AP Exclusive: Al-Qaida leader targeting UN workers

This undated photo provided by Iraqi government intelligence officials on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013 shows Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Iraqi intelligence officials that the shadowy leader of the powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria has sought to kidnap United Nations workers. The officials say they obtained the information about al-Golani, after capturing members of another al-Qaida group and that men gave them the first known photograph of al-Golani and letters written by the militant leader. (AP Photo/Iraqi Government)

This undated photo provided by Iraqi government intelligence officials on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013 shows Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Iraqi intelligence officials that the shadowy leader of the powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria has sought to kidnap United Nations workers. The officials say they obtained the information about al-Golani, after capturing members of another al-Qaida group and that men gave them the first known photograph of al-Golani and letters written by the militant leader. (AP Photo/Iraqi Government)

This undated photo provided by Iraqi government intelligence officials on Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013 shows Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Iraqi intelligence officials that the shadowy leader of the powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria has sought to kidnap United Nations workers. The officials say they obtained the information about al-Golani, after capturing members of another al-Qaida group and that men gave them the first known photograph of al-Golani and letters written by the militant leader. (AP Photo/Iraqi Government)

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BAGHDAD (AP) — The shadowy leader of a powerful al-Qaida group fighting in Syria sought to kidnap United Nations workers and scrawled out plans for his aides to take over in the event of his death, according to excerpts of letters obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Iraqi intelligence officials offered the AP the letters, as well as the first known photograph of the Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the head of one of the most powerful bands of radicals fighting the Syrian government in the country’s civil war.

The officials said they obtained the information about al-Golani after they captured members of another al-Qaida group in September. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to journalists.

“I was told by a soldier that he observed some of the workers of the U.N. and he will kidnap them. I ask God for his success,” read an excerpt of a letter given by officials from Iraq’s Falcon Intelligence Cell, an anti-terrorism unit that works under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The officials said other letters planned the kidnapping and killing of other foreigners, and Syrian and Iraqi civilians.

One U.N. worker was kidnapped for eight months in Syria and was released in October. Another two dozen U.N. peacekeepers were briefly held this year. It’s not clear if those abductions had any relation to al-Golani’s letters.

Syria’s uprising began with peaceful protests, but it turned into an armed uprising after Assad’s forces cracked down on demonstrators.

Since then, hard-line Islamic brigades have emerged as the strongest rebel forces in Syria, chiefly among them the Nusra Front.

Under al-Golani’s leadership, it has dominated rebel-held parts of southern Syria, and it is a powerful fighting force in the Damascus countryside and northern Syria, with an estimated force of 6,000 to 7,000 fighters.

Al-Maliki’s Shiite-majority government is considered a quiet ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The officials may have released the letter excerpts to underscore the dominance of al-Qaida in Syria.

The intelligence officials did not where they found the al-Qaida fighters who handed over the documents. They also would not say when the letters were written, though they said it represented a tiny sample of a large cache of documents.

The officials couldn’t explain why the letter excerpts were in a sloppily written, grammatically incorrect version of an Arabic dialect used across the Levant. It is believed that al-Golani was an Arabic teacher before he rose through al-Qaida’s ranks, and typically hard-line Muslims try to write in classical Arabic.

It may have been that an aide was writing down al-Golani’s speech. Arabs typically speak in dialects that are often quite different from the classical Arabic.

“The claim by Iraqi intelligence that Jolani and by extension, Jabhat al-Nusra, have been behind an explicit policy of kidnapping U.N. workers should be treated with some suspicion,” said Charles Lister, a prominent analyst of Syria’s militant groups. He referred to the Nusra Front by its Arabic name. “While it might well be true, elements within Iraq’s security services have a clear interest in portraying jihadists in Syria and Iraq in a highly negative light.”

Little is known about al-Golani, including his real name. He is believed to be 39 years old. The photograph suggests a man in his thirties.

Al-Golani is a nom de guerre, indicating he was born in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

A Syrian native, he joined the insurgency after moving to Iraq.

He advanced through al-Qaida’s ranks and eventually became a close associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born leader of the militant group al-Qaida in Iraq.

He eventually returned to Syria shortly after the uprising against Assad began in March 2011, where he formed the Nusra Front, first announced in January 2012.

