U.S. issues travel alert, will close embassies due to al Qaeda threat

By artappraiser on Fri, 08/02/2013 - 2:55pm |

By Chris Lawrence, Barbara Starr & Tom Cohen, CNN, Aug. 2, 2013

State Department travel alert Friday said al Qaeda may launch attacks in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond, as the United States is closing 21 embassies and consulates Sunday as a precaution.

"Current information suggests that al Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August," said the alert, which covers the entire month.

It warned that "terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests."

A separate State Department list showed the 21 embassies and consulates that will close on Sunday, normally the start of the work week in the countries affected.

They included embassies in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen and 11 other countries, as well as consulates in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. See the whole list [....]

URL:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/02/politics/us-embassies-close/index.html

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Interpol issues global security alert linked to jailbreaks
BBC News, 3 August 2013

Interpol has issued a global security alert linked to suspected al-Qaeda involvement in recent prison breakouts. Interpol cited prison escapes in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan, and asked its members to examine if they were connected. The police agency is also asking member countries to "swiftly process any information linked to these events".

In the most recent escape, 248 prisoners were sprung from a jail in north-west Pakistan. Taliban militants used automatic weapons and bombs to break down the walls of the jail in Dera Ismail Khan on 30 July. At least 13 people were killed, including six police. The authorities said 30 of those who fled were "hardened militants" jailed for involvement in suicide bombings and other serious attacks.

Hundreds of inmates escaped from two jails in Iraq - Abu Ghraib to the west of Baghdad and Taji to the north - on 22 July [...]

by artappraiser on Sat, 08/03/2013 - 7:12pm

Ayman Al-Zawahiri blames America for Morsi’s overthrow
Al-Qaeda leader accuses the USA of involvement in Morsi’s ouster

By Charlie Miller, Daily News Egypt, August 3, 2013

The leader of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, released a recorded audio message on Friday, in which he accused various parties of conspiring to overthrow former president Mohamed Morsi.

The video was posted originally to a jihadist website, state-run Al-Ahram reported, but was also posted on YouTube. In the clip, Al-Zawahiri blamed the “crusaders, secularists, the Americanised military, remnants of Mubarak’s regime and some affiliates of Islamic groups” for their part in Morsi’s toppling, which he said they had achieved with “the support of Gulf money.”

Al-Zawahiri said the leader of the Coptic community, Pope Tawadros II, “supported the crusaders in toppling the government of Mohamed Morsi,” in order to establish a “Coptic state in southern Egypt.”

The conspiracy to overthrow Morsi, the recording continued, aimed to install a “secular, pro-American president to rule Egypt so they can continue with their plotting, along with the Americans and Zionists, to divide Egypt, just like in Sudan.”

Al-Zawahiri chided the secularists and “their chief Mohamed ElBaradei” for celebrating the fall of democracy, even though they were the ones who called for it [.....]

by artappraiser on Sat, 08/03/2013 - 7:18pm

Senators: Terror Chatter That Led to Embassy Closings Is “Very Reminiscent” to Pre-9/11
By Daniel Politi, Slate, Aug. 4, 2013

[....] A “senior U.S. official” tells ABC News that intelligence officials intercepted communications in which al-Qaida operatives could be heard talking about an upcoming attack. The alleged terrorists talked about how the attack is “going to be big” and “strategically significant,” according to the official who added that what was particularly “alarming” was the “confidence they showed … and the air of certainty.” Still, the official emphasized that the target of the planned attack remains a mystery: “We do not know whether they mean an embassy, an airbase, an aircraft, trains.”

