A broadening multinational investigation seeks to probe the scale of the al Qaeda air freight plot causing mayhem in the international cargo freight system on the assumption that the threat is still viable. Yemen, to which two explosive parcels bound for Chicago synagogues were traced, itself seized more than 30 suspect parcels. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh claims to have arrested a woman in Sanaa suspected of sending the explosive packages. debkafile's sources question his ability to challenge al Qaeda's infrastructure.

The British embassy in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa shut down Monday, April 26, after an al Qaeda suicide attack on the ambassador's convoy and a clash with gunmen outside the embassy. According to first reports, one person was killed, but Ambassador Tim Torlot is safe. 
debkafile's counter-terror sources report that al Qaeda recently received an extra boost from secretly diverted US funds which Yemen president Abdullah Ali Salah used  to try and bribe the Islamists to relocate in Somalia - without success.

Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Salah Washington secretly diverted US funds for ending the Houthi war and fighting al Qaeda to jihadist leaders, hoping they would remove their bases from Yemen to Somalia. They've taken the money but not yet moved.

Secret trips by CIA director Leon Panetta to Cairo and Jerusalem Thursday night signaled Washington's decision to expand US military intervention in Yemen to smash al Qaeda's strongholds in that country. Yemen is unfortunately beset by two more wars.

The director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, paid secret visits to Cairo and Jerusalem Thursday, Jan. 28, to prepare the ground for expanding US military intervention in Yemen against al Qaeda strongholds, thereby opening a fresh front in the war on Islamist terror organization.
He asked for an Egyptian expeditionary force to back up US special forces and the use of Egyptian airfields as jumping off bases for US air ...

In his latest audio-taped message of Jan. 24, Osama bin Laden said he was responsible for the failed Detroit-bound airliner attack on Dec. 25. He vowed America would have no peace as long as there was "no security for the Palestinians."  But in al Qaeda's hottest arena, Yemen, Saudi Arabia turns out to have killed three of bin Laden's kingpins in a "mystery explosion" - and also produced evidence of Iranian backing for the Houthi rebels.

If combat units lack accurate intelligence on field conditions and the environment they cannot charge effective military operations or train indigenous forces to fight terrorists. This inadequacy is even more marked in Yemen than in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

 US president Barack Obama, in a speech after meeting top security chiefs, Tuesday, Jan. 5, said: We had enough information to foresee and prevent the attempted bombing [of the Northwest airliner] on Christmas day." But it was not fully analyzed or leveraged for putting the suspect on the no-fly list. "I will not accept this. We have to do better and must do it quickly."

US official spokesmen have stepped up their rhetoric against al Qaeda in Yemen but do not have the manpower resources to open another anti-terror warfront in addition to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and to a lesser degree Somalia, debkafile's Washington sources report.
Washington has a problem with the Yemen president: In the ten years since al Qaeda blew up the USS Cole in Aden harbor, Salah has conducted a dual policy, posing as America's faithful ally in the war on al Qaeda  while maintaining close back-door ties with al Qaeda in Yemen and giving them his protection.

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