The group gained prominence in April after Golani rejected an attempted takeover of the Nusra Front by another rival al-Qaida group, now known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Iraqi intelligence officials said it was members of ISIL who gave them the information about al-Golani.

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Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue and Diaa Hadid in Beirut contributed to this report.

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Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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AP Exclusive: Al-Qaida leader targeting UN workers

Al-Qaida surges back in Iraq, reviving old fears

FILE – In this Oct. 8, 2013 file photo, women walk past the aftermath of a car bomb attack in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to maintain an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government’s authority. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)

FILE – In this Oct. 8, 2013 file photo, women walk past the aftermath of a car bomb attack in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad, Iraq. Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to maintain an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government’s authority. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File)

In this Oct. 11, 2013 photo, Nasser Waleed Ali talks during an interview with the Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq. First came the ball of fire, the man recalled, then the victims’ screams. The suicide bomb blast that knocked him to the ground, peppered him with shrapnel, and killed over 50 was just one of many bearing the stamp of al-Qaida. Aiming to sow instability and looking stronger than in years, the group relentlessly carries out mass-casualty attacks several times a month. Recent prison breaks have bolstered its ranks, and the chaos caused by the civil war in neighboring Syria is fueling its comeback. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

The Tigris River snakes its way through Baghdad, Friday, Oct. 11, 2013. Long a place to relax in crowded Baghdad before the war, the Tigris today runs past the heavily fortified Green Zone and the sprawling U.S. Embassy inside, and memories of bodies dumped in it at the height of the sectarian killings remain fresh. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Qasim Ahmed Tahan carries the dead body of his 5-year-old son, Walid, who was killed in a bombing on Monday, before burial in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013. Violence has spiked in Iraq during the past few months. More than 4,000 people have been killed between April and August, a level of carnage not seen since the country was on the brink of civil war in 2006-08. (AP Photo/Jaber al-Helo)

People inspect the site of a double suicide bomb attack in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr city in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. Two suicide bombers, one in an explosives-laden car and the other on foot, hit a cluster of funeral tents packed with mourning families in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad, the deadliest in a string of attacks around Iraq that killed scores on Saturday. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

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BAGHDAD (AP) — First came the fireball, then the screams of the victims. The suicide bombing just outside a Baghdad graveyard knocked Nasser Waleed Ali over and peppered his back with shrapnel.

Ali was one of the lucky ones. At least 51 died in the Oct. 5 attack, many of them Shiite pilgrims walking by on their way to a shrine. No one has claimed responsibility, but there is little doubt al-Qaida’s local franchise is to blame. Suicide bombers and car bombs are its calling cards, Shiite civilians among its favorite targets.

Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to cultivate an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government’s authority.

Recent prison breaks have bolstered al-Qaida’s ranks, while feelings of Sunni marginalization and the chaos caused by the civil war in neighboring Syria are fueling its comeback.

“Nobody is able to control this situation,” said Ali, who watches over a Sunni graveyard that sprang up next to the hallowed Abu Hanifa mosque in 2006, when sectarian fighting threated to engulf Iraq in all-out civil war.

“We are not safe in the coffee shops or mosques, not even in soccer fields,” he continued, rattling off some of the targets hit repeatedly in recent months.

The pace of the killing accelerated significantly following a deadly crackdown by security forces on a camp for Sunni protesters in the northern town of Hawija in April. United Nations figures show 712 people died violently in Iraq that month, at the time the most since 2008.

The monthly death toll hasn’t been that low since. September saw 979 killed.

Al-Qaida does not have a monopoly on violence in Iraq, a country where most households have at least one assault rifle tucked away. Other Sunni militants, including the Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order, which has ties to members of Saddam Hussein’s now-outlawed Baath party, also carry out attacks, as do Shiite militias that are remobilizing as the violence escalates.

But al-Qaida’s indiscriminate waves of car bombs and suicide attacks, often in civilian areas, account for the bulk of the bloodshed.

The group earlier this year renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, highlighting its cross-border ambitions. It is playing a more active military role alongside other predominantly Sunni rebels in the fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, and its members have carried out attacks against Syrians near the porous border inside Iraq.

The United States believes the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is now operating from Syria.

