Al Shabab, an East African terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, plotted 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 disclosed in Rice’s memoir, Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, which recalls pivotal moments from the diplomat’s dynamic career on the front lines of American diplomacy and foreign policy.
Narrating about Obama’s travel to Kenya and Ethiopia, which started in Nairobi and ended in Addis Ababa, the author looked back on the significance of the former president’s visit, the first time to Kenya as commander-in-chief and the first time to Ethiopia as a sitting president. Susan Rice then went on to talk about Al Shabab’s plan to assassinate the president in the foiled plot during the two-day visit in Addis Ababa, and how the plot was thwarted by Ethiopia’s intelligence service.
This is an excerpt from the book published on Oct. 8, 2019.
Even though Africa was hardly 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. Predictably, the crowds were enormous, often pressing in on his motorcade as they densely lined the streets of Nairobi. The masses of people were uniformly friendly, but the enthusiastic crowds understandably concerned Secret Service. Once out of Kenya and on to Ethiopia, I assumed the collective blood pressure of the agents on the trip would drop precipitously.
So I was surprised to be summoned late in the evening to the Secret Service command post at the hotel just after I had returned to my room from the state dinner in Addis Ababa (still in my formal gown). I arrived to find the president’s head of detail, several senior agents, and security officials from the U.S. 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 carried out successful attacks inside Ethiopia in the past, appeared to be planning to attack President Obama before he left the capital. Ethiopian security officials, who are both skilled and ruthless, claimed to have the plotters under surveillance and assured us that they had the threat in hand. Suffice it to say, these assurances did not assuage Secret Service (nor I, though I knew better how capable they were).
We talked through the information. I called back to Lisa Monaco in Washington to ensure that we were putting every effort into chasing down this plot and its alleged perpetrators. I also swiftly enlisted my old friend Gayle Smith, who was traveling with us in her role as a senior NSC staffer. Gayle knows Ethiopia as well as any (non-Ethiopian) American, so I grabbed her to work with me and the Secret Service late into the night, review their contingency plans, and ensure we were communicating with the Ethiopians at the highest level of government.
The plot was due to be executed the next day, reportedly, as the president’s motorcade made its way 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 staff, in addition to Secret Service, knew about the plot. When the speech ended, the president was spirited into a holding room. Irritated and ready to go home, he kept asking what was delaying our departure for the airport. Anita Decker Breckenridge, his deputy chief of staff, and I explained that Secret Service was working through some security concerns related to a threat, and Gayle was trying to get the latest. The president waited, growing increasingly impatient.
I returned to Gayle, who was huddled in a closet-sized anteroom off the main hall of the new, Chinese-built African Union headquarters. With her were Ben Rhodes and Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn, whom we had flagged down right after the president’s speech ended. “Mr. Prime Minister, we have a problem,” I explained. “Our information indicates that the bad guy is still on the loose and is now positioned between here and the airport. Secret Service can’t move the president until this is sorted out.” Hailemariam took out his cell phone and called his chief of intelligence, 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 is a problem.
“Dont worry. There is not a problem.”
Puzzled, Gayle explained that Secret Service can’t 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.”
Few things to remember. Tplf used terrorism effectively to hoodwink Americans and to silence local opposition. Americans and Brits at best administered a slap on the wrist for horrendous atrocities Tplf committed throughout its history and still rewarded it with a hefty bonus! Gruesome mowing down at Mai-Kadra last month is just a repeat among others of Hinfishfish (1977-1978), and so on.
The fact that Susan Rice said what she said in her book does not make it true. Susan Rice is a close confidant of Meles Zenawi. For some reason she has always been drawn to tyrants (as for example, Mugabe). Remember also, Tplf run the whole show when it was still in power. Every key position in the Security, Telecom, Army, Banking, Ethiopian Airlines, Police and Hospital pathologists, etc was in the hands of Tplf! Not kidding. All verifiable.
Btw, this trip that Susan, Gayle (“Gayley”) Smith and Obama were on ended in a shameful act by Obama declaring that Ethiopia had “a democratically elected government!” Susan the fox gets back to Washington and when asked by a reporter about Tplf winning by 100% vote goes into a hysterical laughter! That was not funny at all. Following the 2005 elections many got killed and thousands ended up in torture chambers! In November this year Rice re-twitted “war crimes” because Federal forces were hunting down Tplf criminals who had identified and slaughtered hundreds of non-Tigrayans and dumped their bodies in unmarked graves! https://twitter.com/ambassadorrice/status/1330537213373927425 You now see where her principles are locked in.
