[ad_1]
Al Shabab, an East African terror group affiliated with al Qaeda, conspired to kill former President Barack Obama during a visit to Ethiopia in July 2015, according to a memoir by Susan E. Rice, who served as a national security adviser under Obama. .
The revelation of the plot to assassinate Obama was revealed in Rice’s memoir, Tough Love: My Story of Things Worth Fighting For, which recalls crucial moments in the diplomat’s dynamic career at the forefront of American diplomacy and foreign policy.
Narrating on Obama’s trip to Kenya and Ethiopia, which began in Nairobi and ended in Addis Ababa, the author recalled the importance of the former president’s visit, the first time to Kenya as commander-in-chief and the first time to Ethiopia as an acting president. Susan Rice then went on to talk about Al Shabab’s plan to assassinate the president in the thwarted plot during the two-day visit to Addis Ababa, and how the plot was thwarted by Ethiopia’s intelligence service.
This is an excerpt from the book published on October 8, 2019.
Although Africa was not the most dangerous place the president traveled, especially compared to Afghanistan or Iraq, it somehow accounted for a disproportionate share of our security-related stress. In July 2015, Obama visited Kenya for the first time as president. Unsurprisingly, the crowd was huge, often pressing on their caravan as they lined the streets thickly in Nairobi. The masses of people were uniformly friendly, but the enthusiastic crowds, understandably, worried the Secret Service. Once out of Kenya and in Ethiopia, I assumed that the collective blood pressure of the officers on the trip would drop precipitously.
So I was surprised to be called late at night at the Secret Service command post at the hotel, right after I had returned to my room from the state dinner in Addis Ababa (still in my evening dress). I arrived and found the president’s chief detail officer, several high-level agents, and security officials from the US Embassy in Ethiopia, all huddled in a secure tent talking anxiously. They reported that they had credible information that Al Shabab, a dangerous East African terrorist group, which has carried out successful attacks inside Ethiopia in the past, appeared to be planning to attack President Obama before he left the capital. Ethiopian security officers, who are both skilled and ruthless, claimed to have the conspirators under surveillance and assured us they had the threat in hand. Suffice it to say, these assurances did not appease the Secret Service (or me, although I knew better how capable they were).
We speak through information. I called Lisa Monaco back in Washington to make sure we were doing everything possible to prosecute this plot and its alleged perpetrators. I also quickly recruited my old friend Gayle Smith, who was traveling with us in her role as a senior employee of the NSC. Gayle knows Ethiopia as well as any American (non-Ethiopian), so I took her to work with me and the Secret Service late into the night, reviewing her contingency plans, and making sure we communicated with Ethiopians at the highest level. of government. .
The plot was reportedly to be executed the next day, as the president’s caravan was heading from the African Union, where he was giving the final speech of his trip, to the airport. Only a very small handful of White House personnel, other than the Secret Service, knew of the plot. When the speech was over, the president was ushered into a waiting room. Irritated and ready to go home, I kept wondering what was delaying our departure to the airport. Anita Decker Breckenridge, her deputy chief of staff, and I explained that the Secret Service was solving some security problems related to a threat, and Gayle was trying to get the latest. The president waited, growing impatient.
I returned with Gayle, who was huddled in a closet-sized anteroom off the main lobby of the new China-built African Union headquarters. With her were Ben Rhodes and the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, whom we had called just after the president’s speech ended. “Sir. Prime Minister, we have a problem,” I explained. “Our information indicates that the bad guy is still on the loose and is now located between here and the airport. The Secret Service cannot move the president until this is resolved.” Hailemariam took out his cell phone and called his intelligence chief, Getachew Assefa. After a short conversation, he handed the phone to Gayle, who reiterated, “We have a real problem here.” Getachew reassured her in half Tigrinya, half English, “Gayley, it’s not a problem.” Gayle repeated: “No, it’s a problem.
“Do not worry. No problem “.
Baffled, Gayle explained that the Secret Service cannot rely on vague assurances that “there is no problem.” “No, it’s not a problem,” he said again.
Gayle said: “Do you know where he is? “” Yes, “Getachew replied.” He is with me.
