To Hunt Awlaki, CIA Found Him a Bride

Terrorist's aides foiled plot: report
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 15, 2012 10:55 AM CDT
To Hunt Awlaki, CIA Found Him a Bride
This Oct. 2008 file photo shows Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.   (AP Photo/Muhammad ud-Deen, File)

Before killing Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone strike, the CIA tried an unusual tactic to hunt him down: It tried to get him hitched, according to a Danish newspaper's report. The agency reportedly hired an al-Qaeda double agent for $250,000 to set up the couple. The spy, a Danish convert to Islam named Morten Storm, furnished the newspaper with "proposal" videos and emails purportedly sent between Awlaki and a Croatian woman named Aminah, ABC News reports.

Storm found Aminah on Facebook after Awlaki told him in 2009 that he wanted to marry a European Muslim. "I am 32 years old and am ready for dangerous things," Aminah allegedly wrote. "I am ready to die for the sake of Allah." Had the plan worked, "both of them would (have been) killed in an American drone strike," Storm told the paper. Instead, Awlaki's aides told Aminah to get rid of her secretly-bugged suitcase when she arrived in Yemen, thus foiling the plot. The marriage, however, apparently worked out. Aminah later wrote to Storm seeking a suicide mission to avenge her late husband, but al-Qaeda bosses rejected the idea. (More Anwar al-Awlaki stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X