Today in AQAP: Jihad with a chance of Awlaqi

In his interview, Awlaqi told Al-Jazeera that "it would have been better" if Abdulmutallab had attacked a U.S. military target, but said that killing American civilians was justified because the United States is a democratic society where the people elect their leadership and pay taxes that support the military. He also sought to diminish the horror of a civilian attack by comparing an airline bombing with the deaths caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

Yes, I support what Umar Farouk has done after I have been seeing my brothers being killed in Palestine for more than 60 years, and others being killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And in my tribe too, US missiles have killed 17 women and 23 children, so do not ask me if al-Qaeda has killed or blown up a US civil jet after all this. The 300 Americans are nothing comparing to the thousands of Muslims who have been killed.

Awlaqi claimed that the the United States has effectively occupied Yemen by stationing ships in the waters around the country, sending in military trainers and flying unmanned drones overhead.

"The Yemeni government sells its citizens to the United States, to earn the ill-gotten funds it begs the West for in return for their blood," he said. "What state is that which allows its enemy to spy on its people and then considers it as 'accepted cooperation.'"

It's tempting to see flashes of moderation in Awlaqi's remarks: wishing that Abdulmutallab had attacked a military target, not ordering the bombing himself. But Awlaqi, at least according to Western intelligence sources, is an AQAP recruiter, not an officer who gives military orders. It seems likely that he would've ordered Abdulmutallab's attack if given the chance. And though he would've preferred the bombing hit an American military target, the extremist jihadi views held by Awlaqi and his Al-Qaeda cohorts will probably always allow for killing civilians as long as there is the slightest U.S. presence in their self-defined umma.

That said, settling or at least defusing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict still looms as the key item on any agenda aimed at decreasing Al-Qaeda's ability to recruit. Al-Shihri, in his purported audio tape, justified jihad on American targets by explicitly citing Osama bin Laden's years-old reference to Palestine:

We repeat what our Sheikh Osama said, that America will not dream of security until we live in security in Palestine.

Shihri also referenced Muslims killed in drone strikes as justification for jihad. He called on Yemeni tribes, including the Houthis, to join the cause.