U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has announced a worldwide military “high alert” for U.S. forces just hours before the release of a Senate report on CIA secret interrogations.
Hagel announced the alert during a visit to Baghdad on December 9, the same day that the U.S. Senate report is due to be published.
The White House said on December 8 that embassies and other sites were taking precautions amid "some indications" of "greater risk."
The report is expected to give details of the CIA’s interrogation of suspected Al-Qaeda operatives at secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.
It is also expected to say that harsh interrogations failed to deliver appropriate results.
President Barack Obama halted the CIA interrogation program when he took office in 2009 and has acknowledged that the methods used to question Al-Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture.