This blog post was published on October 3 2011. §
A US drone or US warplanes? Al-Awlaki is not dead
Maybe it’s not that important, but there are two versions of Al-Awlaki’s assassination story. One runs on the US media saying that drone is used to kill Al-Qaeda leader in Yemen, and other on the Arabic media says that US warplanes targeted Al-Awlaki (which means that US airbase in a neighboring country is used to target Al-Awlaki).
What supports the Arabic version is that, the attack on few Al-Qaeda members is directly reported and published by eyewitnesses in Yemeni Adenalghad, without knowing that Al-Awlaki is the target.
This is the story published on the newspaper on 20-09-2011:
Local sources in Abyan Province reported on Tuesday afternoon that warplanes believed to be an American raided the tribal areas to the south-west of the Province, where similar attacks have occurred in late 2009 and resulted in the deaths of dozens of villagers.
The warplanes hovered in the sky above the mountains before targeting multiple sites in the mountains but did not know until this moment whether these raids have resulted in deaths or injuries.
One local resident said he saw smoke rising from the mountains where shepherds gather firewood in wooden storage.
Later the same newspaper reported that Al-Awlaki wasn’t in the the motorcade, and is confirmed today by his family who failed to identify the body.