Several detainees returned to Yemen from Guantanamo Bay are now known to have links to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been linked to the attempted airline attack.

VOA: standard.2010.01.05

The group in Yemen, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, is believed to have ties with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a U.S.passenger jet on December 25.

VOA: standard.2010.01.07

"There are indications that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is targeting our embassy and targeting our personnel and we are not going to take any chances with the lives of our diplomats and others who are at that embassy,".

VOA: standard.2010.01.03

The strikes came after U.S. intelligence concluded that the elder al-Awlaki was senior operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plotting attacks on the U.S., including the abortive Christmas Day bombing of an airplane landing in Detroit in 2009.

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" The president said that while one of its most troublesome affiliates, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, is a force to be reckoned with, "in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al-Qaida will pose a credible threat to the United States.

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Earlier last week, Attorney General Eric Holder, in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, actually for the first time acknowledged that the United States has actually killed four American citizens, including Ayman al-Aliki, who was the purported head of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, his 16-year-old son Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, Jude Mohammed and Samir Khan, who were also American citizens.

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