U.S. intelligence indicates that the top al-Qaida bomb-maker in Yemen also died in the drone strike that killed radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, two U.S. officials said Friday. Ibrahim al-Asiri is the bomb-maker linked to the bomb hidden in the underwear of a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. The FBI pulled al-Asiri's fingerprint off that bomb. Authorities also believe he built the bombs that al-Qaida slipped into printers and shipped to the U.S. last year in a nearly catastrophic attack.
Conflicted
I respect those who have problems with the extra-judicial execution of an American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, though admittedly I have a little less problem with it than most of those folks. I admit there's some (well, more than some) situational ethics involved but I really don't think I'm as bothered by this one as say the "judicial" execution of Troy Davis, or just the reliance upon death by drone in general. And this doesn't exactly make me feel worse: