US shuts embassy as al-Qaeda ‘plans attack in Yemen’
BBC
A report on the news that the United States and Great Britain have closed their embassies in Yemen in response to terror threats from Al-Qaeda:
The US and Britain have shut their Yemen embassies after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot linked to an alleged failed US plane bomb plot.
The UK Foreign Office told the BBC its embassy in the capital Sanaa was closed “for security reasons”, hours after the US announced its mission had been shut.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier said the UK and US would step up counter-terror efforts in Yemen.
There are mounting fears lawless Yemen is becoming an al-Qaeda haven.
Mr Brennan, the US Deputy National Security Adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, told ABC’s This Week TV programme that the group had “several hundred members” in Yemen and was posing an increasing threat there.
“This is something that we’ve known about for a while,” he said. “We’re determined to destroy al-Qaeda, whether it’s in Pakistan, Afghanistan, or in Yemen.”
Mr Brennan added: “We know that they have been targeting our embassy, our embassy personnel.”
It was not clear when the UK or US embassies would reopen.
In a statement on its website, the US embassy said it would be closed on Sunday “in response to ongoing threats by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to attack American interests in Yemen”.
The embassy also reminded US citizens in Yemen to be aware of security.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said the British embassy was closed on Sunday and a decision would be taken later on whether to open it on Monday.
The embassy closures follow last week’s threat by a group called al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, urging Muslims to help in “killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places”.
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Newsbusters
Bill Kristol has set forth a stinging indictment of the Obama admin’s handling of the war on terror. His two-minute monologue on today’s Fox News Sunday delineated a devastating bill of particulars:
It was a mistake to treat Abdul Mutallab as a criminal defendant rather than as an enemy combatant: “Mr. Brennan [Obama’s top counter-terrorism adviser who appeared earlier] said to you that we’re very worried that there’re other Abdul Mutallabs out there. This Abdul Mutallab was there for four months. He might know who the others are. He might know their names. Will you let him lawyer up?”
As to Brennan’s claim that there was no “smoking gun” regarding Abdul Mutallab: “He is the smoking gun,” going on to detail all the red flags surrounding him. “Frankly, for Mr. Brennan to say, well, no smoking gun, that itself shows a kind of not-serious-about-the-war mentality.”
… “Closing the embassy in Yemen last night? No one wants State Department officials put at risk, but that is a sign of weakness. Closing the embassy? We can’t protect our own embassy in Yemen, a place where we have special operations forces. A place we say we’re working with the government on the front lines of the war on terror? And there’s a terror threat, and we close the embassy? That’s a victory for al Qaeda. This last week has been a victory for al Qaeda in that region, I’m afraid.”
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Wild Thing’s comment……..
Yemen is a festering hole of muslim maggots.
Another win for the Islamists, who are learning each day just how far we can be pushed without any consequences. And so, America under Obama, tucks it’s tail between it’s legs and skoots for the woods!! How disgusting!! Obama is showing them how far they can go. And it won’t be pretty when that all changes.
How about we get all of our people out, that is, all non-Muslims, and then go after the terrorists there like there is NO tomorrow……for them.
Interestingly, MSM was reporting last night that this latest bombing attempt is ‘owned’ by the Obama administration since they/he knew before Christmas that Jihadists were coming after us wearing explosive underwear. (I guess this means blaming Bush is getting old). Newsweek broke the story.
Now that obama has established a track record on how they handle terrorists. This should be a clear signal to all terrorists. C’mon and attack us, and don’t worry, we’ll give you a lawyer and US Constitutional Rights and you won’t even have to tell us who you are or who your friends are.
This is insane.
Napolitano was right, “the system worked”. She left out the part that it worked for AlQuada.
I really do try not to post other folks stuff but this really hits te Nail on the head.
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January 4, 2009
Chickens and Their 2010 Roost
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
In the coming year, plenty of our chickens will be coming home to roost.
Take foreign relations. In 2009, the new administration assumed that George W. Bush was largely responsible for global tensions. As a remedy, we loudly reached out to our foes and those with whom we had uneasy relationships.
But so far these leaders — like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — have only interpreted Barack Obama’s serial goodwill gestures as weaknesses to be exploited. They play the part of the pushy class bully, we the whiny nerd.
In the waning days of 2009, Iran has announced it has no intention of dismantling its nuclear facilities and ignored the latest Obama deadline to cease. There’s no reason not to expect the theocracy to make significant strides in its nuclear program in 2010, while continuing without rebuke to beat and murder democratic dissidents in its streets.
Russia has announced plans to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons — and scoffed at our polite suggestions that it should pressure Iran to stop its nuclear development.
Venezuela brags of its own similar program to come — an act that could threaten all the neighboring democracies in the region.
The administration courted China on a much-heralded Asian tour. President Obama even has said he would be our first “Pacific president.”
Unfortunately, China was not impressed. It declined our advice about reducing its carbon footprint and instead reminded Americans that we owe the Chinese people nearly $1 trillion. Expect much more of that hectoring in 2010 as our debt to China grows.
Consider also the threat of Islamic terrorism. In 2009, some in the Obama administration decided “war on terror” was too provocative a label for what might be better dubbed “overseas contingency operations.” Apparently, they were thinking a kinder, gentler image would discourage terrorists.
Accordingly, the self-confessed architect of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was promised a civil trial in New York rather than a military tribunal normally accorded to out-of-uniform murderous terrorists. Expect a lot of soapbox speechmaking about America’s sins during his testimony in 2010.
As part of our efforts to break with the Bush anti-terrorism past, President Obama also vowed he would close the facility at Guantanamo Bay by Jan. 22, 2010 — another deadline that won’t be met.
But as 2009 ended, we were reminded that radical Islamic terrorists still want to kill us for who we are, and what we represent, rather than any particular thing we do.
Maj. Nidal Hasan, nursed on radical Islamic doctrine, murdered 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian at Ford Hood, Texas. Five would-be terrorists with U.S. citizenship were arrested in Pakistan on their way to link up with Islamist militant groups. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was stopped in flight from Amsterdam before he could blow up an American passenger jet.
Note that all these recent terrorists were not poor, lived in the hospitable West — and cared little that the Obama administration has been critical of the U.S.’s prior war-on-terror policies.
So, while we assured the world in 2009 that we wouldn’t be overzealous in our various efforts to stop terrorists, the terrorists proved they most certainly would be in theirs to kill us.
Meanwhile, at home we operated on the same naive assumptions. The Obama administration inherited a $500 billion deficit and expanded it threefold. Its planned mega-deficits may well grow the aggregate national debt over the next decade to over $20 trillion.
But the administration’s 2009 calculations on how to service the growing red ink are based on continued cheap interest. Yet in 2010, it is likely we will see rising inflation, rising interest rates — and rising costs to the continual self-destructive borrowing.
We were given a financial break on energy prices in 2009. The worldwide recession sent oil down to about $50 a barrel. But America did little during the year’s reprieve to rush into production newly discovered domestic gas and oil fields, to tap existing finds in Alaska, or to license new nuclear plants.
By year’s end, oil was creeping back up to $80. If the economic upswing continues, in 2010 it may near its old high of nearly $150 a barrel. Soon we will wish we had done something concrete in 2009 rather than offering more stale rhetoric about wind and solar power.
In other words, 2009 may seem to have ended relatively quietly. But in our foreign relations, in the war against terror, in our massive borrowing, and in our energy policies, we created chickens that soon will come home to roost in 2010.
©2010 Tribune Media Services
Oil closed at $81.65 up $2.29 todays close. how
high will it go, some say $200.00. Cluck, cluck!!
Mark, exactly that is just what it is.
Bob A., good point.That should be a headline.
Gator, thank you, Victor Davis Hanson
is always good. And regarding the oil,
yes that is a good way to describe it….
cluck cluck.