“Given the security vacuum, it makes sense for him to do that,” said Paul Floyd, a military analyst at global intelligence company Stratfor who served several U.S. Army tours in Iraq. He said the unrest in Syria could be making it even easier for al-Qaida to get its hands on explosives for use in Iraq.

“We know Syrian military stocks have fallen into the hands of rebels. There’s nothing to preclude some of that stuff flowing across the border,” he said.

Iraqi officials acknowledge the group is growing stronger.

Al-Qaida has begun actively recruiting more young Iraqi men to take part in suicide missions after years of relying primarily on foreign volunteers, according to two intelligence officials. They said al-Baghdadi has issued orders calling for 50 attacks per week, which if achieved would mark a significant escalation.

One of the officials estimated that al-Qaida now has at least 3,000 trained fighters in Iraq alone, including some 100 volunteers awaiting orders to carry out suicide missions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to disclose intelligence information.

A study released this month by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said al-Qaida in Iraq has emerged as “an extremely vigorous, resilient, and capable organization” that can operate as far south as Iraq’s Persian Gulf port of Basra.

The group “has reconstituted as a professional military force capable of planning, training, resourcing and executing synchronized and complex attacks in Iraq,” author Jessica Lewis added.

The study found that al-Qaida was able to carry out 24 separate attacks involving waves of six or more car bombs on a single day during a one-year period that coincided with the terror group’s “Breaking the Walls” campaign, which ended in July.

It carried out eight separate prison attacks over the same period, ending with the complex, military-style assaults on two Baghdad-area prisons on July 21 that freed more than 500 inmates, many of them al-Qaida members.

“It’s safe to assume a good percentage of them … would flow back into the ranks,” boosting the group’s manpower, said Floyd, the military analyst.

American troops and Iraqi forces, including Sunni militiamen opposed to the group’s extremist ideology, beat back al-Qaida after the U.S. launched its surge strategy in 2007. That policy shift deployed additional American troops to Iraq and shifted the focus of the war effort toward enhancing security for Iraqis and winning their trust.

By 2009, al-Qaida and other Sunni extremist groups were “reduced to a few small cells struggling to survive and unable to mount more than token attacks,” Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton administration official who is now a Middle East analyst at the Brookings Institution, noted in a report earlier this year.

Now there are fears that all the hard work is coming undone.

Iraqis, both Sunni and Shiite, say they are losing faith in the government’s ability to keep the country safe.

“Al-Qaida can blow up whatever number of car bombs they want whenever they choose,” said Ali Nasser, a Shiite government employee from Baghdad. “It seems like al-Qaida is running the country, not the government in Baghdad.”

Many Sunnis, meanwhile, are unwilling to trust a government they feel has sidelined and neglected their sect.

Iraqi officials say that lack of trust has hampered intelligence-gathering efforts, with fewer Sunnis willing to pass along tips about suspected terrorist activities in their midst.

“During the surge, we helped build up the immune system of Iraq to deter these attacks. Now that immune system has been taken away,” said Emma Sky, a key civilian policy adviser for U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno when he was the top American military commander in Iraq.

“Before you had the U.S. there to protect the political space and help move the country forward,” she added. “How much longer can this go on before something breaks?”

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

___

Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck

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Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Al-Qaida surges back in Iraq, reviving old fears

As al-Qaida grows, leaders remain a global threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — Far from being on the brink of collapse, al-Qaida’s core leadership remains a potent threat — and one that experts say has encouraged the terror network’s spread into more countries today than it was operating in immediately after 9/11.

President Barack Obama, who ordered the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, has described al-Qaida’s headquarters as “a shadow of its former self.” White House spokesman Jay Carney on Tuesday called it “severely diminished” and “decimated.”

The bravado, however, didn’t match the Obama administration’s action this week. It closed 19 U.S. diplomatic outposts stretching across the Eastern Hemisphere and evacuated nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Yemen after intelligence officials said they had intercepted a recent message from al-Qaida’s top leader about plans for a major terror attack.

The new communique came from bin Laden’s replacement, Ayman al-Zawahri, who as early as December 2001 announced plans to decentralize the network and scatter its affiliates across the globe as a way of ensuring its survival.

Now, major al-Qaida hubs are thriving along the Iraqi-Syrian border, in North Africa and, in the most serious risk to the U.S., in Yemen.