Think about this. Tplf’s shadowy figure Getachew who as I write is on the run from the law calls up to reassure “Gayley” of averting, in his infinite wisdom, Al Shabab’s attack (ever curious why such familiarity with Gayle Smith? check here https://ethiopiansemay.blogspot.com/2012/05/meles-zenawi-is-wristband-gift-donated.html There we go.
Tplf is also known for gifting (bribing) key individuals (reporters, politicians, ambassadors, PR agencies, lawyers, philanthropists, etc) with gold, diamond, and hefty sum of money. This was done through Ethiopian embassies and trade missions! Someone better check this out!
Let us go back to Tplf’s effective use of terror to silence opposition and reap enormous wealth in the name of being the West’s “key ally”! Two examples. After losing election 1997 to a hastily organized Kinijit Tplf set out to promulgate a new “terrorism” laws. It had already reorganized the Orthodox church to do its bidding by appointing Tigrayans from the patriarch on down. Now it turned to the Muslim community. But Muslims were resisting vigorously. Easy. In the news in 2012 two “jihadists” show up at Bole Airport and, we were told, immediately headed to the Grand Mosque. And? Well, they were about to agitate the crowd but were quickly apprehended and sent back to their country of origin. Where was their country of origin? No one knew. Not even Tplf’s notorious and now Rice’s savior Getachew! January 2009 a grenade accidentally goes off in a taxi! The grenade was in a passenger’s luggage. The passenger apparently was not a terrorist! Interesting indeed. The same day Meles Zenawi declared a “more serious situation” was averted in the nick of time. It all happened as a result of Ethiopia withdrawing troops from Somalia! That was for American consumption as Americans were insisting multinational force to scout Somalia; Meles wanted to go it alone. That did not make sense unless you knew how Tplf operated. First, there was enormous contraband and illegal stuff going on in the region and Tplf was reaping the lucre. Second, Tplf was “working with Somalia and Shabab” and hence never was there a threat to Ethiopia!
Don’t believe this is an isolated matter. Often it is the result of Tplf’s disinformation campaign. In other instances it is the result of ideological bent that no evidence could cure. As in WHO director and Tplf central committee member Tedros Adhanom (ab)using his office to advance a violent group’s agenda. As in Tufts University’s World Peace Forum serving Tplf destructive agenda (with Tplf members in tow) and not even remotely condemning the hundreds Tplf murdered and buried in mass graves last month because they are not Tigrayans.
bravo!!!
I read Ambassador Susan Rice’s 531-page tome with tepid distaste. Her book doesn’t suggest she is a scholar of staggering versatility unlike the late professor W. Scott Thompson of the US Institute of Peace during the Regan administration. Like Susan, he went to Stanford and oxen and published a great book on Ghana’s Foreign policy while teaching at Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Not to mention those prominent European historians, foremost the late Terence Ranger, David Martin and Phyllis Johnson, who have left an enduring legacy on the history of Zimbabwe. Best of all, they are people of probity unlike the immodest Rice who has a blood on her hands in Ethiopia, Libya, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan, among others. Please read the following links:
https://mronline.org/2020/11/14/susan-rice-scourge-of-africa-may-become-secretary-of-state/
https://mronline.org/2020/11/14/susan-rice-scourge-of-africa-may-become-secretary-of-state/
Ethiopian-Americans who voted Democratic Party should compose a letter and send it to Biden Admin and to Tufts’ University. Democrats have the worst record for not doing right by Ethiopia! Carter (1977) and again (1997); Clinton, Obama. The Republican agenda is always clearer than those of the Democrats. You don’t expect much from them. Democrats always talk about freedom, human rights, and justice. They waffle and then let you go down the abyss. Rwanda (Clinton), Egypt, Syria, Libya (Obama). Tragedy is awaiting to happen.
On Day 1 Susan Rice (Gayle Smith) will take up the case of their criminal Tplf comrades (which as I write they are busy pulling strings trying to change the story line by turning Tplf as victim!).
What does Susan Rice want to tell us something we don’t know about her nefarious activities? Follow the links what Americans are reading.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/20/susan-rices-e-mail-exposes-team-obamas-treachery-goodwin/
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2020/12/10/by-tapping-susan-rice-biden-embraced-worst-corruption-of-obama-years/amp/