US issues travel alert, pulls out diplomats from Lahore
Print Edition
The United States has warned Americans not to travel to Pakistan and evacuated most government personnel from the country’s second largest city because of a threat to the consulate in Lahore.
Yesterday’s action came amid a flurry of deadly militant attacks in Pakistan. It also followed an al-Qaida threat to US diplomatic posts in the Middle East and North Africa that American officials said was unrelated to the situation in Pakistan.
The US is shifting nonessential staff from Lahore to the capital Islamabad, after a specific threat to the consulate there, said US Embassy spokeswoman Meghan Gregonis.
Emergency personnel will stay in Lahore, and embassy officials do not know when the consulate will reopen, Gregonis said.
“We received information regarding a threat to the consulate,” she said. “As a precautionary measure, we are undertaking a drawdown of all except emergency personnel.”
She did not provide any details on the nature of the threat or the evacuation of US personnel, including exactly when it occurred. The consulate in Lahore was scheduled to be closed for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr from Thursday through Sunday.
The personnel drawdown at the Lahore consulate was precautionary and wasn’t related to the recent closures of numerous US diplomatic missions in the Muslim world because of a threat from al-Qaida, said US officials.
Earlier this week, 19 US diplomatic outposts in 16 countries in the Middle East and Africa were closed to the public through Saturday and nonessential personnel were evacuated from the US Embassy in Yemen after US intelligence officials said they had intercepted a recent message from al-Qaida’s top leader Ayman al-Zawahiri about plans for a major terror attack.
None of the consulates in Pakistan or the US Embassy in Islamabad were affected by the earlier closures.
On Thursday, the State Department advised US citizens not to travel to Pakistan, saying the presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups posed a potential danger.
The country has faced a bloody insurgency by the Pakistani Taliban and their allies in recent years that has killed over 40,000 civilians and security personnel, and is also believed to be home base for al-Zawahiri, although his exact whereabouts are unknown.
Gunmen killed six people and wounded 15 others yesterday in an attack on a former lawmaker outside a mosque in Quetta, the capital of southwest Baluchistan province. The lawmaker escaped unharmed, and no one claimed responsibility for the attack. A day earlier, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 30 people at a police funeral in Quetta.
Pakistan’s major cities, including Lahore, have also experienced periodic attacks.
A powerful bomb exploded at a busy market street in Lahore in early July, killing at least four people and wounding nearly 50.
Islamabad has also been under high alert in recent days because of intelligence received by the Pakistani government that militants were planning attacks on key targets in the city.
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