• Bomb plot briefing may undercut DOJ's case for AP records seizure

    Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP file

    CIA Director John Brennan, shown testifying on Capitol Hill on April 11, testified he conducted a background briefing after the Associated Press reported the Yemen bomb plot in May 2012 to avoid "dangerous questions and speculation."

    By Michael Isikoff
    National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    A massive Justice Department investigation into the disclosure by the Associated Press of an ongoing covert operation against an al Qaeda suicide cell in Yemen -- a probe that included a sweeping  secret subpoena of the press association’s phone records  -- has been justified by U.S. officials on the grounds that the news organization “put the American people at risk.”

    But that assertion by Attorney General Eric Holder could be undermined by the White House’s decision to publicly comment about the operation at the time and reveal details beyond those in the original AP story, according to legal experts and counterterrorism officials.


    Within hours after the AP published its May 7, 2012 story, then-White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, currently the director of the CIA, held a background conference call in which he assured television network commentators that the bomb plot was never a threat to the American public or aviation safety.

    The reason, he said, is because intelligence officials had “inside control” over it.

    He later told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he conducted the briefing to avoid “dangerous questions and speculation” about the operation.

    Brennan’s account came after the AP reported what it called “an intelligence victory for the United States,” saying  intelligence officials had thwarted an “ambitious plot” by an al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen “to destroy a U.S. bound airliner” using a refined underwear bomb.  

    U.S. officials say that, when they were first contacted by the AP, they were concerned publication of the story would endanger the life of a British informant who had penetrated the group. AP executives say they agreed to hold their story until they were assured by government officials that “national security concerns had passed.”

    Brennan’s use of the phrase “inside control,” a detail not initially included in the AP story, quickly led U.S. news organizations to report that the plot had been foiled by an undercover informant.

    When asked about recent news of a subpoena of AP phone records, President Barack Obama explained Thursday that information leaks can put U.S. citizens at risk and that he makes '"no apologies" over being concerned about sensitive material.

    “The U.S. government is saying it never came close because they had insider information, insider control, which implies that they had somebody on the inside who wasn’t going to let it happen,” Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism adviser to Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and who participated on the conference call with Brennan, said on ABC’s “Nightline” that evening.

    NBC’s Chief Justice Correspondent, Pete Williams, did further reporting for Nightly News the next night.  “It turns out that the bomber was actually an informant cooperating with intelligence services friendly to the United States,” Williams reported.

    Bolstering his reporting was an interview with Homeland Security Janet Napolitano.

    “I want to say that the device was always under control, and that no one in the Unites States was ever at risk because we did have control,” she said.

    “The administration’s background statements helped reporters put two and two together and ultimately led to the disclosure that did reveal the existence of an intelligence source,” said Michael Leiter, the former director the National Counter-Terrorism Center under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and now an NBC News counterterrorism analyst. “That’s not to say that the original leak didn’t also do damage and undermine operations.”

    Tommy Vietor, then chief national security spokesman for the White House, disputed the idea that Brennan disclosed sensitive details in his background briefing and said  it was “ridiculous” to equate Brennan’s use of the  phrase  “inside control” with having an “informant.”  

    U.S. officials acknowledge that, after they were contacted by the AP and told it was going to publish the story, they alerted British intelligence, which scrambled to extract the informant and his family from Yemen. But the leak infuriated British officials and strained relations between MI-6, the country’s intelligence service, and the CIA, officials say. Moreover, U.S. national security officials familiar with the matter said the real damage was done by the original leak to the AP because it revealed that the FBI had possession of the bomb. It also ended any chance of using the informant in the future. “They were going to keep him in there,” said the official.

    Still, the willingness of administration officials to publicly comment on the plot could undercut the Justice Department’s position if the AP decides to take any legal action challenging the secret subpoenas.

    “It complicates considerably the force of the argument that this disclosure seriously compromised national security,” said Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment lawyer who represented the New York Times in a historic legal  battle over its publication of the Pentagon Papers.

    In that case, Abrams noted, the Times successfully argued that much of what the Justice Department had argued was damaging in the papers had already been revealed in public statements by U.S. government officials.

    David Schulz, a lawyer for AP, said the news organization is “exploring all our  options” for  legal action to challenge the Justice Department’s secret subpoena for about two months of AP phone records on 20 separate telephone lines in an effort to identify the leaker.

