The United States flew all nonemergency government staff out of Yemen and called on U.S. citizens to leave the country due to a terrorist threat.
Britain also evacuated its diplomatic staff Aug. 6 from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. Britain, France, Germany and Norway planned to keep their embassies in Yemen closed through Ramadan, the holy month in Islam, which ended Aug. 7.
The actions came several hours after four men believed to be al-Qaida members were killed in Yemen in what is being called an American drone strike.
On Aug. 5, the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and its consulates in Haifa and Jerusalem reopened after a daylong closure due to what was deemed a credible al-Qaida threat. But the State Department extended the closure of several diplomatic missions in the Middle East through Saturday, Aug. 10 “out of an abundance of caution.”
Diplomatic posts in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dubai, Kuwait, Tripoli, Khartoum and 11 other locations were to remain closed this week, according to the statement.
The State Department on Aug. 3 issued a global travel alert for American citizens. The alert warned of possible terror attacks by al-Qaida operatives and affiliated terror groups through the end of August.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview Aug. 4 on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said the electronic chatter among terror suspects about a possible attack was “very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”
“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” he said. — jta