an American without due process of law.
Al-Awlaki was a Yemeni Imam and a radical Islamist, whom the Obama administration had placed on a targeted kill list in 2010 because of his alleged terrorist activities.
His death also raised questions about the increasing use of drone aircraft by the U.S in the War on Terror. No other targeted killing of a U.S. citizen is known to have occurred.
Learn more about targeted killings: https://www.aclu.org/national-security/targeted-killings
Learn more about drones: Peter W. Singer, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (2009)
And more: Shahzad Bashir and Robert D Crews, Under the Drones: Modern Lives in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Borderlands (2012)