Intercepted communiques between Al-Qaeda leadership and its affiliated branch in Yemen has led to credible evidence of plots against American and Western targets on the Arabian Peninsula, according to US officials.
Last week the Obama administration made the unusual move to close
about two dozen diplomatic facilities throughout the Middle East
and Africa, as well as issued a worldwide travel alert. Those
actions were followed by similar moves by the UK’s Foreign
Office, which advised on Friday British nationals to leave Yemen
if possible.
It is now thought that an uptick in chatter from the head of
Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, speaking from Pakistan with Nasser
al-Wuhayshi, the head of Al-Qaeda’s Yemen group, revealed an
impending attack, as early as this past weekend.
According to the New York Times, the conversation between the two
leaders was considered “highly unusual” and immediately led the
State Department and the White House to act, prompting members of
Congress to indicate last week that a credible terrorist plot was
already underway.
“This was significant because
it was the big guys talking, and talking about very specific
timing for an attack or attacks,” said one American
official who spoke with the New York Times.
The State Department on Sunday announced that it was closing an
additional 19 diplomatic offices through next Saturday due to
continued intelligence suggesting an imminent threat, but not due
to additional information which set off increased precautions
since last week.
The latest closures were “merely an indication of our commitment to
exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our
employees and visitors to our facilities,” according to
the State Department.
Meanwhile, a senior Obama administration official had indicated
to CNN on Monday that Special Forces units overseas had been on
alert for the past several days for a potential attack on
Al-Qaeda targets. Those units had been placed on heightened alert
by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel as of last week, as US
intelligence continued to examine the details of the credible
threat.
Speculation on potential US targets seemed high over the weekend,
with an anonymous Western diplomat speaking to the New York Times
saying the American mission in Islamabad, Pakistan had received
unconfirmed reports that militants had assembled in the Margalla
Hills overlooking the city.
“The assumption is that it’s
probably most likely to happen in the Middle East,”
Representative Peter T. King said on Sunday on the ABC News
program “This Week.”
“But there’s no guarantee of
that at all. It could basically be in Europe, it could be in the
United States, it could be a series of combined attacks,”
added King, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.
The broad scope of the potential threat indicated that the only
solid point so far was that the alleged terrorist plot was
centered on Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch, generally considered the
deadliest element of the network by US analysts.
As recently as last Thursday the US was reported to have killed
three suspected Al-Qaeda militants in east Yemen using unmanned
aircraft. That strike was believed to be the third such attack in
under a week, according to a government official cited by
Reuters.
That drone attack happened in conjunction with a meeting between
President Barack Obama and Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour
Hadi, who was in Washington to discuss the two country’s
“counter-terrorism
partnership” according to a White House statement.
The US continues to provide Yemen’s government with funds and
logistical support as it seeks to subdue Al-Qaeda operations in
the country, having successfully driven militants out of towns in
southern Yemen in 2011.
American drone strikes in Yemen meanwhile continue to draw
criticism. In a widely distributed letter last week Faisal bin
Ali Jaber, the brother of an anti-al Qaeda cleric killed by a
drone strike last year, pleaded with the two leaders to halt the
use of drones in the country.
Republished from: RT