Nassar al Awlaki urges the spread of his son Anwar's teachings

Nassar al Awlaki, the father of Anwar, the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ideologue who was involved in operations before he was killed by the US, spoke out against the deaths of his son and grandson and urged Muslims to continue to spread his son's message that advocated jihad against the West.

By Bill Roggio and Lisa Lundquist - December 3, 2011

Nassar al Awlaki, the father of Anwar, the al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ideologue who was involved in operations before he was killed by the US, spoke out against the deaths of his son and grandson and urged Muslims to continue to spread his son's message that advocated jihad against the West.

Nassar, an influential figure in Yemen, made the statement in a 6-minute, 37-second audio that was released on YouTube by Anjem Choudary, a radical Islamist preacher in Britain who leads the banned group Muslims Against Crusades. [The video can be seen in full above.] A transcript of Nassar's audiotape was provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.

In the statement, the senior Awlaki did not express remorse for his son's radical sermons, which advocated that Muslims kill Americans and Westerners, but instead referred to his son reverently. Nassar described Anwar as his "beloved son" and "Imam" who "carried an effective message, a message that was simple and straight-forward."

"Its [Anwar's message] target were Muslims in the West," Nassar said. "They [the US] considered a fluent, convincing Muslim preacher as a threat, so they tried everything to silence him."

"My son Anwar was intelligent, sharp, eloquent, educated, charismatic, and brave. He had qualities and traits that could have taken him places in this world, but he chose this path and gave it his best, the path of Allah," Nassar said later in the tape. "It is the job of all of us to spread his knowledge and keep it alive."

Nassar said the US "assassinated" Anwar while "he was far from any battlefield," and denied that he was an operational commander in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Anwar was killed in a US Predator drone airstrike on Sept. 30 in Yemen's Al Jawf province.

Despite Nassar's denials that his son was an operational leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Anwar is known to have played a role in recruiting and directing terror attacks against the US. [See LWJ report, Awlaki's emails to terror plotter show operational role, for more information.]

Nassar also denounced the US for killing Anwar's son, Abdul Rahman, in a Predator strike in Shabwa province in mid-October. The Awlaki family has claimed the 16-year-old Abdul Rahman was not involved in terrorism and was merely in Shabwa to search for his father, who had been killed two weeks earlier.

Read more (+ the full video): http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/12/nassar_al_awlaki_urg.php#ixzz1fWRcUwPK

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