Many have wondered what piece of intel could cause the closure of so many U.S. embassies. Writing for The Daily Beast, Eli Lake and Josh Rogin have an excellent column about the signals intelligence cause of the closure of our and U.K. embassies across North Africa and the Middle East.
Quite simply, it is thought to have been a conference call among some twenty or more al Qaeda leaders from across the region. A major agenda item was AQ supreme leader Zawahiri identifying Yemen's Wuhayshi as his second in command and what the column calls al Qaeda's "general manager." There was also talk about teams being in place to do major mischief.
It is likely al Qaeda won't use conference calls to hold virtual meetings in the future, now that they know we can eavesdrop.
