The most surprising piece of information coming out in the aftermath of the Christmas Day attack on a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit has come from al-Qaida itself.  Today's claim of responsibility from Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) includes the surprising reason for the attack.  The attack was a response to air raids against AQAP elements in Yemen earlier in December.  That means the group had the technical and logistical capabilities to perpetrate significant acts of terrorism against the US mainland within weeks, and suggests they are a significant threat to foreign nationals and energy infrastructure in the Persian Gulf.

This could be a sign of things to come. Al-Qaida's senior leadership under pressure along the Afghan-Pakistan border may outsource their mainland US plots to any number of affiliates and operational cells.  Senior affiliate leaders in Algeria, Somalia or Yemen could be making operational decisions in the name of the entire movement without prior permission from its Af-Pak-based leadership.  This kind of distributed decision-making could make it much harder for counterterrorism officials to target and disrupt the operational commanders who may be plotting major attacks against the US mainland.

Current news reports often characterize Yemen as a new ground for al-Qaida, but this is misleading.  Al-Qaida has been operating in Yemen for quite some time.  Little did we know we were in such dangerous new era.

Update on Dec 29, 2009 at 14:55 by Marisa Urgo

Thanks, Pete, for pointing out that discrepency.  My bad.  Abdulmutallab's tickets were purchased before the raids.  However, he was still in Yemen in early December which means the plot quickly went from preparation to operation.