Specific details were limited by the need to agree to bargaining arrangements and the amount of the bounty payment with other countries, particularly the United Kingdom and Italy. Al Aswamy had already disclosed the extent of Iranian financial, matériel, and manpower support to Al Qaeda in Mali, Yemen, Somalia, and Kenya. Newspapers, wire services, and television news organizations throughout the world—including Al Jazeera—interpreted the refusal of Homeland Security agencies to comment on or to deny the New York Times story as confirmation that it was true. The story was either re-published, with attribution, or re-written without acknowledging the source. Both versions were supplemented by archive material and stock film footage. Understandably the most commonly re-published pictures were of the deserted Washington Mall, Rome’s Colosseum, and the Sellafield nuclear plant. Sally began monitoring the coverage from the embassy communications bunker just after dawn, channel-hopping from American TV to foreign stations to establish the global pickup.
