More Mid-East Rumblings

[Sigma_Orionis]

US flies embassy staff out of Yemen amid terror alert

This has been going on since the weekend.

The folks at Stratfor think the US is overreacting. Don't know how reliable Stratfor is. But, since the Benghazi business happened less than a year ago, and ended up with the death of the US ambassador. I'm not so sure the US is being paranoid THIS time anyways.

Now apparently whatever is going to happen (if anything at all happens) has its epicenter in Yemen. Hopefully it will be a non-event.

[SciFiFisher]

STRATFOR is pretty reliable. The problem is that prior to Benghazi there were signals that were either missed or ignored. The current administration is caught in a DIYD-DIYD situation. Overall there were around 22 embassies and legations closed over the week-end due to an increase in traffic and signals that someone feels are credible. And of course, some of that intelligence can't be shared so they are stuck with "you just have to take our word for it" .

[Sigma_Orionis]

The current administration is caught in a DIYD-DIYD situation.

You do realize that what you said pretty much sums up a good deal of the situation of the US (regarding International Politics) since 1945 don't you?

And of course, some of that intelligence can't be shared so they are stuck with "you just have to take our word for it" .

And there goes another of those acronyms you Yanks love to make: WNINTEL. I had to learn what it meant after Yosh used it this morning on the Manning thread-

[Sigma_Orionis]

Some more info on this:

Yemen security crackdown as UK and US withdraw staff

The US embassy and consulate closures reportedly followed intercepted conversations between two senior al-Qaeda figures, including top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, suggesting renewed terrorist attacks.

and

He says a security source confirmed that Yemeni intelligence services had discovered that dozens of al-Qaeda members had arrived in Sanaa over the past days in preparation for a major attack.

The source suggested it was to include explosions and suicide attacks aimed at Western diplomatic missions and Yemeni military headquarters

[FZR1KG]

Some more info on this:

Yemen security crackdown as UK and US withdraw staff

The US embassy and consulate closures reportedly followed intercepted conversations between two senior al-Qaeda figures, including top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, suggesting renewed terrorist attacks.

and

He says a security source confirmed that Yemeni intelligence services had discovered that dozens of al-Qaeda members had arrived in Sanaa over the past days in preparation for a major attack.

The source suggested it was to include explosions and suicide attacks aimed at Western diplomatic missions and Yemeni military headquarters

This is fucked up.
How dare the USA read other peoples messages.
Its about privacy damnit!!!!

Pardon my sarcasm

[Rommie]

I find it interesting that not much has happened, so of course terrorist groups are now gloating that it is super easy to make the USA scramble even on false information.

There is of course a point in there. After Benghazi they are erring on the side of overreaction, and they know now how well they're being read, so why not throw in a few red herrings even when you can't actually pull something off?

[Sigma_Orionis]

Or, if you want to be cynical, one could assume that the US government is announcing and acting on all this alerts because they want to prove the worth of the PRISM surveillance program.

[FZR1KG]

Or the terrorist organisations have nothing else to say because they just got foiled.
I know its a hard choice for some but in cases like these I'd believe the government over a terrorist organisations POV.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I'm with you on that one.

[SciFiFisher]

All of the above.

There was chatter. Prism picked up some of the chatter. Possibly Prism was used to validate the threat. Now the NSA can say "Prism works".

The US can say "attacks foiled".

The terrorists can say "see how we make you dance like a puppet while we pull the strings". While secretly saying "crap! Now what do we do with all these explosives?"

Everyone will claim some credit from this.

[Sigma_Orionis]

However I don't see the coda "Everybody Happy".......