U.S. Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Ranking Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, issued the following reaction to the news that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed today in northern Yemen.
“I have just received confirmation of Anwar al-Awlaki’s death from the National Counterterrorism Center. As the English-speaking leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the radical cleric al-Awlaki inspired and encouraged numerous terrorist plots against our country, using his knowledge of America as a means to harm us. The Fort Hood attacks, the attempted bombing in New York’s Times Square, the failed attempt to bring down an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009, and the thwarted plot to detonate explosives concealed in printer toner cartridges on airplanes all bore his fingerprints. He fueled hate against America, and we are safer because al-Awlaki is dead. We must nevertheless continue our efforts to combat and discredit the violent Islamist ideology he espoused and disseminated.”