On Friday, the State Department announced that 21 diplomatic facilities (now updated to 22), from North Africa through the Middle East and into South Asia, are to be closed this weekend in response to an al Qaeda threat. The State Department’s travel alert warned of “terrorist attacks…possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arabian Peninsula.” The implication was that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was behind the threat. 

And indeed, press reporting says that is the case. CNN reports: “Fresh intelligence led the United States to conclude that operatives of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula were in the final stages of planning an attack against U.S. and Western targets, several U.S. officials told CNN.”