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Intel Community Worried Obama Administration Disclosed Too Much About Latest al Qaeda Threat (+video)

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Photo Credit: APIn warning about possible al Qaeda attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials may have provided too much detail about intercepted chatter and the source of the information, and that may make it more difficult to get such tips next time, former and current intelligence officials say.

On Friday, the U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans, citing an unspecified al Qaeda threat. The bulletin said that the highest threat levels are the Middle East and North Africa, “and possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arab Peninsula.”

As a result of the threat, the United States will close 21 embassies in 17 countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia on Sunday, the traditional start of the work week in those countries.

On Saturday, unnamed U.S. officials told media outlets Yemeni intelligence agencies alerted Washington to the threat during the visit by the Yemeni president to Washington.

U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity further told press representatives that “chatter” among “operatives” from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had been taking place over the last several weeks, and increased over the last few days, lending further credence to the Yemeni warning.

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US Issues Global Travel Alert Amid Threat of Al Qaeda Terror Attack

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Photo Credit: Vox EfxThe State Department issued a worldwide travel alert on Friday and ordered the temporary closure of nearly 20 diplomatic outposts worldwide amid the threat of a potential al Qaeda terrorist attack.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said her staff and other congressional leaders have been briefed by the administration on the situation, but declined to offer details on the nature of the terror threat.

“Now that it’s in the public domain that the embassies will be closed and there’s a travel alert for Americans traveling abroad, there’s some understanding of the seriousness of the threat,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Friday said Vice President Biden informed him and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), about the threat earlier this week.

“It’s my understanding that it is al Qaeda-linked, alright? And the threat emanates in the Middle East and in Central Asia,” Royce said on CNN.

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Military Experts Warn US Losing Iraq as Violence Escalates

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Photo Credit: APAs violence and political turmoil tear through a war-wrecked Iraq, military experts are warning Congress that Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist cells are regrouping and working together not only in Iraq but in the entire region to undo a decade of U.S.-led progress.

“We left (Iraq) on the edge of being stable,” Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a former military intelligence officer, told Fox News.

While saying it’s clear the job was “not done,” he warned: “Al Qaeda as an entity is coming back strong within the region and is doing things to destabilize governments, which, at this point in time, are still friendly to us.”

On Thursday, Iraq’s parliament speaker painted a grim picture of a crumbling country that is taking another beating by terrorists.

“The situation is grave,” Osama al-Nujaifi said during a press conference.

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Al Qaeda’s Jailbreaks Fuel the Fight

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Al Qaeda’s jailbreaks have been an all too common occurrence in the post-9/11 world. And they have directly fueled the fight. Chances are the massive jailbreak in Iraq this week will cause significant problems for the U.S. and its allies down the road. History tells us as much. There are numerous examples of once-detained al Qaeda operatives rejoining the terror network. Consider just two examples.

The current head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Nasir al Wuhayshi, escaped from a Yemeni jail in 2006. Along with a hardened crew of other escapees and ex-Guantanamo detainees, Wuhayshi went on to rebuild al Qaeda’s Arabian franchise after it had been decimated by years of counterterrorism operations.

It didn’t take long for Wuhayshi’s group to start targeting the U.S. AQAP was reborn in early 2009. On Christmas Day 2009, a would-be suicide bomber who was recruited and trained by AQAP nearly detonated a clever underwear bomb on board a Detroit-bound airliner. AQAP has launched other attempted attacks against the U.S. since then. The organization has also built an irregular army to challenge the Yemeni state, meaning many security challenges will have to be met for years to come.

Abu Yahya al Libi, who rose through al Qaeda’s ranks to become one of the organization’s most senior leaders in Pakistan, also escaped from a prison. In July 2005, al Libi and several others escaped from Bagram Air Base. Unlike Wuhayshi, who served as bin Laden’s aide-de-camp and protégé during the 1990s, al Libi was, as the New York Times put it, “an obscure militant preacher” when he slipped out of custody. Three years later, in 2008, the American press was discussing al Libi’s “meteoric ascent,” as he became one of al Qaeda’s most recognized figures. And four years after that, in June 2012, al Libi was killed in a U.S. drone strike. Al Libi’s death was, in turn, cited by the Obama administration as proof that al Qaeda’s death also neared.

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Suicide Bombers Break Out 500 Senior Al Qaeda Prisoners from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Jail

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Photo Credit: File photoSuicide bombers have freed hundreds of terrorists during a full-frontal assault on Iraq’s top-security Abu Ghraib prison.

Gunmen attacked guards with mortar fire as well as rocket propelled grenades while terrorists drove cars packed with explosives at the fortified gates during an attack which left ten policemen dead.

Some of al Qaeda’s most senior members were among the 500 inmates thought to have escaped before authorities regained control of the infamous prison on the outskirts of Baghdad in the early hours of Monday morning.

The deadly raid on the high-security jail happened as Sunni Muslim militants are re-gaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi’ite-led government that came to power after the U.S. invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

The raid began on Sunday night when suicide bombers attacked the gates with trucks loads with bombs and blasted their way into the compound.

