Fugitive radical US-Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaqi, who might be linked to the botched Christmas Day al-Qaeda attack on a US airliner, has said he has no intention of surrendering to Yemeni authorities.
Abdullah Shaea, a Yemeni journalist close to Awlaqi, said yesterday that the cleric had made that declaration to him recently and had also denied Yemeni government claims that negotiations were under way aiming at a surrender.
“Anwar al-Awlaqi told me that no one contacted him and that nothing has been negotiated. He has no intention of giving himself up,” Shaea said.
Shaea is considered in Yemen to be one of the country’s most knowledgeable journalists on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
“Anwar is at home, protected by his tribe,” Shaea said, without indicating precisely where. “The police and the army know that it is impossible to go and look for him there.
“He is probably under the protection of al-Qaeda members, not because he is a member but because they are from the same tribe,” he said.
“He has absolutely no confidence in a government that jailed him in 2006 without any charges and freed him after a year and a half without ever trying him.”
A White House aide has directly accused Awlaqi of having links with the man suspected of shooting dead 13 people at a Texas military base in November, Major Nidal Hasan.
US Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan has also said the US-born imam might have had contact with the man who allegedly attempted to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
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