"I'm not in a position to discuss specific intelligence, but we believe this threat is significant, and we are taking it seriously for that reason and have taken the actions that the State Department announced out of an abundance of caution and will continue to monitor this and take action as necessary," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Carney said the threat is emanating from and maybe directed towards the Arabian Peninsula, but it is beyond that, potentially.
According to Carney, the current information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organisations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond.
"And our information suggests that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August," he said.
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The State Department, however, refrained from giving any information on the actions that the US might take against these terrorists.
"I'm not going to get into specifics about what actions we might be taking. I will say that we said this weekend when we put out the travel alert that this threat emanates from the Arabian Peninsula.
The US, she said, is going to keep evaluating the information it gets in and make security decisions going forward.
"Our preference is for embassies and consulates to be open. Clearly, we operate around the world in places like this because we have a mission there. But we have to balance the mission need versus the security situation on the ground, and we'll continue making those decisions going forward," Harf said in response to a question.