as i mentioned, evan coleman is here with us. the first thing you said to us was, listen, there have been underreporting about these drone strikes happening in yemen or that have happened in yemen. that's caught your attention with the timing here as well. >> yeah, there's been a flurry of these strikes. reportedly, one of the targets of these strikes was a guy who is the master bomb maker involved with al qaeda in the arabian peninsula who was allegedly behind the underwear bomb plot, behind the cargo bomb plot, somebody who's featured very heavily and prominently in anti-u.s. plots conceived by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. if you tag that on as well with the fact that ever since benghazi, al qaeda in yemen has been very actively promoting the idea of attacking u.s. embassies, has been urging their supporters, affiliates, and others to launch attacks on u.s. embassies. it does present an interesting picture. >> it's also an interesting picture. the former ambassador to morocco mark ginsburg was on. he discussed the tel avi

joining us now is evan coleman, nbc news terrorism analyst and senior partner at flashpoint global partnersnice to have you. >> thank you. >> all right, evan. i assume vulnerability is just part of the reality of embassies, that threats are probably relatively common. so what kind of intelligence would have led to this kind of action? >> what we've seen in the past were leaks like this have come out, information like this has come out, it's come out of the result of human sources within al qaeda in that area. within al qaeda in yemen that usually have been recruited by the saudi government and sometimes they're simply providing information to us by proxy. these individuals usually have direct access wind the organization and i think it's fair to presume if they're ringing the alarm bells now, based on what we know in prior occasions, it's very likely that once again there's a human source here that's talking about something imminent. it's not clear what the target is, it's not clear exactly when it's going to be but there's something very specific apparently here again from a human source s

. >> joining me now, nbc terrorism analyst evan coleman and former u.s. ambassador to iraq christopher hill. he is the dean of the joseph corbell school of international studies at the university of denver. ambassador hill, that line that limbaugh just said, it is just so easy to be cynical now, that is sadly true, that in a situation like this it is as easy as it has ever been to be cynical about the coincidence of this timing. what do you say to the people who are questioning the coincidence of timing here? >> well, with all due respect to those who look for these conspiracy theories, believe me, this is something, when they get intelligence of the kind they've clearly gotten in which they've actually put out to the public, it's a very serious matter. now, the question is when you don't know where the attack is, you don't know how, you don't know when, you tend to go kind of broad in the region. and whether the events of benghazi play a role in that, you know, that may be the case. but certainly i think, you know, an abundance of caution would result in

. >> and that is nbc terrorism analyst evan coleman's take to issue a global travel warning and closingmbassies. joining me is. >> eric: blake. i'll start with you, erin. this is a pretty dramatic step they are taking right now. they are making alarming statements. what are you hearing? >> you know, there's not a lot of detail on this. we have seen statements from the state department, for instance, that suggest this is out of abundance of caution, that there is no specific information. we saw congressman peter king, former chairman of the house foreign affairs committee saying basically this is one of the most specific targets he's seen in five or 10 years. so there's information all across the board. i think what is interesting about this is that it's happening basically a year after what happened in benghazi. i think there is an abundance of caution. >> is there any word on what would prompt an alarming warning. are you getting any read from that officially? >> well, like aaron said, many lawmakers are not at liberty about what they're briefed about in the obama administration. the t

. >> i want to bring in terrorism annual analyst evan coleman and general barry mccaffrey. we don't know about any new threat yet. i want to start, if we can, in yemen with this conversation, evan, between the number one essentially and the new number two of al qaeda. is there something else going on here besides that, that you can sense? does it anything to do with the drone strikes? >> well, look. there have been a number of drone strikes? yemen the last week or two and they seem to be going after senior leaders. among the people targeted the names were a former gitmo detainee who is a senior al qaeda leader in yemen and the master bombmaker behind some of the very significant terror plots. >> there has been a lot of talk about this and for the first time folks who don't follow it closely are hearing about actual bombs being implanted in people. >> yeah. >> big concern. this is the guy? >> this is the scary thing. this guy has gotten to the point now he is developing explosives that he believes can be concealed inside of a person, can be surgically implanted. to be fair, t

. >> let me bring in nbc news terrorism analyst evan coleman, senior partner with flashpoint global partners and congressman michael grim from new york and cochair of the caucus on u.s. russia economic relations. good to see you. good morning. >> good morning. >> six drone strikes in the past ten days. what do we know about the targets, the success? >> nobody has been identified. unfortunately some of the strikes which were targeting senior al qaeda leaders there were reports about former gitmo detainees killed. none of that's been confirmed. even the yemen government is backing off claims they interrupted a grand terror scheme targeting oil targets and a city in yemen. now they are backing off the claim. we are seeing efforts to go after these folks but we haven't seen concrete evidence that we are getting people who were on the conference call or the e-mail or whatever it was that sparked this alert to begin with. >> this brought up the question of where we stand with al qaeda, how it works operationally now in this world. how is it different than it was when osama bin laden was alive? >>

let me bring in nbc terrorism analyst evan coleman. i'm sure you overheard the conversation with bob here. what is your takeaway at this point, as we've seen an extension with some embassies and while others throughout the week will still be closed, some, including tel aviv, reopened today. >> once again, you're seeing this focus on a threat emanating from the arabian peninsula. we now get the idea that there was a senior individual or senior leader of aqap of al qaeda and yemen who was the source of this information. two names immediately pop up as potential sources. number one is the yemeni head of al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. another one is a former guantanamo bay detainee who was released, went back to yemen and joined al qaeda and is one of the prominent public spokesperson for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. he's more charismatic. supposedly he was also the target of a drone strike last week in yemen. he's certainly someone at the top of the list as potential sources of the information that we're looking at right now. >>

. >> i want to bring in the conversation evan coleman. great to see you. you hear the reporting coming from amman there. the fact that yemeni officials foiled this al qaeda plot. is there a new effort by yemeni official to take on the responsibility, the government responsibility to crack down on what is a problem with terrorists, al qaeda terrorists in yemen? >> we hope so. the past few years serious challenges to yemeni government authority. al qaeda was known to take over large parts of regions of yemen and able to seize populated areas. it took a coordinated assault to get rid of them. i think they are still in a position if they did it right they might be able to seize an entire port or oil pipeline or refinery and cause strategic damage and do something that is of greater significant than blowing up a building. >> chuck schumer talked this morning about the efforts against al qaeda. take a listen. >> al qaeda in iraq and afghanistan has been decimated largely by the drones and now we are focusing that attention on yemen which is al qaeda arabian benz