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.”
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