 There had been fears of an impending terrorist attack in Yemen since February 2006, when 23 Al Qaeda prisoners escaped from a Yemeni prison.The September 15th attacks came just before the country's Presidential elections.Only days before the attacks, Al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a videotaped threat of attacks on the Persian Gulf and on facilities he blamed for stealing Muslim oil; analysts point to Al Qaeda as the likely perpetrator of the attacks.