    Related stories

    AP, DOJ clash over seriousness of leak that prompted phone records seizure

    AP calls government's records seizure a 'massive and unprecedented intrusion'

    Among those options, he said, were filing suit for a “declaratory judgment” that the subpoena had violated its reporters’ rights and a demand for a return of the phone records and an order that the Justice Department destroy all copies. In doing so, the AP may cite the comments by Brennan as evidence that the leak did not harm national security in the way that the Department of Justice has asserted, h said.

    “We were surprised by the attorney general’s comments yesterday about the potential security threat  from the leak under investigation,” Schulz said in an email to NBC News. “The president’s top national security advisor at the time said there was never a risk to air safety, and ‘no one in the United States was ever at risk.’ These shifting positions show the malleable nature of national security claims, and underscore the need for independent review by a judge when civil rights are infringed to protect against asserted security threats.”

    More from Open Channel:

    Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook 

     

  • Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans

    A secretive memo from the Justice Department, provided to NBC News, provides new information about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration's controversial policies. Now, John Brennan, Obama's nominee for CIA director, is expected to face tough questions about drone strikes on Thursday when he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

    By Michael Isikoff
    National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

    The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the  September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.  

    The secrecy surrounding such strikes is fast emerging as a central issue in this week’s hearing of White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan, a key architect of the drone campaign, to be CIA director.  Brennan was the first administration official to publicly acknowledge drone strikes in a speech last year, calling them “consistent with the inherent right of self-defense.” In a separate talk at the Northwestern University Law School in March, Attorney General Eric Holder specifically endorsed the constitutionality of targeted killings of Americans, saying they could be justified if government officials determine the target poses  “an imminent threat of violent attack.”

    But the confidential Justice Department “white paper” introduces a more expansive definition of self-defense or imminent attack than described  by Brennan or Holder in their public speeches.  It refers, for example, to what it calls a “broader concept of imminence” than actual intelligence about any ongoing plot against the U.S. homeland.    

    Michael Isikoff, national investigative correspondent for NBC News, talks with Rachel Maddow about a newly obtained, confidential Department of Justice white paper that hints at the details of a secret White House memo that explains the legal justifications for targeted drone strikes that kill Americans without trial in the name of national security.

    “The condition that an operational  leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” the memo states.

    Read the entire 'white paper' on drone strikes on Americans

    Instead, it says,  an “informed, high-level” official of the U.S. government may determine that the targeted American  has been “recently” involved in “activities” posing a threat of a violent attack and “there is  no evidence suggesting that he has renounced or abandoned such activities.” The memo does not define “recently” or “activities.” 

    As in Holder’s speech, the confidential memo lays out a three-part test that would make targeted killings of American lawful:  In addition to the suspect being an imminent threat, capture of the target must be “infeasible, and the strike must be conducted according to “law of war principles.” But the memo elaborates on some of these factors in ways that go beyond what the attorney general said publicly. For example, it states that U.S. officials may consider whether an attempted capture of a suspect  would pose an “undue risk” to U.S. personnel involved in such an operation. If so, U.S. officials could determine that the capture operation of the targeted American would not be feasible, making it lawful for the U.S. government to order a killing instead, the memo concludes.

    The undated memo is entitled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force.”  It was provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees in June by administration officials on the condition that it be kept confidential and  not discussed publicly.

    Although not an official legal memo, the white paper was represented by administration  officials as a policy document that closely mirrors the arguments of classified memos on targeted killings by the Justice Department’s  Office of Legal Counsel, which provides authoritative legal advice to the president and all executive branch agencies. The administration has refused to turn over to Congress or release those memos publicly -- or even publicly confirm their existence. A source with access to the white paper, which is not classified, provided a copy to NBC News. 

    “This is a chilling document,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, which is suing to obtain administration memos about the targeted killing of Americans.  “Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it’s easy to see how they could be manipulated.”

    In particular, Jaffer said, the memo “redefines the word imminence in a way that deprives the word of its ordinary meaning.”  

    Khaled Abdullah / Reuters

    Tribesmen this week examine the rubble of a building in southeastern Yemen where American teenager Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki and six suspected al-Qaida militants were killed in a U.S. drone strike on Oct. 14, 2011. Al-Awlaki, 16, was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who died in a similar strike two weeks earlier.

    A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment on the white paper. The spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler, instead pointed to public speeches by what she called a “parade” of administration officials, including Brennan, Holder, former State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh and former Defense Department General Counsel Jeh Johnson that she said outlined the “legal framework” for such operations. 

    Pressure for turning over the Justice Department memos on targeted killings of Americans appears to be building on Capitol Hill amid signs that Brennan will be grilled on the subject at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. 

