Includes bibliographical references (pages 329-385) and index.

Merry Christmas -- You are still unsafe -- He had a beautiful tongue -- An exquisite weapon -- We are the bridge -- Totally planning to stay -- Stealthy, agile, and lethal -- That was the transformation -- WWW jihad -- I face the world as it is -- The guy everyone wanted to find -- The time for reaping -- A bigger brand-- Afterword.

Objective Troy tells the story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama's campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agencies to hunt Awlaki down in a frantic, multi-million-dollar pursuit that would end with the death of Awlaki by a bizarre, robotic technology that is changing warfare -- the drone. Scott Shane, who has covered terrorism for The New York Times, weaves the clash between president and terrorist into a deeply human account of the defining conflict of our era. Awlaki, who directed a plot that almost derailed Obama's presidency, and then taunted him from his desert hideouts, will go down in history as the first United States citizen deliberately hunted and assassinated by his own government without trial. But his eloquent calls to jihad, amplified by YouTube, continue to lure young Westerners into terrorism resulting in tragedies from the Boston marathon bombing to the murder of cartoonists at a Paris weekly. Awlaki's life and death show how profoundly America has been changed by the threat of terrorism and by our own fears.