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| U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaks to staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. The Obama administration hasn't sent its top diplomat to Pakistan since 2011, and Kerry's trip is a chance for the former senator to get to know the newly elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who came to power in Pakistan's first transition between civilian governments. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- The United States issued an extraordinary global travel warning
to Americans Friday about the threat of an al-Qaida attack and closed
down 21 embassies and consulates across the Muslim world for the
weekend.
The alert was the first of its kind
since an announcement preceding the tenth anniversary of the 9/11
terrorist attacks. This one comes with the scars still fresh from last
year's deadly Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi,
Libya, and with the Obama administration and Congress determined to
prevent any similar breach of an American Embassy or consulate.
"There
is a significant threat stream and we're reacting to it," said Gen.
Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He told ABC News
in an interview to be aired Sunday that the threat was "more specific"
than previous ones and the "intent is to attack Western, not just U.S.
interests."
The State Department warning urged
American travelers to take extra precautions overseas, citing potential
dangers involved with public transportation systems and other prime
sites for tourists and noting that previous terrorist attacks have
centered on subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats. It
suggested travelers sign up for State Department alerts and register
with U.S. consulates in the countries they visit.
The
statement said that al-Qaida or its allies might target either U.S.
government or private American interests. The alert expires on Aug. 31.
The
State Department said the potential for terrorism was particularly
acute in the Middle East and North Africa, with a possible attack
occurring on or coming from the Arabian Peninsula.
U.S.
officials pointed specifically to Yemen, the home of al-Qaida's most
dangerous offshoot and the network blamed for several notable terrorist
plots on the United States, from the foiled Christmas Day 2009 effort to
bomb an airliner over Detroit to the explosives-laden parcels
intercepted the following year aboard cargo flights.
"Current
information suggests that al-Qaida and affiliated organizations
continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and
that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now
and the end of August," a department statement said.
The
alert was posted a day after the U.S. announced it would shut many
diplomatic facilities Sunday. Spokeswoman Marie Harf said the department
acted out of an "abundance of caution" and that some missions may stay
closed for longer than a day. Sunday is a business day in Muslim
countries, and the diplomatic offices affected stretch from Mauritania
in northwest Africa to Afghanistan.
"I don't
know if I can say there was a specific threat," said Rep. Eliot Engel of
New York, the House Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, who was
briefed on the State Department's decision. "There is concern over the
potentiality of violence."
Although the
warning coincided with "Al-Quds Day," the last Friday of the Islamic
month of Ramadan when people in Iran and some Arab countries express
their solidarity with the Palestinians and their opposition to Israel,
U.S. officials played down any connection. They said the threat wasn't
directed toward a specific American diplomatic facility.
The
concern by American officials over the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the
Arabian Peninsula is not new, given the terror branch's gains in
territory and reach during Yemen's prolonged Arab Spring-related
instability.
The group made significant
territorial gains last year, capturing towns and cities in the south
amid a power struggle in the capital that ended with the resignation of
Yemen's longtime leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. A U.S.-aided
counteroffensive by the government has since pushed the militants back.
Yemen's
current president, Abdo Rabby Mansour Hadi, met with U.S. President
Barack Obama at the White House on Thursday, where both leaders cited
strong counterterrorism cooperation. Earlier this week, Yemen's military
reported a U.S. drone strike killed six alleged al-Qaida militants in
the group's southern strongholds.
As recently
as June, the group's commander, Qasim al-Rimi, released an
Arabic-language video urging attacks on U.S. targets and praising the
ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon
bombings. "Making these bombs has become in everyone's ... reach," he
said, according to the English subtitles.
"The
blinking red intelligence appears to be pointing toward an Al-Qaida in
the Arabian Peninsula plot," said
Seth Jones, counterterror expert at
the Rand Corp., referring to the branch of al-Qaida known as AQAP.
Britain also took action Friday in Yemen, announcing it would close its embassy there on Sunday and Monday as a precaution.
Britain,
which closely coordinates on intelligence matters with Washington,
stopped short of releasing a similar region-wide alert but added that
some embassy staff in Yemen had been withdrawn "due to security
concerns." British embassies and consulates elsewhere in the Middle East
were to remain open.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif.,
the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said the embassy threat
was linked to al-Qaida and concerned the Middle East and Central Asia.
"In
this instance, we can take a step to better protect our personnel and,
out of an abundance of caution, we should," Royce said. He declined to
say if the National Security Agency's much-debated surveillance program
helped reveal the threat.
Rep. C.A. Dutch
Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence
panel, also supported the department's decision to go public with its
concerns.
"The most important thing we have to
do is protect American lives," he said, describing the threat as "not
the regular chitchat" picked up from would-be militants on the Internet
or elsewhere.
The State Department issued
another warning a year ago about potential violence connected to the
Sept. 11 anniversary. Dozens of American installations were besieged by
protests over reports of an anti-Islam video made by an American
resident, and in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. ambassador and three other
Americans were killed when militants assaulted a diplomatic post.
The
administration no longer says Benghazi was related to the
demonstrations. But the attack continues to be a flashpoint of
contention with Republicans in Congress who say Obama, former Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others in the government misled the
country about the nature of the attack after failing to provide adequate
diplomatic protection.
