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The United States intercepted electronic communications this week among senior operatives of Al Qaeda, in which the terrorists discussed attacks against American interests in the Middle East and North Africa, American officials said Friday. The intercepts and a subsequent analysis of them by American intelligence agencies prompted the United States to issue an unusual global travel alert to American citizens on Friday, warning of the potential for terrorist attacks by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates beginning Sunday through the end of August. The bulletin to travelers and expatriates, issued by the State Department, came less than a day...

I know this sounds hysterical to post about a seemingly tin foil conspiracy development but I am prepared to risk some credibility and get it out there so that we can say we weren't completely surprised. First, 120 embassies have been shut down. The rationale is presumably because AQ is planning an attack. Fine, go with that but that's not the real reason I am hearing from credible sources. I'll say in my own defense that I was told by another source last October, a substantial source who nevertheless did not have 100% of my trust, that Israel would attack...

U.S. embassies in a slew of Muslim countries will close on Sunday due to a credible and serious security threat. The embassies will close in response to "a specific threat against a U.S. embassy or consulate," according to a senior U.S. official, who called it a "concerted effort" to target an embassy or consulate in a Muslim country. "We just don't know which one," the official told ABC News. "There could be other targets, not just embassies," another U.S. official said. The threat is considered to be throughout the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Some of the biggest...

The United States will temporarily shut down its embassies and consulates around the world Sunday, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt, as a precautionary measure, the State Department said Thursday Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/01/us-to-shut-down-american-embassies-around-world-as-terror-threats-grow/#ixzz2amyIIbpR

Embassy Row: Gay diplomat an ‘insult’ Church leaders in culturally conservative Dominican Republic are outraged that President Obama nominated an openly homosexual activist to serve as ambassador to the Caribbean nation. Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez, the Roman Catholic archbishop of the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, Bishop Pablo Cedano and the Rev. Cristobal Cardozo, leader of the Dominican Evangelical Fraternity, are urging President Danilo Medino to reject the nominee, Chicago lawyer James Brewster. “It’s an insult to good Dominican customs,” Father Cardozo said last week. Bishop Cedano denounced the nomination for showing “a lack of respect,” and added cryptically:...

An Israeli watchdog group has complained that Israel's embassy in Washington falsely published that Netanyahu endorsed the "two-state solution" in the Knesset earlier this month. The false statement appeared in the Embassy's June 7 email update, according to the watchdog group, Mattot Arim. In fact, Mattot Arim said, the reported event never happened. The Prime Minister had refrained from mentioning the term “2-state solution” when speaking in the Knesset, the group said. "If PM Netanyahu had spoken of the 2-state solution, all sorts of duly elected officials would not of course have been able to participate in the approval vote...

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials confirmed that two American employees of the U.S. embassy in Caracas, Venezuela, were shot outside of a nightclub early this morning. The men were part of the embassy’s defense attaché and were hospitalized after the incident.

CARACAS — Two employees of the US embassy in Venezuela were shot and wounded early Tuesday in the capital Caracas, in a murky incident that local media and a police source said took place at a strip club. "We can confirm that two members of the US embassy in Caracas were injured during an incident early this morning," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters in Washington. "Medical staff inform us that their injuries are not life-threatening," he added, noting that they were hurt at "some sort of a social spot" but without specifying the venue or nature of their...

United States Embassy Stockholm, SwedenSecurity Message for U.S. Citizens: Update on ongoing Protests in Stockholm May 22, 2013 On Sunday, May 19, more than 100 cars were set on fire in the northern Stockholm suburb ofHusby by local rioters in protest over a police shooting. Similar incidents occurred on the nights of May 20-23, spreading into other areas near Stockholm. Swedish police have made several arrests and consider the situation contained. However, due to the potential escalation of the riots, the U.S. Embassy cautions U.S. citizens to avoid the following areas during the next several evenings: Husby, Tensta, Kista, Rinkeby,...

More glorious fruit of the Arab Spring. "3 Arrested in Plot to Bomb Egyptian Cities and Embassy," by Ben Hubbard in the New York Times, May 11 (thanks to Kenneth): CAIRO — Egyptian security forces have arrested three militants with ties to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks in Egyptian cities and against a foreign embassy, the interior minister said Saturday. A Western official said the Egyptians had privately identified the embassy as the United States Embassy in Cairo. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said at a news conference that the suspects had been arrested with 22 pounds of explosive...

