Fearing reprisals from al Qaeda, the United States and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen yesterday after increasing funds to fight the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group behind the failed attempt to blow a Detroit-bound airliner out of the sky on Christmas Day.
The news came as officials announced tough new airport security measures -- including full body pat downs, full body scans, searches of carry-on bags and explosive detection technology for travelers arriving from 14 countries, including Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan.
Randomly chosen Americans and foreigners from other countries arriving on international flights will get the same treatment.
The embassy closings came in the wake of underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's confession to investigators that he received training and instructions from terrorists in Yemen. Officials said the US will more than double its $67 million in counterterrorism aid for Yemen.
The American Embassy in Yemen's capital, San'a, was attacked twice in 2008, and there are "indications al Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of San'a, possibly our embassy," said White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan.
"We're not going to take any chances," Brennan said.
The Yemen threat also prompted several Congress members to question the policy of transferring suspected terrorists to Yemen from Guantanamo Bay, where an estimated 90 Yemenis are being held.
"We know from past experience that some of them will be back in the fight against us," said independent Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.).
Meanwhile, it emerged that Abdulmutallab had contacts with a British group that has been sympathetic to anti-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, The Times of London reported.
Two speakers from the group Cageprisoners were invited by Abdulmutallab to an event the future crotch bomber organized at a British university.
Cageprisoners once asked al-Awlaki -- who had been in touch with the Fort Hood massacre gunman -- to speak at a dinner.
Also yesterday, The Washington Post reported that the eighth man killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last week was a captain in the Jordanian spy service. The attack took the lives of seven CIA operatives.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/qaeda_fear_shuts_us_uk_embassies_SOLgnuQofqAOYKZcL1hoWO#ixzz1Wcnw3tOI