The regional hubs may not take direct orders from al-Zawahri, and terror experts say they rarely coordinate operations with each other or share funding and fighters. But they have promoted al-Qaida’s mission far beyond what its reach was a dozen years ago and, in turn, created an enduring legacy for its core leaders.

“Even while the core al-Qaida group may be in decline, al-Qaida-ism, the movement’s ideology, continues to resonate and attract new adherents,” Bruce Hoffman, director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, wrote in a research paper earlier this year.

Bin Laden’s death, Hoffman wrote, “left behind a resilient movement that, although seriously weakened, has been expanding and consolidating its control in new and far-flung locales.”

Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian whose location is unknown, issues messages to followers every few months that are posted and circulated on jihadi websites. His latest, posted July 30, lashed out at Obama for the continued U.S. detention of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and for launching deadly drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other Muslim countries.

“You fought us for 13 years. … Did we soften or toughen up? Did we back out or advance? Did we withdraw or spread out?” al-Zawahri asked Obama in his July 30 message, according to a transcript of his letter that was translated from Arabic by SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.

He continued, “I call on every Muslim in every spot on Earth to seek with all that he can to stop the crimes of America and its allies against the Muslims — in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Mali, and everywhere.”

Three days later, the State Department announced the temporary closing of U.S. embassies and diplomatic outposts across the Mideast, Africa and Asia — although not in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel or Mali. Officials this week said the closures were prompted by an unspecified threat to U.S. and Western interests in a message from al-Zawahri to his top lieutenant in Yemen, where al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is based.

AQAP, as the terror network’s regional hub is known, is led by Nasser al-Wahishi, who for years was close to al-Zawahri and bin Laden, and is one of al-Qaida’s few remaining core leaders, said SITE director Rita Katz.

Intelligence officials say AQAP has for years announced its intent to attack the U.S., and is widely considered the biggest threat to the West of the al-Qaida affiliates. The group is linked to the botched Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner bound for Detroit and explosives-laden parcels intercepted aboard cargo flights a year later.

Katz said AQAP may serve as the future al-Qaida headquarters, given that al-Zawahri and other core leaders pay attention to al-Wahishi. But she warned, “There will be a new leader in the future, and I doubt it will stay the same.”

For the most part, al-Qaida’s regional power centers have formed in places undergoing political upheaval, where security forces are too distracted by internal war or strife to clamp down on extremists.

The civil war in Syria, now in its third year, has given al-Qaida a huge boost and an opportunity to seize land that the Sunni-based network has long yearned to control. Having a leadership role in Syria would be a victory for al-Qaida given the country’s prominence in Muslim scripture, its proximity to other Arab states and the network’s hatred toward Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, who include Syrian President Bashar Assad.

More than 100,000 people have died in the Syrian war, which largely pits Sunni opposition forces and rebels against Assad’s Alawite regime, and has drawn fighters linked to al-Qaida. Many have come from neighboring Iraq, which itself is reeling from political instability.

Violence has risen steadily since the American military left Iraq in December 2011, fueled in part by Syrian cross-border militant traffic but also because of Baghdad’s inability to curb attacks.

July was the deadliest month in Iraq in years, with attacks killing more than 1,000 people and wounding at least 2,300, according to U.N. data. And coordinated jailbreaks at two high-security Iraqi prisons last month set free hundreds of inmates, including al-Qaida extremists. Iraq’s branch of al-Qaida, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, claimed responsibility for the raids that it said were planned for months.

Kenneth Pollack, who oversaw Persian Gulf issues while on the White House National Security Council during the Clinton administration, said al-Qaida is poised to gain from instability across the Mideast — in part by using Iraq as a regional hub.

“Al-Qaida in Iraq is back. They were dead in 2010, dead as doornails, and now they are huge in Iraq,” Pollack said. “They have operations in Syria and they are a real movement in Syria.”

But the al-Qaida fighters in Iraq and Syria have shown little interest in attacking Americans beyond the region, Pollack said, and neither have most of those in northern Africa. There, in a region that spans across the Sahel and stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to Somalia, a spread of militants are calling themselves al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb.

