{"id":56138,"date":"2013-08-05T23:56:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-05T22:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/us-special-forces-poised-to-strike-against-al-qaeda-following-intercepted-communiques\/56138\/"},"modified":"2013-08-05T23:56:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-05T22:56:47","slug":"us-special-forces-poised-to-strike-against-al-qaeda-following-intercepted-communiques","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/us-special-forces-poised-to-strike-against-al-qaeda-following-intercepted-communiques\/","title":{"rendered":"US Special Forces poised to strike against Al-Qaeda following intercepted communiques"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\n Last week the Obama administration made the unusual move to close
\n about two dozen diplomatic facilities throughout the Middle East
\n and Africa, as well as issued a worldwide travel alert. Those
\n actions were followed by similar moves by the UK\u2019s Foreign
\n Office, which advised on Friday British nationals to leave Yemen
\n if possible.\n <\/p>\n

It is now thought that an uptick in chatter from the head of
\n Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, speaking from Pakistan with Nasser
\n al-Wuhayshi, the head of Al-Qaeda\u2019s Yemen group, revealed an
\n impending attack, as early as this past weekend.\n <\/p>\n

According to the New York Times, the conversation between the two
\n leaders was considered \u201chighly unusual\u201d and immediately led the
\n State Department and the White House to act, prompting members of
\n Congress to indicate last week that a credible terrorist plot was
\n already underway.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThis was significant because
\n it was the big guys talking, and talking about very specific
\n timing for an attack or attacks,\u201d<\/span> said one American
\n official who spoke with the New York Times.\n <\/p>\n

The State Department on Sunday announced that it was closing an
\n additional 19 diplomatic offices through next Saturday due to
\n continued intelligence suggesting an imminent threat, but not due
\n to additional information which set off increased precautions
\n since last week.\u00a0
\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n The latest closures were \u201cmerely an indication of our commitment to
\n exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our
\n employees and visitors to our facilities,\u201d<\/span> according to
\n the State Department.\n <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a senior Obama administration official had indicated
\n to CNN on Monday that Special Forces units overseas had been on
\n alert for the past several days for a potential attack on
\n Al-Qaeda targets. Those units had been placed on heightened alert
\n by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel as of last week, as US
\n intelligence continued to examine the details of the credible
\n threat.\n <\/p>\n

Speculation on potential US targets seemed high over the weekend,
\n with an anonymous Western diplomat speaking to the New York Times
\n saying the American mission in Islamabad, Pakistan had received
\n unconfirmed reports that militants had assembled in the Margalla
\n Hills overlooking the city.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cThe assumption is that it\u2019s
\n probably most likely to happen in the Middle East,\u201d<\/span>
\n Representative Peter T. King said on Sunday on the ABC News
\n program \u201cThis Week.\u201d<\/span>\n <\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s no guarantee of
\n that at all. It could basically be in Europe, it could be in the
\n United States, it could be a series of combined attacks,\u201d<\/span>
\n added King, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee.\n <\/p>\n

The broad scope of the potential threat indicated that the only
\n solid point so far was that the alleged terrorist plot was
\n centered on Al-Qaeda\u2019s Yemen branch, generally considered the
\n deadliest element of the network by US analysts.\n <\/p>\n

As recently as last Thursday the US was reported to have killed
\n three suspected Al-Qaeda militants in east Yemen using unmanned
\n aircraft. That strike was believed to be the third such attack in
\n under a week, according to a government official cited by
\n Reuters.\n <\/p>\n

That drone attack happened in conjunction with a meeting between
\n President Barack Obama and Yemeni president Abd-Rabbu Mansour
\n Hadi, who was in Washington to discuss the two country\u2019s
\n \u201ccounter-terrorism
\n partnership\u201d<\/span> according to a White House statement.\n <\/p>\n

The US continues to provide Yemen\u2019s government with funds and
\n logistical support as it seeks to subdue Al-Qaeda operations in
\n the country, having successfully driven militants out of towns in
\n southern Yemen in 2011.\n <\/p>\n

American drone strikes in Yemen meanwhile continue to draw
\n criticism. In a widely distributed letter last week Faisal bin
\n Ali Jaber, the brother of an anti-al Qaeda cleric killed by a
\n drone strike last year, pleaded with the two leaders to halt the
\n use of drones in the country.
\n <\/p>\n

Republished from: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-56138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}