    On Monday, a bipartisan group of 11 senators -- led by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon — wrote  a letter to President Barack Obama asking him to release all Justice Department memos on the subject. While accepting that “there will clearly be circumstances in which the president has the authority to use lethal force” against Americans who take up arms against the country,  it said, “It is vitally important ... for Congress and the American public to have a full understanding of how  the executive branch interprets the limits and boundaries of this authority.”

    Anticipating domestic boom, colleges rev up drone piloting programs

    The completeness of the administration’s public accounts of its legal arguments was also sharply criticized last month by U.S. Judge Colleen McMahon in response to a  lawsuit brought by the New York Times and the ACLU seeking access to the Justice Department memos on drone strikes targeting Americans under the Freedom of Information Act.  McMahon, describing herself as being caught in a “veritable Catch-22,”  said she was unable to order the release of the documents given “the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for the conclusion a secret.”

    In her ruling, McMahon noted that administration officials “had engaged in public discussion of the legality of targeted killing, even of citizens.” But, she wrote, they have done so “in cryptic and imprecise ways, generally without citing … any statute or court decision that justifies its conclusions.”

    In one passage in Holder’s speech at Northwestern in March,  he alluded – without spelling out—that there might be circumstances where the president might order attacks against American citizens without specific knowledge of when or where an attack against the U.S. might take place.

    “The Constitution does not  require the president to delay action until some theoretical end-stage of planning, when the precise time, place and manner of an attack become clear,”  he said.

    But his speech did not contain the additional language in the white paper suggesting that no active intelligence about a specific attack is needed to justify a targeted strike. Similarly, Holder said in his speech that targeted killings of Americans can be justified  if “capture is not feasible.” But he did not include language in the white paper saying that an operation might not be feasible “if it could not be physically effectuated during the relevant window of opportunity or if the relevant country (where the target is located) were to decline to consent to a capture operation.” The speech also made no reference to the risk that might be posed to U.S. forces seeking to capture a target, as was  mentioned in the white paper. 

    The white paper also includes a more extensive discussion of why targeted strikes against Americans does not violate constitutional protections afforded American citizens as well as   a U.S. law that criminalizes the killing of U.S. nationals overseas.

    It  also discusses why such targeted killings would not be a war crime or violate a U.S. executive order banning assassinations.

     “A lawful killing in self-defense is not an assassination,” the white paper reads. “In the Department’s view, a lethal operation conducted against a U.S. citizen whose conduct poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States would be a legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban. Similarly,  the use of lethal force, consistent with the laws of war, against an individual who is a legitimate military target would be lawful and would not violate the assassination ban.”

    More from Open Channel:

    Follow Open Channel from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook 

     

     

  • Vietnamese immigrant charged with helping al-Qaida in Yemen

    By Jonathan Dienst and Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.com

    A Vietnamese immigrant has been charged in New York over an alleged role in helping al-Qaida in Yemen.


    Minh Quang Pham was arrested in Britain. He is accused of traveling to Yemen to train with members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. 

    Pham is also accused of helping the group with its online propaganda efforts. Investigators said he was in Yemen from December 2010 through July 2011.

    See the original report at NBCNewYork.com

    Sources familiar with the case said he met with numerous leaders of AQAP in Yemen, including the terror group's then leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Samir Khan, editor of its English-language magazine "Inspire," and took a loyalty oath. Both Americans-turned-terror leaders were killed in a drone strike last September.

    "The defendant not only pledged an oath to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, and received military training from AQAP, he also helped design and disseminate its propaganda,"New York FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk said.

    Security officials have said AQAP has become the leading overseas terror threat to the U.S. 

    Watch US News videos on msnbc.com

    Two underwear bomb plots, including one that targeted a Detroit-bound jetliner, as well as a plot to bomb cargo planes in 2010, originated in Yemen.

    As for Pham, the court papers said he played a role in creating online propaganda for AQAP. He is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. 

    Jonathan Dienst is WNBC's chief investigative reporter. Shimon Prokupecz is WNBC's investigative producer.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

    Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook


  • Stepped-up U.S. assistance for Yemen makes it an inviting terrorist target

    Officials have said the attack is likely the work of al-Qaida. The terrorist network has grown in Yemen because the country hasn't had an effective government for an entire year. NBC's Richard Engel reports.

    By Robert Windrem
    NBC News

    A terror attack Monday on a Yemeni military parade rehearsal that killed scores occurred amid increasing cooperation between the Yemen and U.S. governments, with the latter stepping up assistance to the Yemeni military and regularly targeting purported terrorist cells with drone strikes.

