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Yemeni officials deny reports al-Awlaki surrounded
[Dawn] The Yemeni army destroyed five homes suspected of hiding al-Qaeda Islamic fascisti Tuesday as a siege of a southern village entered its second day, but officials denied reports that US-born radical holy man Anwar al-Awlaki was among those surrounded.

Government forces have moved into the village of Hawta with tanks and armored vehicles and thousands of people have decamped the area to escape the fighting, which is part of the government's US-backed campaign to uproot the terror network's local offshoot.

Security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media, said the homes that were destroyed were empty.

An unofficial website run by government opponents, Alganob.net, reported that al-Awlaki had been surrounded. But the chief municipal official, Atiq Baouda, and the security officials denied that he was in the area under siege. The Yemeni army refused to comment on the operation.

Al-Awlaki played a key part in the failed terrorist Christmas Day attempt to take down a Detroit-bound passenger jet.
And counseled Major Dr. Nidal Hasan, who killed so many of what were supposed to be his brothers- and sisters-in-arms, and who soon will be convicted and sent to prison, where he'll have to rely on the good graces of patriotic American criminals to keep his bottom wiped and his bedsores at bay for the rest of his life. Sometimes life is fair.
Mohammed Albasha, a front man for the Yemen Embassy in Washington, said the operation was in response to a recent attempted attack on a liquefied natural gas pipeline line.

He said the military had surrounded the area and was cutting off access in and out of the town.
''Most likely they'll enter the area in the next 24 hours,'' Albasha said.

He said the operation has nothing to do with al-Awlaki. ''His hometown is hundreds of miles away,'' Albasha said.
Posted by: Fred 2010-09-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=306086