Radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi, who was reported killed in an air strike on Friday, had been wanted by both Yemen and the United States on charges of incitement to murder for Al-Qaeda.

The defence ministry in Sanaa said he was killed along with several other suspected Al-Qaeda operatives, and tribal sources said he died in a strike on two vehicles in Marib province, an Al-Qaeda stronghold in eastern Yemen.

Awlaqi was charged in November in Yemen for alleged ties with Al-Qaeda and incitement to kill foreigners.

Washington had linked the imam and son of a former Yemeni government minister to a shooting rampage in November 2009 at a US army base and to a botched Christmas Day attack that year on a US airliner.

A Yemeni court, under mounting US pressure to fight Al-Qaeda after a foiled air cargo bomb plot in late October last year, had ordered his arrest by any means for his alleged Al-Qaeda links.

"Mr Awlaqi is a problem," US President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said in January, 2010. "He's clearly a part of Al-Qaeda in (the) Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). He's not just a cleric."

Brennan directly accused Awlaqi of having links with Major Nidal Hasan who is suspected of shooting dead 13 people at Fort Hood military base in Texas, and who is set to face trial in a military court on March 5, 2012.

Awlaqi may also have had contact with Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up the Christmas Day plane, Brennan said.

Obama has accused AQAP of arming and training Abdulmutallab and said the group was also responsible for last October's parcel bomb plot, which originated in Yemen.

Two parcels addressed to Jewish institutions in Chicago and containing the explosive PETN hidden in ink toner cartridges were found to have been freighted from Sanaa on commercial airlines.

In July, 2010, Washington placed Awlaqi on its list of terrorism supporters, freezing his financial assets and banning any transactions with him.

In a video tape posted by AQAP on jihadist websites in May last year Awlaqi, who is in his late 30s, urged Muslims serving in the US army to follow Hasan's example and also defended Abdulmutallab.

Awlaqi, in a later Internet posting in November, went a step further and called for the murder of any US citizen. "Do not consult anyone in killing Americans," he said, the US monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported.

"Killing the devil does not need any fatwa (religious edict)," he added.

"It's either us or you," Awlaqi said, addressing Americans in the video.

In May last year, the United States said it was actively hunting Awlaqi.

"He has an agenda just like Al-Qaeda to strike targets in Yemen, throughout the world including here in the United States," the White House spokesman said.

But an Awlaqi relative has insisted the imam "is not a fighter of Al-Qaeda."

"He is just a preacher," he said.

Awlaqi comes from a well-off family. His father is a former minister of agriculture and was the president of the university of Sanaa.

He was born in the US state of New Mexico in 1971, attended school in Yemen and graduated from Colorado State University in civil engineering. He also holds a master's degree in education leadership from San Diego State University.

He made a name for himself delivering sermons in English in mosques across the United States, where he also worked for a charity association founded by Yemeni cleric Abdul Majeed al-Zendani, whom the US government has identified as a "global terrorist."

Awlaqi met two of the bombers on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon building in the United States on September 11, 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.

Awlaqi was arrested in Yemen in 2006 for his role in kidnapping the son of a rich Yemeni family and demanding ransom money "to finance Al-Qaeda," Yemeni security sources said.

Two years later he was set free on condition that he report to police daily, but he fled to the eastern Shabwa region.

Awlaqi went to ground after an air raid on December 24, 2009 struck a meeting of Al-Qaeda leaders in Wadi Rafadh, in Shabwa province, killing 34.

In May this year, a Yemeni tribal source said Awlaqi narrowly escaped a US drone attack three days after American commandos killed Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

The strike in Shabwa was the first reported US targeting of other key figures in the terror network after a commando raid killed bin Laden inside Pakistan on May 2.

Awlaqi was married with five children.

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