    The cooperation reflects a growing  belief in U.S. national security circles that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemeni al-Qaida affiliate, is now a bigger and more dangerous threat than the central al-Qaida group in Pakistan. (AQAP on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the attack on the military parade and a shooting that targeted U.S. military trainers in the country. There were apparently no injuries in the second incident.)

    The cooperation is not limited to counter-terrorism. The U.S. is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country.  The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.

    The presence of the American personnel in Yemen is raising concerns that Washington risks opening another front in the war against al-Qaida before it has fully extricated itself from long, bloody conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    But a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the AQAP’s successes in recent months give Washington little choice but to increase support for the new Yemeni government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

    Reuters

    Click to enlarge image.

    “AQAP’s enhanced footprint in southern Yemen increases the chances that the group will establish a regional safe haven,” said the official. “This would be a dangerous development because AQAP’s anti-government fight and its terrorist plotting against the West are its two main goals. Unless its gains are reversed, AQAP will have more flexibility to conduct external attacks from a position of strength.”

    The Yemeni government position is about survival. Like Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Yemen is under new management, after former President Ali Abdullah al-Saleh’s replacement by Hadi, his former deputy, in February.

    Hadi’s position is precarious. Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamist insurgent group, is trying to further destabilize the water-starved, tribal-riven state, with the ultimate goal of toppling his government.

    Related story

    'Massacre" as suicide bomber targets military parade rehearsal in Yemen

    But Hadi’s  increasing reliance on U.S. help has likewise caused him some difficulties, triggering protests among middle- and upper middle-class Yemeni youth who are resentful over the U.S. role in the country, particularly the drone strikes and surveillance.

    Mohammed Huwais / AFP - Getty Images

    Yemeni military police collect evidence at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Sanaa on Monday, which killed nearly 100 members of a Yemeni army battalion

    Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst, said the deaths of nearly 100 Yemeni soldiers in Monday’s bombing are likely to bring two countries’ counter terrorism efforts closer.

    “Hadi's rise has probably brought greater legitimacy to cooperation with the U.S.,” said Leiter. “… The president (Hadi) and elements of the security and defense establishment cooperate with the U.S. but want to keep that relatively quiet in order to avoid enflaming the domestic population.  .. . And, frankly, with horrific attacks like today, U.S. assistance often becomes more rather than less welcome.”

    A Yemeni official, also speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press on security operations, contended that  “broad cooperation” with the U.S. is necessary and marks a “new level” of friendly relations between the two countries. He said the U.S. role in Yemen is limited in terms of numbers, but significant in helping the government turn back Ansar al-Sharia, which he characterized as “militants, drug dealers and foreign groups.”

    'Intelligence, satellite images and technical advice'
    “The U.S. is providing intelligence information, satellite images and technical advice” valuable in both  counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts, said the official. Both the U.S. intelligence community and the Joint Special Operations Command, JSOC, are involved. He emphasized there are “no boots on the ground” fighting with Yemeni forces.

    Neither the U.S. nor Yemeni official would put numbers on the U.S. involvement. Nor would the Yemeni  deny the presence of CIA officers on the ground.

    The most high profile product of this cooperation has been the drone attacks on both counterterrorism and counterinsurgency targets. High profile attacks have killed three top AQAP officials in the past eight months, but there also have been an increasing number of attacks on lesser figures and even suspected gatherings of terrorists. The attacks, said the Yemeni official, have taken place “all over the country.”

    In September, apparently helped by material uncovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, U.S. drones killed two American citizens in Kashef, about 85 miles east of the capital, Sanaa. The dead were Anwar al-Awlaki, an AQAP leader blamed for recruiting other Americans to the group’s violent cause, and Samir Khan, co-editor of “Inspire,” a magazine whose articles included “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

    Then, earlier this month, the director of AQAP’s external operations, Fahd al Quso, was similarly killed by a drone attack in a remote mountain valley -- his whereabouts reportedly exposed by a British-Saudi-U.S. undercover intelligence operation. The penetration of AQAP by an informant  also resulted in the interception of a new, more sophisticated  version of the underwear bomb previously used unsuccessfully  to try to down U.S. airliners. (Yemeni intelligence, said the Yemeni official, had “no role” in that operation and was unaware of it.)

