Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

55. Abdulrahman Vanishes

YEMEN, 2011—Abdulrahman Awlaki, the oldest son of Anwar Awlaki, was born in Denver, Colorado. Like his father, he spent the first seven years of his life in the United States, attending American schools. When he returned to Yemen, his grandparents—Anwar’s mom and dad—played a huge role in his upbringing, particularly after Anwar went underground. Anwar “always thought that it is best for Abdulrahman to be with me,” Nasser told me. Anwar believed that his wife and children “should not be involved at all in his problems.” Nasser knew that Anwar would never return to the United States and that he was on a collision course with the US government. But still, he had hopes for his grandson. Nasser wanted Abdulrahman to excel in school and he had dreams of sending his grandson back to the United States for a college education.

Abdulrahman looked just like his father when he was a young boy, but with long wavy hair. “We were pressuring him to go to the mosque, and to perform the prayers on time, things like that,” recalled Nasser, adding that Abdulrahman was not particularly religious and preferred to hang out with his friends. “His hair was very long, and his mother wanted him to have a haircut. I mean, he was as normal as anybody. He was acting like other American” teens. “Anwar used to have adventures, do things like that. Abdulrahman was not that kind,” he added. “He was just from school, to the house, and then to go and play with his friends. And they go to the pizza parlors, to all kinds of places. I always tell him, ‘When you grow up, I want you to study in the United States.’”

It was difficult for Abdulrahman and his siblings to grow up without their father around, but as a teenager, Abdulrahman was old enough to understand why he couldn’t see his father. And it was frightening. “Definitely, he was mad about the targeting, what is happening to his father,” Nasser added. “He was really concerned about his father.”

Abdulrahman’s aunt, Abir—Anwar’s younger sister—was extremely close to him. “Abdulrahman was one of the closest people to my heart. I loved him so much and everybody did because Abdulrahman made it very easy for all of us to just adore him,” she told me. “He had somehow filled his father’s vacuum for me and became a brother, a really dear one.” Abdulrahman admired his father and had even chosen as his Facebook username “Ibn al Shaykh,” Son of the Shaykh. But Abdulrahman was not his father.

Abdulrahman loved hip-hop music and Facebook and hanging out with his friends. They would take pictures of themselves posing as rappers, and when the Yemeni revolution began, Abdulrahman wanted to be a part of it. As massive protests shook Yemen, he would spend hours hanging out in Change Square with the young, nonviolent revolutionaries who had vowed to change their government through peaceful means. He would spend nights there with his friends, sharing his vision for the future and, at times, just goofing off. But as the revolution continued and the government was brought to the verge of collapse, Abdulrahman decided to follow his urge to see his father.

In early September, Abdulrahman woke up before the rest of the house. He tiptoed into his mother’s bedroom, went into her purse, took 9,000 Yemeni rials—the equivalent of about $40—and left a note outside of her bedroom door. He then snuck out the kitchen window and into the courtyard. Shortly after 6:00 a.m., the family’s guard saw the boy leave but didn’t think anything of it at the time. It was Sunday, September 4, 2011, a few days after the Eid al-Fitr holiday marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Nine days before, Abdulrahman had turned sixteen.

A short while later, Abdulrahman’s mother woke up. She started to rouse Abdulrahman’s siblings for the morning prayers and then went to find Abdulrahman. He was not in his bedroom. She called for him, and while searching the house, she found the note. “I am sorry for leaving in this kind of way. I miss my father and want to see if I can go and talk to him,” the note read. “I will be back in a few days. I am sorry for taking the money. I will pay you back. Please forgive me. Love, Abdulrahman.” Nasser said they were all shocked. “He would talk sometimes about his father and he wanted to see him, but nothing really which would indicate that he one day will leave us like that. He never told his mother or me or his grandmother that he would like to go and look for his father,” Nasser recalled. “Because his father always thought that it is best for him to be with me. And that he should not be involved at all in his problems.”

When they searched Abdulrahman’s room, they determined that he had only taken a backpack. He clearly was planning a short trip. “When his mother told me about the letter, it was just like a shock for me,” Abdulrahman’s grandmother, Saleha, told me. “I said, ‘I think this will be just like bait for his father.’” The CIA, she feared, “might find his father through him.” The family called around to Abdulrahman’s friends. Someone told Nasser that a teacher at the school had recently gotten close to Abdulrahman, and Nasser believed the teacher had been encouraging Abdulrahman to find his father and to reconnect with him, that it would be good for the boy. “He had influence on him, and they used to go to a pizza parlor to eat pizza,” Nasser said. When Nasser tried to find the teacher to ask him if he had any information about Abdulrahman’s whereabouts, the teacher had “vanished.”

Abdulrahman had already boarded a bus at Bab al Yemen, in the old city in Sana’a. His destination was Shabwah, the family’s home province and the scene of repeated US air strikes aimed at killing his father.