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Obama’s Arab Spring Continues: Now the Kurds Fighting Al Qaeda-linked Rebels in Syria, Receiving Fire from the Turks, Too

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Photo Credit: ReutersIslamist-Kurdish fighting spreads in rebel-held Syria

By Erika Solomon. The local commander of a Syrian rebel group affiliated to al Qaeda was freed on Sunday after being held by Kurdish forces in a power struggle between rival organizations fighting President Bashar al-Assad, activists said…

Sporadic fighting over the past five days in towns near the frontier with Turkey has pitted Islamists trying to cement their control of rebel zones against Kurds trying to assert their autonomy in mostly Kurdish areas…

To the north, activists reported Turkish troops reinforcing their side of the frontier near Tel Abyad, but the army could not be reached for comment. Turkish forces exchanged fire with Syrian Kurdish fighters in another border region earlier in the week…

The ethnic Kurdish minority has been alternately battling both Assad’s forces and the Islamist-dominated rebels. Kurds argue they support the revolt but rebels accuse them of making deals with the government in order to ensure their security and autonomy during the conflict.

The Kurdish people, scattered over the territories of Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, are often described as the world’s largest ethnic community without a state of their own. Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: BBC/GettySyria’s Assad is stronger now, says David Cameron

By Nicholas Watt. David Cameron has admitted that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has strengthened his position in recent months, and warned that the country faces a “depressing trajectory”.

In an interview on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1, the prime minister gave his clearest indication to date that Britain will not be supplying arms to the Syrian rebels despite pressing for the lifting of the EU arms embargo.

Cameron insisted he was still committed to helping the Syrian opposition, but admitted its numbers included “a lot of bad guys”. He also acknowledged that Assad had strengthened his position.

The prime minister said: “I think he may be stronger than he was a few months ago, but I’d still describe the situation as a stalemate. And yes, you do have problems with part of the opposition that is extreme, that we should have nothing to do with.”

But Cameron said it would be wrong to abandon the opposition, although he indicated Britain would provide only non-lethal equipment. Read more from this story HERE.

Al Qaeda Supporter from Kansas City has Dreams of Jihad Stolen by Yemeni Con Artists

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Photo Credit: The Kansas City StarAs a Kansas City man learned, joining the global jihad against godless imperialism is harder than you’d think.

Especially when the al-Qaeda leaders you’re dealing with are just as adept at conning their own recruits as they are at instigating mass murder.

The FBI’s recent disclosure that a Kansas City man’s terror cell once had cased the New York Stock Exchange was meant to demonstrate that the government’s electronic surveillance programs have disrupted real threats to the homeland.

But the case’s hundreds of pages of court records in Kansas City and New York also show that federal investigators broke up a long-running fraud scheme in which an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen was less interested in stoking his recruits’ passion for holy war than exploiting their bank accounts for his own gain.

In a recent letter to a New York federal judge, the lawyer representing cell member Sabirhan Hasanoff acknowledged that his client once had dreamed of jihad glory, only to get rolled by a Yemeni bunco terrorist.

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Catholic Priest Beheaded in Syria by Al-Qaeda-Linked Rebels as Men and Children Take Pictures and Cheer

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Photo Credit: Syria Report

Photo Credit: Syria Report

Syrian Catholic priest Francois Murad killed last weekend by jihadi fighters was beheaded, [Caution: Very Graphic Images] according to a report by Catholic Online which is linking to video purportedly showing the brutal murder.

As TheBlaze reported last week, Murad, 49, was setting up a monastery in Gassanieh, northern Syria. Last Sunday, on the Christian leader’s Sabbath, extremist militants trying to topple President Bashar Assad breached the monastery and grabbed Murad.

While earlier reports suggested Murad may have been shot to death, Catholic Online reported Saturday: “The Vatican is confirming the death by beheading of Franciscan Father, Francois Murad, who was martyred by Syrian jihadists on June 23.”

The Catholic news service quotes local sources who report that the radical Al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra, or Al-Nusra Front, was behind the savage killing.

In video posted by Live Leak purporting to show the execution, dozens of men and boys are seen cheering on as three men are seated on the ground awaiting their grisly fate.

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Obama Selectively Quoted Osama bin Laden in War on Terror Speech (+video)

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President Obama is being accused of selectively quoting Usama bin Laden, by using a snippet of an anti-America screed to make it sound like Al Qaeda was breaking under the weight of the U.S. drone program.

Obama quoted the Al Qaeda leader during his wide-ranging speech on counterterrorism policy last Thursday in Washington. As part of his argument in defense of the lethal drone program, Obama suggested bin Laden himself deemed the strikes to be effective.

“Don’t take my word for it,” Obama said. “In the intelligence gathered at bin Laden’s compound, we found that he wrote, ‘We could lose the reserves to enemy’s airstrikes. We cannot fight airstrikes with explosives.'”

It is without question that the strikes have killed key terror leaders, and have changed the way Al Qaeda and its affiliates operate. The bin Laden document Obama referenced said as much.

But the document — one of several bin Laden writings published by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center — showed bin Laden discussing how drones strikes have changed his organization’s tactics, not necessarily how they have Al Qaeda on the run.

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Obama Admin. Apparently has Another National Security Leak

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Photo Credit: Channel 2 NewsThe Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner.

Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk.

Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post):

American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes on the Damascus airport earlier this month, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.

The confirmation reportedly came from the lower ranks at the Pentagon, and the reasons for the leak are being investigated.

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