    By some estimates, the tempo of the drone strikes against AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia is now even greater than in Pakistan, with the number of attacks in May surpassing even the most intense month of attacks against al-Qaida central in Pakistan. According to the “Long War Journal” website, which uses local reporting to track Predator strikes, 30 AQAP fighters (and seven civilians) have been killed in five drone strikes in the past 10 days alone. (Both U.S. and Yemeni officials say that such local reports are often inaccurate or exaggerated.)

    The larger concern in terms of U.S. involvement may be the counterinsurgency effort. The Los Angeles Times reported  last week that at least 20 U.S. Special Operations troops are using satellite imagery, drone video, eavesdropping systems and other technical means to help pinpoint targets for the Yemeni military offensive that’s currently under way in the south. 

    The Yemeni official would only say that targeting is “very selective” and that “No Americans are fighting on the side of the Yemenis,” a point on which U.S. officials agree.

    While the Yemeni official said the offensive has made great strides recently, there have been setbacks, including the killing of 32 Yemeni soldiers on May 7 when AQAP overran a Yemeni position. That was the deadliest single encounter for government forces in the war with AQAP until Monday’s attack.

    The Yemeni official said that the public is supportive of both operations, despite a social media protest by the country’s youth that has drawn some attention.

    He claimed that no civilians have been killed in the drone strikes and stated that that care has been taken to strike at times and places where only AQAP and its allies are present.

    There’s no doubt that U.S. cooperation -- and the drone strikes—will continue. The U.S. wants to kill Ibrihim Hassan Al-Asiri, the AQAP’s expert bomb-maker, before he trains others in his craft. 

    But the mere presence of U.S. military personnel in the country carries risk of a confrontation that could quickly escalate. This weekend, for example, a local Yemeni newspaper reported unidentified gunmen opened fire on a car that belonged to U.S. military trainers as they left the tourist al-Hodeida Land Resort in the western part of the country. None of the Americans were believed to have been injured.

    Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

     

     

  • 'Puppet' and 'Stooge': al-Qaida chief al-Zawahiri issues message on Yemen

    Intelcenter / AFP - Getty Images file

    Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri speaks in a video released by al-Qaida's media arm as-Sahab on March 16.

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News

    Editor's note: A correction had been made to this article. Click here to view it:

    Fugitive al-Qaida leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has released a new audio message about Yemen at a time of escalating fighting in the country that one Yemeni official on Tuesday described as "all-out war."

    Follow Open Channel on Twitter and Facebook.

    The release of the audio comes just two days after White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited the Yemeni capital of Sanaa to meet with its new president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to discuss ramping up the battle against al-Qaida affiliated militants who now control large swaths of the country's southern region.

    While there is still no public translation of the new Zawahiri audio message, a U.S. government official familiar with the contents tells NBC News it was clearly recorded before the news broke last week about a foiled plot to blow up a U.S. airliner with more-sophisticated underwear bomb.

    The message discusses the transition from exiled former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to Hadi, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    Watch world news videos on msnbc.com

    NBC News terror analyst Evan Kohlmann notes that there is typically a two- to three-week lapse between the events described in Zawahiri’s messages and their public release.  (Kohlmann's Flashpoint Intel service is working to translate the message, but he gives the title as, "Yemen: Between a Fugitive Puppet and a Collaborating Stooge," apparent references to Saleh and Hadi.)

    Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in the 'Isikoff Files'

    Over the past week and a half, Yemeni forces -- backed by U.S. military trainers and drone strikes -- have dramatically escalated their attacks on al-Qaida militants in the south.

    A Yemen government official estimated as many as 20,000 troops were now involved in the battle, supported by approximately 50 to 60 U.S. trainers.

    "We have begun to reintroduce small numbers of trainers into Yemen," a Pentagon spokesman, a Navy Capt. John Kirby, told reporters this week. 

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • Spy who uncovered underwear bomb plot is British national, sources say

    NBC's Robert Windrem reports that al-Qaida's would-be suicide bomber was actually a British national, working through British intelligence to infiltrate the terror organization in Yemen.

    By Robert Windrem
    NBC News

    The spy who helped Western intelligence agencies thwart a plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner was a British national of Middle Eastern origin, sources tell NBC News.

    The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, also say that British intelligence was "heavily involved" in recruiting the spy, who has not yet been identified publicly, and penetrating the plot by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to detonate a new, more sophisticated underwear bomb aboard a U.S. jetliner.

    A senior U.S. counterterrorism official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, would say only that multiple friendly security services were involved in the operation. Saudi Arabia's counterterrorism operation also were involved, other U.S. officials have told NBC News.

