to extradite him. Fox News claimed that evidence found in Iraq after the invasion was used to stop the attempted assassination of the Pakistani ambassador in New York with a shoulder-fired rocket. US government officials claimed that after the invasion, Yemen and Jordan stopped Iraqi terrorist attacks against Western targets in those nations. US intelligence also warned 10 other countries that small groups of Iraqi intelligence agents might be readying similar attacks. After the Beslan school hostage crisis, public school layouts and crisis plans were retrieved on a disk recovered during an Iraqi raid; this caused concerns in the United States. The information on the disks was "all publicly available on the Internet" and US officials "said it was unclear who downloaded the information and stressed there is no evidence of any specific threats involving the schools". Pressuring Saudi Arabia According to this hypothesis, the operations in Iraq occurred as a result of the US attempting to put pressure on Saudi Arabia. Much of the funding for al-Qaeda came from sources in Saudi Arabia through channels left over from the Afghan War. The US, wanting to staunch such financial support, pressured the Saudi leadership to cooperate with the West. The Saudis in power, fearing an Islamic backlash if they cooperated with the US which could push them from power, refused. In order to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to cooperate, the invasion of Iraq was conceived. Such an action would demonstrate the power of the US military, put US troops near to Saudi Arabia, and demonstrate that the US did not need Saudi allies to project itself in the Middle East. Display of US military power to assert US global supremacy Ahsan Butt argues that the invasion of Iraq was partially motivated by a desire of American policymakers to reassert American prestige and status following 9/11. Butt argues that prior to 9/11 the United States was recognised internationally as the undisputed world superpower and hegemon, but the 9/11 attacks called this status into question. Butt argues that invading Iraq was a means of allowing the United States to demonstrate that it was and intended to remain a global hegemon. Since Afghanistan was too weak a nation to demonstrate American power, Iraq was also invaded. Butt argues that Sadam had also damaged American prestige as he remained defiant following the Gulf War. A 2012 poll found that "Assert dominance in a