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| al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri |
WASHINGTON – An intercepted secret message between
al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri and his deputy in Yemen about plans for a major
terror attack was the trigger that set off the current shutdown of many U.S.
embassies, two officials told The Associated Press on Monday.
A U.S. intelligence official and a Mideast diplomat said
al-Zawahri’s message was picked up several weeks ago and appeared to initially
target Yemeni interests. The threat was expanded to include American or other
Western sites abroad, officials said, indicating the target could be a single
embassy, a number of posts or some other site. Lawmakers have said it was a
massive plot in the final stages, but they have offered no specifics.
The intelligence official said the message was sent to
Nasser al-Wahishi, the head of the terror network’s organization, based in
Yemen, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.
Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly.
American spies and intelligence analysts on Monday scoured
email, phone calls and radio communications between al-Qaida operatives in
Yemen and the organization’s senior leaders to determine the timing and targets
of the planned attack.
WATCH: NBC’s Richard Engel reports on why the al-Qaida
affiliate in Yemen is regarded as one of the most innovative – and dangerous –
terrorist cells in the world.
The call from al-Zawahri, who took over for Osama bin
Laden after U.S. Navy commandos killed the al-Qaida leader in May 2011, led the
Obama administration to close diplomatic posts from Mauritania on Africa’s west
coast through the Middle East to Bangladesh, east of India, and as far south as
Madagascar.
The U.S. did decide to reopen some posts on Monday,
including well-defended embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad.
Authorities in Yemen, meanwhile, released the names of 25
wanted al-Qaida suspects and said those people had been planning terrorist attacks
targeting “foreign offices and organizations and Yemeni installations” in the
capital Sanaa and other cities across the country.
The Yemeni government also went on high alert Monday,
stepping up security at government facilities and checkpoints.
Officials in the U.S. wouldn’t say who intercepted the
initial suspect communications – the CIA, the National Security Agency, the
Defence 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.
Once the plot was detected, NSA analysts could use the
programs that leaker Edward Snowden revealed to determine whom the plotters may
have contacted around the world. Snowden revealed one program that collected
telephone data such as the numbers called and the duration of calls on U.S.
telephone networks. Another program searched global Internet usage. Therefore,
if a new name was detected in the initial chatter, the name or phone number of
that person could be run through the NSA databases to see whom he called or
what websites or emails he visited.
The surveillance is part of the continuing effort to
track the spread of al-Qaida from its birthplace in Afghanistan and Pakistan to
countries where governments and security forces are weaker and less welcoming
to the U.S. or harder for American counterterrorist forces to penetrate – such
as Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Mali and Libya – as well as Yemen, already home to
al-Qaida’s most dangerous affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which
is headed by al-Wahishi.
AQAP also has been blamed for the foiled Dec. 25, 2009
effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit and the explosives-laden parcels
intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights. The CIA and Pentagon
jointly run drone targeting of al-Qaida in Yemen.
The Obama administration announced the embassy closures
one day after President Barack Obama met with Yemeni President Abdo Rabby
Mansour Hadi. A person familiar with the meeting said Obama and Hadi did
discuss al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula but their talks did not directly
result in the embassy closures and travel ban.
That person insisted on anonymity because the person was
not authorized to discuss the private meeting.
White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn’t say whether the
threat extends to the United States or whether Americans should be fearful
because of the alerts.
“What we know is the threat emanates from, and may be
focused on, occurring in the Arabian Peninsula,” Carney said. “It could
potentially be beyond that, or elsewhere.”
“We cannot be more specific,” he said.
The U.S. also has stepped up surveillance in Africa,
flying unarmed observation drones from Libya, focused in that country on a mix
of militant groups in the town of Darna. A newer U.S. operation opened last
year at an airfield in Niger, aimed at tracking another affiliate, al-Qaida in
the Islamic Maghreb, in neighbouring Mali.
The model for both is the U.S. operation in Somalia. CIA
officers there provide intelligence, and special operators advise U.N.
peacekeeping troops on tactics as well as delivering surveillance and
intelligence – carrying out the occasional raid against pirates or militants.
Acting on what it said was an “overabundance of caution,”
the State Department on Sunday closed a total of 19 diplomatic posts until next
Saturday. They include posts in Bangladesh and across North Africa and the
Middle East as well as East Africa, including Madagascar, Burundi, Rwanda and
Mauritius. The closure of the African facilities came just days before the 15th
anniversary of al-Qaida’s bombings of American diplomatic missions in Kenya and
Tanzania.
Those two embassies targeted in the Aug. 7, 1998 attacks
were rebuilt as more heavily fortified structures away from populated areas
where they would be less vulnerable to attack.
One senior U.S. diplomat in the region said his
diplomatic facility was keeping a skeleton U.S. staff working to provide some
U.S. citizen services, but was limiting movements in and out of the area and
remained closed to the general public. Diplomatic staff were taking precautions
standard for the region even in normal times – avoiding areas of known militant
activity and varying times and routes for business or personal meetings. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not
authorized to discuss the closures publicly.
The British and German embassies in Yemen also were
closed. Norway’s Foreign Ministry, too, restricted public access to 15 of its
embassies in the Middle East and Africa, including its post in Saudi Arabia.
——
Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Deb Riechmann, and
Adam Goldman contributed from Washington; Ahmed al Haj contributed from Sanaa,
Yemen, Jason Straziuso from Nairobi, Jill Lawless from London, and Malin Rising
from Stockholm.
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