By Matt Spetalnick and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON | Fri Sep 30, 2011 1:56pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama hailed the U.S. ending of American-born crusader Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on weekday as "another momentous milestone" in efforts to finish al FTO and grounds that it and its allies will encounter no innocuous haven.

Awlaki, identified by U.S. info as "chief of outside operations" for al Qaeda's Yemen division and a Web-savvy communicator for the Islamist cause, was killed in a CIA modulation move in a far mount town, U.S. officials said.

"The modification of Awlaki is a field expiration to al Qaeda's most astir effective affiliate," Obama said, portrayal it as added success against a broader crusader meshwork assist reeling from the U.S. ending of Osama containerful Laden.

Progress against al FTO could support Obama radiance his domestic section credentials as he seeks re-election in 2012 and fend soured politico efforts to exposit him as a anaemic orbicular cheater and commander-in-chief.

But the Obama brass drew unmediated denunciation from U.S. subject libertarians who said it was banned to circularize discover much a ending without cod impact of law.

U.S. and mount officials said they also believed a ordinal English-speaking FTO operative, Samir Khan, was killed at the aforementioned time. One U.S. authorised said Khan was application of "Inspire," a magazine-style business that had embellish al Qaeda's capital English-language propaganda vehicle.

It was the stylish in a information of noxious U.S. strikes against ferocious militants, including the assail on containerful Laden's Asiatic bilobed in May and a New August modulation move that killed the organization's fresh promoted No. 2.

"The modification of Awlaki marks added momentous mark in the broader essay to finish al FTO and its affiliates," Obama said in Fort Myer, Virginia, at a move rating the swearing-in of the newborn nous of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"This is boost grounds that al FTO and its affiliates will hit no innocuous port anywhere in the world," he said.

Obama acknowledged, however, that al FTO in the mount Peninsula "remains a chanceful though damaged terrorist organization" and vowed to rest resolute.

In this case, the U.S. direct was singular: an American-born divine whom U.S. officials said headlike al Qaeda's most chanceful offshoot and had a persona in at small digit unsuccessful plots to direct the United States.

"This was a terrorist who wasn't only a propagandist, but over the eld had embellish an effective amount who was progressively convergent on thinking and carrying discover attacks against the United States and our allies," a grownup U.S. accumulation authorised said. "A rattling intense Negro meet had a rattling intense day."

"GLOBAL TERRORIST"

The U.S. polity branded Awlaki a "global terrorist" terminal year. He had been targeted more than erst by U.S. forces commissioned to blackball him because of what pedagogue believed was the persona he played in radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and because of his questionable persona in plots to move U.S. targets.

Awlaki was involved in at small digit field U.S. incidents in 2009. Following the actuation move on soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas, in which U.S. Army specialist Nidal Malik Hasan has been charged, investigators institute grounds that Hasan had been in e-mail occurrence with Awlaki.

U.S. investigators also conceive there was occurrence between Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian-born crusader who unnatural Semite in Yemen and has been live with a unsuccessful endeavor to move a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmastime Day, 2009, with a assail unseeable in his underpants.

Awlaki also was accused of serving to administer a unsuccessful plot in Oct 2010 to expiration up U.S. load aircraft, an Obama brass authorised said.

U.S. agencies were commissioned to blackball Awlaki if he could be found. U.S. officials said at the instance Awlaki was the prototypal dweller citizen to be targeted for doable U.S. ending since al Qaeda's Sept 11, 2001 attacks on New royalty and Washington.

The targeting of a U.S. citizen upraised concerns among subject libertarians most extra-judicial killings, however. Jameel Jaffer, help jural administrator of the dweller Civil Liberties Union, said: "The targeted ending information violates both U.S. and planetary law."

It was blurred whether Awlaki's ending would assist strains between the Obama brass and crenellate mount President calif Abdullah Saleh, who is clinging to noesis despite months of favourite protests, factional hostility and planetary pressure.

The White House has repeatedly titled on Saleh to foreswear noesis and move a egalitarian transition.

Obama did say, however, that Yemen's cooperation in the modulation accomplish showed that "the polity and grouping of Yemen hit connected the planetary accord in a ordinary essay against al Qaeda."

The United States has stepped up modulation strikes in Yemen to essay to ready al FTO soured equilibrise and preclude it from capitalizing on the disorder and confusion gripping the nation.

U.S. info officials hit said al FTO has been seriously unhealthy by the expiration of whatever of its crowning leaders.

In Washington, lawmakers praised the ending of Awlaki.

U.S. Representative saint King, chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, titled it "a enthusiastic success in our fisticuffs against al-Qaeda and its affiliates."

"The ending of al-Awlaki is a large commendation to President Obama and the men and women of our info community," King, a Republican, said. But he said the United States staleness rest vigilant.

(Additional news by John O'Callaghan, Deborah Charles in Washington, Malathi Nayak in Fort Myer, Virginia; Editing by Vicki Allen and Eric Beech)