    U.S. and British officials have long reported that AQAP has wanted to recruit Muslims with Western passports to carry out attacks like the one revealed this week. As an example, the officials cited AQAP’s recruitment of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who failed in the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit.

    Related stories

    Yemen Terror group may have made more underwear bombs, US officials say

    Lawmakers vow investigation of bomb plot leak 

    Insider who thwarted bomb plot was supposed to carry it out 

    U.S. officials have said previously that the bomb -- a refined version of an “underwear bomb” used in two previous failed terror plots -- was driven out of Yemen by the insider into Saudi Arabia. It is now in the hands of U.S. bomb experts at the FBI labs in Quantico, Va., where experts have been examining it for a week, the officials said. The infiltrator also is safely out of Yemen.

    The insider also provided information that allowed the U.S. to launch a Predator drone strike that killed AQAP's operations chief, Fahd al-Quso, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

    Evan Kohlmann, NBC counterterrorism analyst, said he found earlier reports that the spy  was a Saudi national not very credible.

    “AQAP was going to give a suicide bomb to someone with a Saudi passport?” Kohlmann asked rhetorically. “AQAP has been looking for bombers with Western passports, not those who would raise suspicions.”

    He noted that Abdulmutallab, who tried to detonate an earlier version of the underwear bomb aboard the Northwest flight, better  fit the profile AQAP was looking at: a young upper class college student with a Nigerian passport and a multiple-entry U.S. visa. A British national would attract even less attention, he said.

    Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News; NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams and Jonathan Dienst of WNBC-TV contributed to this report.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • Yemen terror group may have made more underwear bombs, US officials say

    The man at the center of the alleged al-Qaida terror plot to bring down a passenger airliner headed to the United States was a double agent cooperating with the U.S. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News

    Just days before the news broke about the CIA's takedown of a plot involving a sophisticated new underwear bomb, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen publicly boasted that it had vastly expanded and improved its capabilities for making such devices.

    That boast -- contained in a largely overlooked passage of Inspire, the online propaganda organ of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) -- has fueled concerns that there may be other versions of the seized device and more bomb makers assembling them, according to U.S. security officials and members of Congress who have been briefed on the case.

    "They have a team of engineers, scientists and doctors. It's a little spooky,"  said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, a member of the Homeland Security Committee who was briefed this week on the intelligence operation that U.S. officials say thwarted an AQAP plot to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner. "In my view, it’s very likely they have produced more of these."

    One hint at the expansion of AQAP's bomb-making capabilities can be found in passages in an article entitled "Wining on the Ground," found on the 57th page of the latest 59-page edition of Inspire, released by AQAP last weekend.

    In 2009, AQAP had only a "very modest and small laboratory in a rural area" to make bombs, the author of the article –identified as Yahya Ibrahim -- wrote.

    Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, talks to TODAY's Ann Curry about the dangers of revealing too much information about how the U.S. and its allies foiled the alleged al-Qaida plot to bomb a passenger airliner.  

    That was the year AQAP dispatched a suicide bomber to use a chemical underwear bomb to attempt to assassinate Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Azizbin, director of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism program, and later deployed another operative from Nigeria to try to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit. Neither device detonated properly, though the bomber in the first attack was killed.

    But now, after obtaining “a large deal of chemicals from military laboratories" in a key city in southern Yemen -- "the modest lab has transformed into a modern one," the Inspire article stated.

    "Hence, no wearisome measures are taken anymore to obtain the needed large amount of chemicals for explosives," it said. "Also, the operations now do not lack money as before." 

    Related stories 

    Lawmakers vow investigation of bomb plot leak 

    Insider who thwarted bomb plot was supposed to carry it out 

    This was not the first time AQAP has signaled that its bomb-making capabilities may be greater than U.S. officials have suggested.

    In an issue of Inspire in late 2010, the group appeared to mock comments by U.S. officials focusing on the critical role of its top bomb-maker, Ibrahim Hassan Asiri -- who has been widely credited with designing the underwear bombs.

    "Isn't it funny how America thinks AQAP has only one major bomb maker?" an article stated. 

    Gregory Johnsen, a highly respected Yemen scholar who specializes in AQAP at Princeton University, said the propaganda outlet’s statements are likely true.

    "We have to assume that there is not only one bomb-maker," he said. "It makes sense that he (Asiri) is somebody who has taught others" about making such bombs.

    Johnsen said that the expansion of AQAP's bomb-making operations would be just one example of the dramatic gains the group has made in the past few years. As a result of the internal chaos in Yemen, and its shrewd exploitation of civilian casualties caused by U.S. air strikes, AQAP has made major advances, Johnsen said.