AQIM is rooted in Algeria and affiliated with al-Zawahri, who in April warned French troops fighting extremists in Mali that they would face “the same fate America met in Iraq and Afghanistan” as long as they stayed. But there’s no evidence the North African groups receive direct orders from al-Zawahri, and most are as motivated by asserting local authority through criminal activity as by anti-Western ideology.

It’s believed that AQIM was linked to some of the militants behind last year’s attack on a diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. And AQIM is suspected of driving overloaded trucks of rifles, mortars and other weapons from Libya to Mali and Niger to arm allies there.

Al-Zawahri also urged Muslims to join Somali militants in a message last November. The Somali-based militant group al-Shabab is loosely linked to al-Qaida, but some of its members have plotted attacks against the United States, where large pockets of Somalis have moved to escape famine and war over the last 20 years.

An inevitable part of al-Qaida’s growth is its new regional leadership — few of whom fought with bin Laden or have ever worked with al-Zawahri, Katz said. They may not all be driven by the same anti-American or anti-Western fervors that motivated bin Laden, but that makes them no less a global threat as the disparate groups mature.

“In the past, people wanted to go to Afghanistan; it was the dream of every possible jihadi on the front to go to Afghanistan to fight in al-Qaida training camps,” Katz said. “You don’t see that anymore. No one cares about what’s happening in Afghanistan.

“If anyone wants to go anywhere today it is, of course, Syria,” she said. “Going to Yemen is always a good thing for them; going to Somalia is less than it used to be, but it’s still another possibility. Things change all the time.”

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Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at https://twitter.com/larajakesAP

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As al-Qaida grows, leaders remain a global threat

Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.

The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year’s deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was “more specific” than previous ones and the “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests.”

The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida 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,” a department statement said.

The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an “abundance of caution” and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

“I don’t know if I can say there was a specific threat,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department’s decision. “There is concern over the potentiality of violence.”

Although the warning coincided with “Al-Quds Day,” the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel, U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn’t directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.

The concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch’s gains in territory and reach during Yemen’s prolonged Arab Spring-related instability.

The group made significant territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of Yemen’s longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.

Yemen’s current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen’s military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group’s southern strongholds.

As recently as June, the group’s commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings. “Making these bombs has become in everyone’s … reach,” he said, according to the English subtitles on the video, reposted by private U.S. intelligence firm the IntelCenter.

“The blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plot,” said Seth Jones, counterterror expert at the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.

Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.

Britain, which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington, stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.” British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East were to remain open.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

“In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should,” Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency’s much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

The New York Times reported Friday night that American officials said the U.S. had intercepted electronic communications among senior operatives of al-Qaida.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department’s decision to go public with its concerns.

“The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives,” he said, describing the threat as “not the regular chitchat” picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.

The State Department issued another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.

The administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate diplomatic protection.

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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Sagar Meghani and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

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Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

File – The Harry S. Truman Building, headquarters for the State Department, is seen in Washington, in this March 9, 2009 file photo. The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday Aug. 2, 2013 about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend. The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

File – The Harry S. Truman Building, headquarters for the State Department, is seen in Washington, in this March 9, 2009 file photo. The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday Aug. 2, 2013 about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend. The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaks to staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. The Obama administration hasn’t sent its top diplomat to Pakistan since 2011, and Kerry’s trip is a chance for the former senator to get to know the newly elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who came to power in Pakistan’s first transition between civilian governments.

Map shows U.S. embassies and consulates that will close; 3c x 3 inches; 146 mm x 76 mm;

Secretary of State John Kerry gives policy address on same-sex spouses applying for U.S. visas, Friday, Aug. 2, 2103, at the U.S. Embassy in London. The U.S. will immediately begin considering visa applications of gay and lesbian spouses in the same manner as heterosexual couples, Kerry said on Friday. (AP Photo/Jason Reed. Pool)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.

The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year’s deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was “more specific” than previous ones and the “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests.”

The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida 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,” a department statement said.

The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an “abundance of caution” and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

“I don’t know if I can say there was a specific threat,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department’s decision. “There is concern over the potentiality of violence.”

Although the warning coincided with “Al-Quds Day,” the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel, U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn’t directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.

The concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch’s gains in territory and reach during Yemen’s prolonged Arab Spring-related instability.

The group made significant territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of Yemen’s longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.

