The terrorists who assaulted the U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Wednesday morning sent plenty of signals that they were planning a major attack, according to a respected West Point counterterrorism journal.
In a quickly updated article that had been largely written well in advance of the attack, Princeton scholar Gregory D. Johnsen wrote that "the September 17 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Sana`a, which left more than a dozen people dead ... while shocking, was not necessarily unexpected."
Warnings abounded, Johnsen said, including a statement posted by the "Soldiers' Brigades of Yemen," an al Qaeda front, threatening attacks in retaliation for the death of Hamza al-Q`uyati, its "leading operative," who was killed in a government raid Aug. 10.
The proof, the statement said in a common Islamist phrase, "will be in what you see and not what you hear." Then, on September 9, a teaser was posted ... indicating that the fifth issue of al-Qa`ida's Sada al-Malahim journal was due to be released in the coming days. The combination of these two indicators should have triggered warnings in Yemen, as during the past year al-Qa`ida has developed a pattern of linking its attacks to its rhetoric....
The Aug. 10 raid was not been nearly as successful as the Yemeni government would like the West to believe, Johnsen also wrote. "The core of al Qaeda's remain at large, as do a number of other known militants."
But the government's claim "allows Yemen to appear strong and in control of the security situation to its Western allies and foreign businesses, which have been growing increasingly concerned."
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