    By U.S. intelligence estimates, the number of AQAP fighters has tripled to more than 1,000. It has also seized swaths of territory in southern Yemen, where it runs its own court system, deploys police officers and provides electricity to some towns, Johnsen said.

    U.S. intelligence officials say they have no specific information indicating that other improvised explosive devices (IEDs) similar to the one that was turned over by a CIA informant last month have been produced and possibly spirited out of Yemen.

    But John Brennan, President Barack Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, said Tuesday in an interview with PBS that U.S. officials are taking additional measures "to prevent any other type of IED similarly constructed from getting through security procedures."

    At the same time, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued new "guidance" calling for enhanced security at foreign airports, including additional pat-downs and random searches, as well as other steps aimed at detecting such bombs.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • Can U.S. legally kill a citizen overseas without due process?

    Sources to NBC News are reporting Samir Khan, editor of Inspire Magazine, is another American citizen that was killed in the air strike in Yemen, along with Anwar al-Awlaki. NBC's Bob Windrem reports.

    By Pete Williams, NBC News justice correspondent

    Is it legal for the federal government to kill a U.S. citizen overseas, someone who has never been charged or convicted of a crime?  Civil liberties groups are condemning the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, but many legal scholars say it is justified.

    No U.S. court has ever weighed in on the question, because judges consider these sorts of issues exclusively matters for the president. 

    Anwar al-Awlaki's father, Nasser, with the help of the ACLU, sued President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and CIA Director Leon Panetta a year ago, when it became clear that the U.S. was targeting  the younger al-Awlaki.  But U.S. District Judge John Bates threw the case out, ruling that federal courts were in no position to evaluate whether someone was a terrorist whose activities threatened national security and against whom the use of deadly force could be justified.

    "This court recognizes the somewhat unsettling nature of its conclusion -- that there are circumstances in which the executive's unilateral decision to kill a U.S. citizen overseas is 'constitutionally committed to the political branches' and judicially unreviewable," Bates said, quoting an earlier decision on a similar issue.

    The ACLU lawyer who handled the case, Jameel Jaffer, said Friday that the U.S. program that targeted al-Awlaki was a violation of both U.S. and international law.

    "The government's authority to use lethal force against its own citizens should be limited to circumstances in which the threat to life is concrete, specific and imminent. It is a mistake to invest the president, any president, with the unreviewable power to kill any American whom he deems to present a threat to the country," Jaffer said.

    President Obama says the killing of radical, American-born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen is a "major blow to al-Qaida's most active operational affiliate."

    But Kenneth Anderson, an international law scholar at American University's Washington College of Law, said U.S. citizens who take up arms with an enemy force have been considered legitimate targets through two world wars, even if they are outside what is traditionally considered the battlefield.

    "Where hostiles go, there is the possibility of hostilities.  The U.S.  has never accepted the proposition that if you leave the active battlefield, suddenly you are no longer targetable," Anderson said.

    In early 2010, the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, told a congressional hearing that the U.S. was prepared to kill Americans affiliated with al-Qaida, without mentioning al-Awlaki by name.

    Vote: Should U.S. be able to kill its citizens overseas without due process?

    "If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that," by which he meant authority from the executive branch, not the courts.

    Blair said the military and intelligence agencies had authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad who were engaged in terrorism if their activities threatened  Americans.  Since then, U.S. officials have said that al-Awlaki's role in al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had shifted from propagandist to operational tactician and strategist.

    The State Department's senior legal adviser, Harold Koh, plainly stated last year the Obama administration's view that it had authority to undertake drone attacks in countries where al-Qaida operatives were located.

    Radical cleric influenced many plots, US says

    "The U.S. is in armed conflict with al-Qaida as well as the Taliban and associated forces in response to the horrific acts of 9-11 and may use force consistent with its right to self-defense under international law," Koh said in a speech to a Washington legal symposium.

    Though he did not specifically address the issue of targeting Americans, many legal scholars believe his speech was an implicit statement that U.S. citizens could be legitimate targets.

    One of al-Qaida's most influential leaders - Anwar al-Awlaki - has been killed, according to officials in the United States and Yemen. Authorities have confirmed that the radical Islamist cleric died in an airstrike this morning in Northern Yemen. ITN's Sejal Karia reports.

    First Read: Ron Paul condemns al-Awlaki assassination

    Robert Chesney, an expert on international law at the University of Texas School of Law, concluded in a recent law review article that al-Awlaki could be legally killed "if he is in fact an operational leader within AQAP, as this role would render him a functional combatant in an organized armed group."