Sunday is a significant day in the Muslim calendar because it marks the 27th day of Ramadan and is known as the “Night of Power,” when “the first verses of the Koran were revealed to the Prophet Mohammed,” explains CNN’s Peter Bergen. Al-Qaida’s would-be martyrs see the date “as a particularly auspicious day to die,” adds Bergen [....]

by artappraiser on Sun, 08/04/2013 - 3:21pm

The intercepted conversations were from al-Zawahri to the head of AQ in the Arabian Peninsula, according to "American officials":

Qaeda Leader’s Edict to Yemen Affiliate Is Said to Prompt Alert
By Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, August 5, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s decision last week to close nearly two dozen diplomatic missions and issue a worldwide travel alert resulted from intercepted electronic communications in which the head of Al Qaeda in Pakistan ordered the leader of its affiliate in Yemen, the terrorist organization’s most lethal branch, to carry out an attack as early as this past Sunday, according to American officials.

The intercepted conversations last week between Ayman al-Zawahri, who succeeded Osama bin Laden as the head of the global terrorist group, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, revealed one of the most serious plots against American and other Western interests since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, American intelligence officials and lawmakers have said.

It is highly unusual for senior Qaeda leaders in Pakistan to discuss operational matters with the group’s affiliates, so when the intercepts between the two senior Qaeda leaders were collected and analyzed last week, senior officials at the C.I.A., the State Department and the White House immediately seized on their significance. Members of Congress were quickly provided classified briefings on the matter, American officials said [....]

But the intercepts were frustrating in that they did not reveal the specific location or target of the attacks, American officials said.

In an article posted on the Web on Friday and published on Saturday, the identities of the Qaeda leaders whose conversations were intercepted were witheld by The New York Times at the request of senior American intelligence officials. The names were disclosed Sunday by McClatchy Newspapers, and after the government became aware of the article, it dropped its objections to The Times’s publishing the same information [....]

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/05/2013 - 6:39pm

The Sunday McClatchy article that the NYT piece refers to is here (by Ali Watkins, David Lightman & Adam Brown).

The pertinent excerpt:

An official who’d been briefed on the matter in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, told McClatchy that the embassy closings and travel advisory were the result of an intercepted communication between Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the head of the Yemen-based Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and al Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahiri in which Zawahiri gave “clear orders” to al-Wuhaysi, who was recently named al Qaida’s general manager, to carry out an attack.

The official, however, said he could not divulge details of the plot. AQAP’s last major attack in Sanaa took place in May 2012 when a suicide bomber killed more than 100 military cadets at a rehearsal for a military parade.

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/05/2013 - 6:44pm

U.S. Officials Are Worried About a New and Improved Liquid Explosive

By Abby Ohlheiser, The Atlantic Wire, Aug. 5, 2013

U.S. officials are worried that Al Qaeda has a new liquid explosive technique that can't be detected by current security measures, according to the latest trickle of U.S. official-sourced stories in the wake of the unprecedented embassy closures across the Middle East this week.

The story, up at ABC, adds some details to the general sense of why U.S. intelligence was so worried about the latest threat, and the significance of the threat's reported origin in Yemen: that's where Ibrahim al-Asiri is based, a.k.a. the guy behind the bombs constructed for the "underwear bomber" plot of 2009, along with an attempt on a Saudi intelligence chief's life using a bomb surgically implanted into the assassin. ABC explains that the newest idea, believed to be from al-Asiri, "allows terrorists to dip ordinary clothing into the liquid to make the clothes themselves into explosives once dry." Officials are also worried about a repeat attempt with a surgically-implanted bomb.

Meanwhile, the press is learning more details on the previously-reported intercepted message that led U.S. officials to the plot, which is reportedly in its final stages. While we already knew that Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri had threatened revenge on the U.S. for a series of drone strikes in the country, a New York Times piece today discloses that the messages intercepted by the U.S. were between al-Zawahri, along with Arabian Peninsula head Nasser al-Wuhayshi (now believed to be the number 2 of the whole organization) [....]

