Al Qaeda embassy bombing plot foiled in Yemen
An al Qaeda plot to attack several foreign embassies in Yemen's
capitol of Saana was foiled on Wednesday, as American-backed government
forces continue to hammer away at the group's strongholds in the south.
Yemeni officials uncovered the plot by Ansar al-Sharia when three of
the group's operatives were stopped by local police on Wednesday,
according to reports by state news agency SABA on Wednesday.
Ansar al-Sharia is the political arm of al Qaeda's Yemen cell known as
al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is the most active and
dangerous of all the groups' various factions operating across the
globe.
The three suspects were reportedly caught with
"weapons, explosives and maps showing the location of foreign
embassies," Yemeni security officials told SABA.
The homes of
several "military commanders and other important people" within Yemen
were also marked on the maps, according to reports.
The officials provided no specifics on which embassies had been targeted as part of the foiled attack.
The
planned embassy attacks were allegedly in response to an ongoing
offensive by Yemeni military, backed by U.S. intelligence and
American-led drone strikes, to reclaim key territory in the southern
province of Abyan from AQAP militants.
The CIA and Pentagon have
been conducting an aggressive airstrike campaign via unmanned drones
against AQAP targets in support of the Yemeni counterterrorism offensive
that began earlier this year.
American and Yemeni warships
allegedly shelled al Qaeda targets in Abyan in March, which reportedly
killed 29 AQAP insurgents. The U.S. Navy has denied any involvement in
the operation.
In April, A U.S-led airstrike against an al
Qaeda-run training camp in southern Yemen ended in the deaths of 15
militants. The strike came days after American drones killed a dozen
AQAP members during an attack on another terrorist training hub in the
country.
The embassy plot comes just a month after
American, British and Saudi intelligence foiled an AQAP attempt to blow
up a commercial airliner in U.S. airspace.
The would-be bomber,
who was actually a double agent working with U.S. and Saudi
intelligence, was a native of the Mideast country and a naturalized
British citizen.
Posing as an Islamic fundamentalist willing to
fight for AQAP, the double agent was reportedly given a new type of
explosive that was undetectable by current forms of airline security,
according to news reports at the time.
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