    Anderson, of American University's law school, said it's important to note that al-Awlaki was not targeted because of his role as an al-Qaida propagandist. 

    "The U.S. is not justifying this on the basis that it's going after him for incitement. He was being targeted because he had gone operational," Anderson said, adding that he believed the killing was entirely legal. 

    "My view of this targeted killing is straightforwardly, congratulations, Mr. President," he said.

  • New evidence links Iran to terror group

    By Courtney Kube
          NBC News producer  

    U.S. officials tell NBC News that there is new evidence that Iran may be supplying goods to the terror group that U.S. intelligence officials consider to be the most dangerous threat to the United States -- al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

    Over the weekend, the Indian Navy intercepted a ship -- the MV Nafis-I -- off the coast of Mumbai. Indian sailors found several weapons (including a few AK-47s and a pistol), but mostly just food and supplies on board. The ship had a crew of several Yemeni nationals, along with at least one Somali, and several others from other nearby African countries.

    A U.S. official says that the ship left Iran several days ago and that U.S. assets tracked the ship as a "vessel of interest" for a few days and then provided information to the Indian Navy so they could intercept it.

    U.S. intelligence officials say that the ship was headed to Yemen and they believe it was bringing the goods to AQAP.

    "We were cognizant of this vessel and what it was intending to do," one U.S. official said, adding that, "we go on our best intelligence."  The official explained that if a ship is transporting goods to supply a terror network, then the vessel is in violation of the U.N. Security Council resolution and is subject to boarding.

    The official acknowledged that there were not many weapons on the ship when it was boarded, but also pointed out that it is common for crews to throw weapons overboard when a military vessel approaches.

    A senior defense official said that if Iran is aiding AQAP, that would be "highly unusual," but added that there is clear evidence that Iran has supported other branches of al-Qaida in the recent past, including al-Qaida in Iraq.

  • Yemeni president may be on verge of resigning, US officials say

    By Robert Windrem
    NBC News investigative producer for special projects

    Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh appears to be left “with not a lot of good options” after his vague promise to peacefully transfer power on Thursday fell flat and may be on the verge of resigning, U.S. officials say.  

    Khaled Abdullah / Reuters file

    Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

    Saleh, who has ruled Yemen for 32 years, tried to "tone everybody down" with his offer, contained in a statement aired on the Al Jazeera news channel. But the statement gave no indication of when he would surrender power or whether there were any conditions, and the situation is “way beyond that,” said the U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

    One official described Saleh as having "cut and run potential," adding, that "half his brain is telling him to go." 

    Facing mounting protests and with his top general siding with protesters demanding democracy, Saleh previously had a new presidential election by January 2012 instead of September 2013, when his term ends.  

    Speaking with Reuters, Yassin Noman, head of Yemen's opposition coalition, dismissed Saleh's offer as "empty words" and a spokesman said the umbrella coalition would not even respond. "No dialogue and no initiatives for this dead regime," opposition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabry said. 

    Friday opposition groups are planning a "Day of Departure" protest, hoping to get Saleh to leave Sanaa, the capital, and avoid bloodshed. Presidential guards loyal to Saleh clashed Thursday with army units backing opposition groups demanding his ouster. Saleh boosted the presidential guards out of fear that he could be an assassination target. 

    Making matters worse for the Arab world's third longest serving leader (only Libya's Gadhafi and Oman's Sultan Qaboos have served longer) were comments from Yemeni Gen. Ali Mohsen, the latest high ranking military man to defect to the side of the mostly young protesters. 

    Mohsen, who sent troops to protect pro-democracy protesters in Sanaa, said the options before Saleh were now few, and criticized what he described as his "stubbornness.” He added that the armed forces were committed to protecting protesters. 

    He said military rule in Arab countries was outdated and that the people would decide who would govern them in the framework of a modern, civilian state.  The comments led to even more defections. 

    A U.S. official said that Washington would prefer Saleh step down because "cut and run leaves the government intact" and reduces the prospect for violence in the already tense nation at the southwestern tip of the Arabian peninsula. The U.S. also has interests in continuing its counter terrorism operations in Yemen, where New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki has been advising al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula on anti-American operations. 

    British Foreign Secretary William Hague told Parliament Thursday that he had received reports that oil companies were withdrawing their staffs from Yemen. Britain said on Wednesday it was temporarily pulling out part of its Embassy team from Sanaa ahead of the protests expected on Friday.

    Reuters news agency contributed to this report.