CBS News is reporting that Abdulmutallab has said that Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the attempted suicide bombing against a US airliner.
The suspect in a failed Christmas Day airliner bombing attempt told federal investigators that radical Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the attack, CBS News has learned.
….The source said Abdulmutallab told investigators he was guided by al-Awalki to detonate the bomb over U.S. soil, unlike the failed British bomber plot in 2006 when the bombers were instructed to detonate bombs on airliners over the ocean on the way to the U.S. so that there would be no evidence left behind.
There’s also a discussion of the legality of the US government targeting al Awlaki:
CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports that al-Awlaki’s U.S. citizenship – he was born in New Mexico – will have little bearing on American military and intelligence efforts to locate and kill him.
U.S. officials, both current and former, tell Logan that if an individual is deemed to be part of a terrorist network that is a threat to American security in any way, they can be targeted legitimately.
Al Awlaki denied in another report giving Abdulmutallab permission or issuing a fatwa approving the attack.
