Abu Ali al-Harithi

Abu Ali al-Harithi (Arabic: أبو علي الحاريثي ) (b.? – †November 3 2002) was a citizen of Yemen and a suspected al-Qaida operative who is believed to have been the mastermind behind the October 2000 USS Cole bombing.cite news
url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/04/attack/main527971.shtml
title='Lackawanna 6' Link To Yemen Killings?
publisher=CBS News
date=November 8 2002
accessdate=2007-09-20] cite news
url=http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/05/1036308311314.html?oneclick=true
title=US missiles kill al Qaeda suspects
date=November 6 2002
author=Walter Pincus
publisher=The Age
accessdate=2007-09-20] cite news
url=http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew68.php
publisher=The Jurist
title=The Yemen Attack: Illegal Assassination or Lawful Killing?
author=Jeffrey Addicott
date=November 7, 2002
accessdate=2007-09-20] cite news
date= November 8, 2002
url=http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N54/long4-54.54w.html
title=U.S. Citizen Among Those Killed In Yemen Predator Missile Strike
publisher=Washington Post
author=Dana Priest
accessdate=2007-09-20] He was killed by the CIA during a covert mission in Yemen on November 3 2002. The CIA used an RQ-1 Predator remote-controlled drone to shoot the Hellfire missile that killed al-Harithi and five other suspected al-Qaida operatives as they rode in a vehicle 100 miles east of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

Al-Harithi was traveling with Ahmed Hijazi, a US citizen, and Hijazi's killing is the first known case of the U.S. government intentionally killing an American citizen during the "War on Terror".Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, Yemen was not considered a battlefield or an enemy state by the United States at the time of the attack.

The Bush Presidency, citing the authority of a presidential finding that permits worldwide covert actions against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, considered al-Harithi and his traveling party a justifiable military target. It was reported that the Yemeni intelligence service had monitored them for months, and relayed the information to the Americans. Tribesmen in Marib province said a Yemeni air force helicopter was hovering over the area moments before the explosion occurred. The late and then foreign minister of Sweden, Anna Lindh said "If the USA is behind this with Yemen's consent, it is nevertheless a summary execution that violates human rights. If the USA has conducted the attack without Yemen's permission it is even worse. Then it is a question of unauthorised use of force." However, Anthony D'Amato, a professor of international law at Northwestern University in Chicago and litigator at the European Court of Human Rights, said a lack of Yemeni consent would probably not have affected the legality of the attack. "In a war you have the right to shoot the combatants of the other side, and one of the things Bush accomplished when he called it a war against terrorism was to turn questions like this in his favor." If Washington had substantive evidence that the six were al-Qaida members, Yemen would effectively be "harbouring" them, making its consent immaterial according to precedents established as far back as the Vietnam war. cite news
url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,834311,00.html
title=Killing probes the frontiers of robotics and legality: 'War on terror' tag allows US to attack anywhere, lawyer argues
author=Brian Whitaker, Oliver Burkeman
date= November 6, 2002
publisher=The Guardian
accessdate=2007-09-20]

References

External links

* [http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/m3u/WeekdayA/weekdaya20070223.m3u Steve Scher on Weekday February 23, 2007] KUOW-FM interviews James Bamford on the National Security Agency (Note: minutes 21–24 of 54 minute audio)