Egypt’s Interior Ministry said on Saturday that it had detained men belonging to an al Qaeda-linked group who were planning a bomb attack on a foreign embassy in the country. Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said Saturday that Egyptian security forces had intercepted a terrorist cell linked to al Qaeda that was on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack on a foreign embassy. “The Interior Ministry was able to direct a successful blow to a terrorist cell that was planning suicide operations,” Ibrahim said during a televised news conference. The minister did not specify which embassy was being targeted,...

The U.S. military has alerted two elite military units in Europe to be on standby if needed to respond to a deteriorating security situation in Tripoli, Fox News has learned. In recent days both the U.S. embassy and British embassy in Libya have removed non-essential staff from their embassies. A specialized Marine unit based in Moron, Spain, is in the process of being repositioned closer to Libya; and in Stuttgart, Germany, a special operations force assigned to AFRICOM has been placed on heightened alert.

The French embassy in Libya has been attacked and two guards have been injured. The attack took place in the country's capital, Tripoli. "There was an attack on the embassy. We think it was a booby-trapped car," the official told Reuters. "There was a lot of damage and there are two guards wounded." A Libyan source said the blast caused serious damage to the building.

KATHMANDU SNIPPET: The Annapurna Post vernacular daily reported on Sunday that the arrest was made on April 13. Identified as Mohsin Khosravian, the suspect is currently in police custody.

 The security officials at the Embassy speculated that the suspect was scouting the facility with a harmful intention "for he carried a tourist map of the Lazimpat area" where the Israeli mission is located. 

He had stayed in a Thamel-based hotel. After his arrest, the suspect told police that he had ventured out to find out a shop to repair his laptop.

 According to the report, the Nepal Police's Central Bureau...

(Reuters) - North Korea has asked Russia to consider the possibility of evacuating staff from its embassy in Pyongyang due to increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula, a spokesman for the Russian embassy said by phone from Pyongyang on Friday.

North Korean Diplomats 'Sell Millions of Dollars Worth of Drugs' North Korea sent a large amount of illegal drugs to its embassy in an East European country last December and ordered diplomats there to sell it for cash by early April, a diplomatic source here claims. "South Korean intelligence obtained the information from a North Korean agent who defected recently," the source said. "Similar orders were delivered to other North Korean embassies." North Korea has ordered each diplomat to raise US $300,000 to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Each North...

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in a classified report late last year that Russia’s military intelligence was responsible for a bomb blast that occurred at an exterior wall of the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, in September. ... The Times reported last week that Shota Utiashvili, director of information and analysis for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said the embassy blast and others in his country were the work of a Russian military intelligence officer named Maj. Yevgeny Borisov. “It is written without hedges, and it confirms the Georgian account,” said one U.S. official familiar with the U.S. intelligence report. This official...

Washington (CNN) -- A final meeting with the president. A farewell address to the State Department staff. A terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey. Hillary Clinton's last day as secretary of state on Friday seemed to be a microcosm of her four globe-trotting years as America's top diplomat. The former first lady had a full schedule, as usual, meeting in private with President Barack Obama at the White House and then attending the send-off ceremony with clapping, cheering workers at the agency she led. Those events were clouded by a suicide bombing earlier in the day in Ankara...

DHA photo A suspected suicide bombing has occurred in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, causing at least two deaths. Two people, including the suspected assailant, as well as a security guard, were killed in the explosion while two others were injured, according to initial reports. The explosion occurred at the entrance used by the embassy personnel and their visitors, CNNTürk reported. A security guard at the X-ray machine at the entrance was killed in the explosion that occurred as the suspected suicide bomber was passing through the machine, the report said. Bomb experts are at the scene of...

 AP July 18, 1994: Rescue workers search through the rubble after the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina.   The Iranian government directly ordered an act of terrorism in the Americas after being frustrated in its secret nuclear ambitions, a former chief of Argentine intelligence tells FOX News in an exclusive interview.Miguel Angel Toma, the former head of the Argentina's intelligence service, tells FOX News' Dan Senor that the Iranian government directly ordered a terror bombing on a Buenos Aires Jewish community center in 1994. The interview will air on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on...