Heather Murdock

  • April 8, 2010 11:38
    So the CIA wants jihadist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki dead. What's new?
    SANAA, Yemen — I don’t remember the U.S. complaining when the Yemeni government claimed it had killed Anwar al-Awlaki in Dec. 24 air strikes. When the news was later reported that Barack Obama ordered the strike, there was no official denial. And when Awlaki re-appeared in the news alive (as officially "dead" Al Qaeda leaders tend to do in Yemen) nobody seemed to thrilled about it. Now it is official. Awlaki is alive, and the CIA wants him dead. They can kill him anytime, in any way. And because he is an American citizen, approval came from the White House. Some news sources are reporting that it is the first time that the CIA has put a hit on an American citizen abroad. Others question the legality killing an American citizen far from any battlefields. Perhaps this is the first time in Google’s memory that the CIA has announced such a plan to the world, so we are not quite sure how it works. Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni jihadist preacher has been in...
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  • March 18, 2010 15:54
    Anwar al-Awlaki, the internet jihad star, is back
    SANAA, Yemen — A couple of weeks ago, around 11 p.m. at an Internet café in Sanaa, I ran into Abdulelah Hider, a Yemeni journalist with ties to Anwar al-Awlaki. (Hider is virtually Awlaki's only connection to the media.) He told me there would be "new news" about the radical American-born Yemen-based cleric, coming soon. I asked him what it was. He said it was a surprise. I’m not sure if this is the surprise he was talking about. But it seems that the jihadi Internet star is back. After months of near-silence, Awlaki released a 12-minute tape to CNN this week, urging American Muslims to rise up against the United States. “To the Muslims in America I have this to say,” he said on the tape. “How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with the nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters?” Awlaki went into hiding in Yemen after Nidal Hassan, whom he calls a...
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  • March 13, 2010 16:10
    Another accused American terrorist in Yemen
    From a Yemeni perspective, it appears that the West is sending terrorists to Yemen. This week, Sharif Mobley, a 26-year-old from Buena, New Jersey has joined the list of suspected Al Qaeda militants, believed to be bred in the West, and trained in Yemen. As this list grows larger, it also appears to grow less random. Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical U.S.-born Yemeni cleric, who preaches jihad on the internet is believed to be connected to Mobley. Al-Awlaki is already accused of encouraging the failed Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and of inspiring the Fort Hood massacre, which left 13 people in Texas dead. On his blog, al-Awlaki called the alleged shooter, Nidal Hasan, a “hero.” Mobley has been in Yemeni custody for months, but it wasn’t until he tried to escape by shooting his way out of a Sana’a hospital early this week, that his status as a former nuclear power plant worker, and a currently-suspected Al Qaeda operative became public. The failed...
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  • Heather Murdock

    Heather Murdock has been reporting from Sanaa, Yemen since June 2009. Originally from New York City, she is a graduate of the University of Connecticut, with degrees in journalism and political science. Heather has also written for the Washington Times, the Valley News, NBC30, the Yemen Times, Yemen Today, Time.com and has recently appeared on the CBS Evening News.