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/05/2013 - 6:49pm

Wondering what new torture the T.S.A. is planning for passengers upon hearing about these...

by artappraiser on Mon, 08/05/2013 - 6:52pm

Does this serve to pushback against concerns about the NSA?

by rmrd0000 on Mon, 08/05/2013 - 11:45pm

The most passionate Snowden supporters on the internet are still pushing all of this as a false flag stuff by the administration, just like happened during the Bush years with many terror alerts. After reading on it several days, I tend to suspect coincidence as the main factor, not false flag stuff. That's not to say they are not using the coincidence. Just like happened during the Bush years (I came to the conclusion in the same way back then that few terror alerts were not genuinely meant,) it's a coincidence which the administration is also happy to play up beyond a point they would normally do because of pressure about civil rights issues.

(Here in this case, one example of the nuance involved in what I am talking about if you read about these things in depth over time and don't jump to conclusions right away: the NYT's source asked the NYT not to reveal that it was Zawahri; they agreed. But then McClatchy's source the next day didn't ask for the same non-disclosure agreement. This does not suggest a competent, well-orchestrated false flag story to me!)

Here's the mistake I think people make when they jump to the conclusion that terror warnings are political false flag attempts to distract the media or scare people into supporting civil liberties restrictions. They underestimate the guilt and fear of our own intel services, a sort of post-traumatic stress syndrome from not catching 9/11, they themselves were 'terrorized' by that. It's not so much competent political manipulation as genuine fear that they are not competent to prevent these things. It's guilt and post-traumatic stress, a lot of our intel people really do feel they need to do a lot of this stuff to protect us. That's our real problem, I think. Not that they are all competent false flag creators and savvy political ops.

The constant Benghazi shit in Congress probably doesn't help this scenario. If we are not ready as a nation to accept that something like the Benghazi attack is going to happen once in a while, then we are expecting our intel agencies to go above and beyond and overboard with everything possible to protect. That's a scenario where many of them are bound to see civil liberties as a luxury item. If we want this situation to change, a lot more support has to be shown that people are willing to accept more risk of terror attacks from time to time, that voters won't play blame game when they invariably happen. If we want prevention, well, that's simply not like a Hollywood movie, you have to take a lot of really bad results and effects along with attempts at prevention.

by artappraiser on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 12:29am

The Guardian is doing a Live Blog on the Yemen security situation; here's the current heading:

Yemen security alert: US and British citizens told to leave – live updates
Live• Security forces on 'unprecedented alert' in Sana'a
• BBC: 'Dozens of al-Qaida operatives' entered recently
• US and UK evacuate non-essential embassy staff

by artappraiser on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 11:24am

A.P. was told that controversial NSA programs played no part in the original communications intercept:

Correction: US-Embassy Security story
By LARA JAKES and KIMBERLY DOZIER, The Big Story @ AP.org, Aug. 6 1:55 PM EDT

[....] Officials in the U.S. wouldn't say who intercepted the initial suspect communications — the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency or one of the other intelligence agencies — that kicked off the sweeping pre-emptive closure of U.S. facilities. But an intelligence official said the controversial NSA programs that gather data on American phone calls or track Internet communications with suspected terrorists played no part in detecting the initial tip. That official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the spying publicly.

A U.S. official familiar with the threat information said the decision to close the embassies was based on a broad swath of information, not just the intercept. The official said the U.S. has made clear in the past that AQAP makes its own operational decisions — that there are back-and-forth communications between al-Qaida leadership and AQAP, but that they operate independently. The official was not authorized to disclose the information to reporters and thus spoke on condition of anonymity. [....]

by artappraiser on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 9:23pm

A U.S. official familiar with the threat information said the decision to close the embassies was based on a broad swath of information, not just the intercept. The official said the U.S. has made clear in the past that AQAP makes its own operational decisions — that there are back-and-forth communications between al-Qaida leadership and AQAP, but that they operate independently. The official was not authorized to disclose the information to reporters and thus spoke on condition of anonymity. [....]

A U.S. official familiar with the threat information was not authorized to disclose the information to reporters ... and thus spoke on condition of anonymity. Yeah, right.

