US to reopen 18 missions today
Print Edition
Eighteen of the 19 United States embassies and consulates that were closed in the Middle East and Africa because of a terrorist threat will reopen today, the State Department said.
The US Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen, will remain closed. The US Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, which was closed on Thursday because of what officials say was a separate credible threat, also was not scheduled to reopen.
In the statement, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki did not cite a reason for the decision to reopen the 18 missions. She cited “ongoing concerns about a threat stream indicating the potential for terrorist attacks emanating from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” or AQAP, for keeping the embassy in Sanaa closed.
Evaluate the threats
“We will continue to evaluate the threats to Sanaa and Lahore and make subsequent decisions about the reopening of those facilities based on that information,” Psaki said.
The 19 outposts were closed to the public beginning last Sunday. Most American employees at the US Embassy in Yemen were ordered to leave the country last Tuesday because of threat information.
An intercepted message between al-Qaida officials about plans for a major terror attack triggered the 19 closures.
The State Department issued a travel warning on Thursday night regarding Pakistan, saying the presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups posed a potential danger to US citizens in the country. At the same time officials ordered nonessential government personnel to leave the US Consulate in Lahore.
Closing embassies and consulates called into question President Barack Obama’s assertion last spring that al-Qaida’s headquarters was “a shadow of its former self.”
On Friday, the president noted that he was referring to “core al-Qaida” and that “what I also said was that al-Qaida and other extremists have metastasized into regional groups that can pose significant dangers.”
The closings covered embassies and other posts stretching 7,800 kilometers from Tripoli, Libya, to Port Louis, Mauritius, and were not limited to Muslim or Muslim-majority nations.
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