{"id":9045,"date":"2013-08-13T09:52:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-13T09:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9045"},"modified":"2013-08-13T09:52:16","modified_gmt":"2013-08-13T09:52:16","slug":"embassy-threats-had-no-basis-in-fact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=9045","title":{"rendered":"Embassy threats ‘had no basis in fact’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"droneattack\"<\/a>A high-ranking Yemeni security official has told McClatchy that the Obama administration\u2019s recently announced terror threat which supposedly targeted US embassies had \u201cno basis in fact\u201d and was manufactured merely to dampen opposition to drone strikes.<\/p>\n

After initially warning of a terror plot \u201cthought to have been one of the most serious against American and other Western interests since the September 11 attacks,\u201d the US closed 20 embassies and consulates earlier this month,\u00a018 of which reopened soon after.<\/p>\n

The announcement of the threat occurred as it was\u00a0simultaneously acknowledged\u00a0that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last year was linked to a clandestine CIA arms smuggling operation based in the Libyan city that was being used to transport arms to rebels in Syria, many of whom are allied with Al-Qaeda militants.<\/p>\n

The announcement of the threat against US embassies also served to justify blanket NSA surveillance, leading some to suggest that the alleged plot was being hyped to distract from the Edward Snowden scandal. It was later claimed that the NSA had intercepted a \u201cconference call\u201d of Al-Qaeda members during which militants discussed an attack.<\/p>\n

However, in a report entitled\u00a0U.S. embassies in Muslim world reopen amid still-murky threats<\/em>, McClatchy cites, \u201cA high-ranking Yemeni security official speaking on the condition of anonymity,\u201d who told the news outlet that the threat \u201chad no basis in fact,\u201d with the source bemusedly attributing \u201cmedia reports about imminent terror strikes to a single official\u2019s comments, which he cast as a misguided attempt at shifting public opinion in the face of increasing and unpopular American drone strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of people, labeled \u201csuspected militants\u201d by the US, have been killed in Yemen over the last two weeks as a result of at least eight drone strikes, attacks that have outraged Yemeni citizens. According to Princeton University professor and Yemen expert Gregory Johnson, the drone strikes are actually serving to recruit more terrorists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are strikes that kill civilians. There are strikes that kill women and children. And when you kill people in Yemen, these are people who have families. They have clans. And they have tribes. And what we\u2019re seeing is that the United States might target a particular individual because they see him as a member of al-Qaeda. But what\u2019s happening on the ground is that he\u2019s being defended as a tribesman,\u201d said Johnson.<\/p>\n

Figures show\u00a0that 50 civilians are killed for every one terrorist taken out by a drone strike, which means that 95% of the victims are innocent men, women and children.<\/p>\n

As Ron Paul noted recently, while the Obama administration is conducting drone strikes in Yemen to supposedly target Al-Qaeda terrorists, the White House is simultaneously supporting the allies of Al-Qaeda terrorists, the vast majority of whom\u00a0have pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, in Syria.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, as the high-ranking Yemeni security official reveals, the administration is also apparently manufacturing terror plots in order to justify these drone strikes as well as mass NSA surveillance. – Infowars.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high-ranking Yemeni security official has told McClatchy that the Obama administration\u2019s recently announced terror threat which supposedly targeted US embassies had \u201cno basis in fact\u201d and was manufactured merely to dampen opposition to drone strikes. After initially warning of a terror plot \u201cthought to have been one of the most serious against American and … Continue reading “Embassy threats ‘had no basis in fact’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10,123],"tags":[5072,1888,1236,5073,198,1121],"class_list":["post-9045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-united-states","category-world","tag-al-kaida","tag-al-qaeda","tag-drones","tag-embassy-threats","tag-syria","tag-yemen"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/droneattack.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9047,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9045\/revisions\/9047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}