What, I wonder, is the point of the last sentence of both of your block quotes? The agent released to a journalist the findings of a secret operation. There should be zero doubt that some law could be shown to have been broken IF any of several government entities wished to look at it that way. The anonymous official was not worried about that. This was not a leak in which the official was trying to stay unidentified so as to dodge legal action.
The anonymous official did not walk out of his office on his own volition with that message. The official was instructed exactly as to what he was to go out and tell the news media. What is the point of his excuse for asking anonymity and what is the excuse for the media granting it in a case like this? Is it just so no one is ever accountable when the story changes or is found to be another lie.
And, can you, or anyone, tell me what [....] at the end means?

by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 10:35pm

And, can you, or anyone, tell me what [....] at the end means?

That there's more to follow in the article from which I am quoting. I.E, if those sentences were the ending sentences of the article, it would not be there. (Also, when quoting, or snipping as it is often called now, I was taught to use 4 periods when you are cutting out a sentence or more; three periods when you're cutting less than a sentence.)

by artappraiser on Tue, 08/06/2013 - 11:42pm

As to

The official was instructed exactly as to what he was to go out and tell the news media.

I don't agree that's how it always works. It works that way if the reporters are dealing with a press conference, whether it is an open one or one that is given in private to a few select reporters with the condition that source remains anonymous. Then the administration's or government department's disciplined spin is what's given. But many reporters specializing in intelligence have cultivated their own individual sources over a long period, and then talk with them on the phone at length when something like this story comes up, trying to squeeze something out of them, trying to get them to spill a few beans. And this is why you often see variations in the narrative from different reporters with different sources. It's a bit like what happens when detectives interrogate several witnesses, or perps, separately about a crime.

by artappraiser on Wed, 08/07/2013 - 12:04am

There was a time when that would be a sensible explanation and I would have agreed with you, but times have changed. I just do not believe that an intelligence official in a position today to be a reliable source for such information would dare to speak at length on the telephone with a journalist and reveal sensitive information, or analysis, or propaganda, which was not vetted and approved by higher-ups. Is there any doubt that there are levels or persons in the Executive branch, the CIA, the NSA, the Pentagon, the State Department, Homeland Security, and many other "intelligence agencies" who could, if they chose to, identify that "anonymous official" and burn his ass if he had gone off the reservation and spoken without authorization? They can almost certainly just get a readout of who called who, but if necessary to fill in any blanks they can certainly squeeze a lot harder than can any journalist. Could that "anonymous official" who said he was not authorized to speak on the subject not have known that to be the case? That official was doing his job as instructed, or at least received approval before giving out that information, IMO which I hold strongly enough to bet a fair amount and give odds on.

Paul Woodward says today at War in Context:

3. At a time when the Obama administration clearly has an interest in hyping terrorist threats and promoting the idea that leaks from Edward Snowden made America less safe, there are leaks currently coming out of the administration that indisputably have the highest level of classification and whose disclosure poses a real national security threat. Are we to suppose that there is another Snowden out there, but this time someone willing to take an even greater risk of being tried for treason? I doubt it very much.

Much, much, more likely, these are leaks that were authorized by President Obama himself, the leaker-in-chief who can declassify whatever he wants.

Coming from anywhere else it would be treason, but coming from the Oval Office, it’s business as usual.

http://warincontext.org/2013/08/06/something-big-a-big-attack-a-big-leak..., much, more likely, these are leaks that were authorized by President Obama himself, the leaker-in-chief who can declassify whatever he wants.

Coming from anywhere else it would be treason, but coming from the Oval Office, it’s business as usual.
- See more at: http://warincontext.org/#sthash.IhpJaL8Y.dpuf

Much, much, more likely, these are leaks that were authorized by President Obama himself, the leaker-in-chief who can declassify whatever he wants.

Coming from anywhere else it would be treason, but coming from the Oval Office, it’s business as usual.
- See more at: http://warincontext.org/#sthash.IhpJaL8Y.dpuf