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GUARDIAN Sun, 03 Jan 2010 11:03:34 GMT
US embassy in Sana'a closed due to 'ongoing threats' after warning American citizens in Yemen to be vigilant
Al-Qaida threats have forced the United States to close its embassy in Yemen today amid increasing concern about the roots of terrorism in the Arabian peninsula in the wake of the Christmas Day bomb plot.
A statement posted on the embassy website said the office in the capital, Sana'a, had closed due to "ongoing threats" from al-Qaida. It said the embassy sent warning last week to US citizens in Yemen urging them to be vigilant.
An embassy spokesman would not comment on whether there had been a specific threat.
Yemen has been under scrutiny since the failed attempt by the Nigerian-born Umar Abdulmutallab to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day. Abdulmutallab was trained in Yemen and yesterday Barack Obama said al-Qaida's branch there was behind the attempted attack.
Gordon Brown today confirmed that he and Obama had agreed to back a counterterrorism police unit in Yemen. In an statement, Downing Street said the unit was part of a plan to "intensify joint US-UK work to tackle the emerging terrorist threat from both Yemen and Somalia".
Downing Street said Britain was already helping to train Yemeni counterterrorism officials, but a spokeswoman said this was the first time the counterterrorism police units had been confirmed. She said Britain was forecast to give more than £100m to Yemen in 2011.
Obama's top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, arrived in Yemen yesterday to tell the president, Ali Abdallah Saleh, that the US would increase its counterterrorism aid in the coming year.
Downing Street also said in its statement that the prime minister and president believed that in Somalia "a larger peacekeeping force is required and [we] will support this at the UN security council".
Last week Brown called for a high-level international meeting later this month to devise ways to counter radicalisation in Yemen. Downing Street said the government of Yemen had been consulted over the decision to boost the country's coastguard and police operations.
There have been a spate of assaults on the US embassy in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden and the site of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. The embassy has closed several times over past threats.
The most deadly attack in recent history happened in September 2008, when gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the embassy building, killing 19 people, including an 18-year-old US woman and six militants. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility.
Yemen
United States
Al-Qaida
Matthew Weaver
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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