Yemen’s current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen’s military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group’s southern strongholds.

As recently as June, the group’s commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings. “Making these bombs has become in everyone’s … reach,” he said, according to the English subtitles on the video, reposted by private U.S. intelligence firm the IntelCenter.

“The blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plot,” said Seth Jones, counterterror expert at the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.

Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.

Britain, which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington, stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.” British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East were to remain open.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

“In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should,” Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency’s much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

The New York Times reported Friday night that American officials said the U.S. had intercepted electronic communications among senior operatives of al-Qaida.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department’s decision to go public with its concerns.

“The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives,” he said, describing the threat as “not the regular chitchat” picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.

The State Department issued another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.

The administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate diplomatic protection.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Sagar Meghani and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

___

State Department alerts: travel.state.gov

Smart Traveler Enrollment Program: step.state.gov

Associated Press

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Politics Headlines

Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.

The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year’s deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was “more specific” than previous ones and the “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests.”

The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida 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,” a department statement said.

The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an “abundance of caution” and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

“I don’t know if I can say there was a specific threat,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department’s decision. “There is concern over the potentiality of violence.”

Although the warning coincided with “Al-Quds Day,” the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel, U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn’t directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.

The concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch’s gains in territory and reach during Yemen’s prolonged Arab Spring-related instability.

The group made significant territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of Yemen’s longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.

Yemen’s current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen’s military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group’s southern strongholds.

As recently as June, the group’s commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings. “Making these bombs has become in everyone’s … reach,” he said, according to the English subtitles on the video, reposted by private U.S. intelligence firm the IntelCenter.

“The blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plot,” said Seth Jones, counterterror expert at the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.

Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.

Britain, which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington, stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.” British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East were to remain open.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

“In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should,” Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency’s much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

The New York Times reported Friday night that American officials said the U.S. had intercepted electronic communications among senior operatives of al-Qaida.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department’s decision to go public with its concerns.

“The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives,” he said, describing the threat as “not the regular chitchat” picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.

The State Department issued another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.

The administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate diplomatic protection.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Sagar Meghani and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

___

State Department alerts: travel.state.gov

Smart Traveler Enrollment Program: step.state.gov

Associated Press

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Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the weekend.

The alert was the first of its kind since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last year’s deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.

“There is a significant threat stream and we’re reacting to it,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was “more specific” than previous ones and the “intent is to attack Western, not just U.S. interests.”

The State Department warning urged American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.

The statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S. government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.

The State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida’s most dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.

“Current information suggests that al-Qaida 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,” a department statement said.

The alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department acted out of an “abundance of caution” and that some missions may stay closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.

“I don’t know if I can say there was a specific threat,” said Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s top Democrat, who was briefed on the State Department’s decision. “There is concern over the potentiality of violence.”

Although the warning coincided with “Al-Quds Day,” the last Friday of the Islamic month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel, U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn’t directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.

The concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch’s gains in territory and reach during Yemen’s prolonged Arab Spring-related instability.

The group made significant territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of Yemen’s longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.

Yemen’s current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen’s military reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in the group’s southern strongholds.

As recently as June, the group’s commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings. “Making these bombs has become in everyone’s … reach,” he said, according to the English subtitles on the video, reposted by private U.S. intelligence firm the IntelCenter.

“The blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plot,” said Seth Jones, counterterror expert at the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.

Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.

Britain, which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington, stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn “due to security concerns.” British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East were to remain open.

Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.

“In this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and, out of an abundance of caution, we should,” Royce said. He declined to say if the National Security Agency’s much-debated surveillance program helped reveal the threat.

The New York Times reported Friday night that American officials said the U.S. had intercepted electronic communications among senior operatives of al-Qaida.

Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, also supported the department’s decision to go public with its concerns.

“The most important thing we have to do is protect American lives,” he said, describing the threat as “not the regular chitchat” picked up from would-be militants on the Internet or elsewhere.

The State Department issued another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.

The administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate diplomatic protection.

___

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Sagar Meghani and Kimberly Dozier in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

___

State Department alerts: travel.state.gov

Smart Traveler Enrollment Program: step.state.gov

Associated Press

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Global travel warning: US cites al-Qaida threat