US Embassy in Yemen closes in response to ongoing al-Qaida threats

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US Embassy in Yemen closes over al-Qaida threats

SAN’A, Yemen — The U.S. closed its embassy in Yemen on Sunday, citing ongoing threats by the al-Qaida group that has been linked to the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas.

The confrontation with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has gained new urgency since the 23-year-old Nigerian accused in the attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told American investigators he received training and instructions from the group’s operatives in Yemen. President Barack Obama said Saturday that the al-Qaida offshoot was behind the attempt.

“The U.S. Embassy in San’a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula … to attack American interests in Yemen,” the embassy said in a message on its Web site. It did not say how long the embassy would remain closed and an embassy spokesman reached by phone would not comment on whether there was a specific threat.

The closure comes as Washington is stepping up aid to Yemen to fight al-Qaida. Over the weekend, Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, visited Yemen and announced plans to more than double counterterrorism aid to the impoverished Arab nation this year.

The U.S. also provided intelligence and other help to back two Yemeni air and ground assaults on al-Qaida positions last month, reported to have killed more than 60 people. Yemeni authorities said more than 30 suspected militants were among the dead.

The U.S. has increasingly provided intelligence, surveillance and training to Yemeni forces during the past year, and has provided some firepower, a senior U.S. defense official has said. Some of that assistance may be through the expanded use of unmanned drones, and the U.S. is providing funding to Yemen for helicopters and other equipment. Officials, however, say there are no U.S. ground forces or fighter aircraft in Yemen.

On Thursday, the embassy sent a notice to Americans in Yemen urging them to be vigilant about security. On Saturday, Petraeus met with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and announced the increased counterterrorism aid.

Yemeni security officials said over the weekend that the country had deployed several hundred extra troops to two mountainous eastern provinces that are al-Qaida’s main strongholds in the country and where Abdulmutallab may have visited. U.S. and Yemeni investigators have been trying to track Abdulmutallab’s steps in Yemen, which he visited from August until Dec. 7. He was there ostensibly to study Arabic in San’a, but he disappeared for much of that time.

Al-Qaida has killed a number of top security officials in outlying provinces in recent months, underscoring Yemeni government’s lack of control over the country. Tribes hold sway in the region, and many of them are discontented with the central government and have given refuge to al-Qaida fighters, both Yemenis and other Arabs coming from Saudi Arabia or war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Britain has joined the U.S. fight against al-Qaida in Yemen, with the government confirming Sunday that Obama and Prime Minister Gordon Brown agreed to back a counterterrorism police unit in Yemen. Brown said Britain will also to host a high-level international conference Jan. 28 to hammer out an international strategy to counter radicalization in Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden and the site of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, has a weak central government whose authority does not extend far beyond the capital San’a. In addition to battling al-Qaida fighters, it also faces two separate internal rebellions in the north and south.

Located at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen straddles a strategic maritime crossroads at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the access point to the Suez Canal. Across the Gulf is Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said al-Qaida militants have been increasing their activity. Yemen also borders Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading oil producer.

There have been a spate of assaults on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen and it has closed several times over past threats. In an attack in September 2008, gunmen and two vehicles packed with explosives attacked the U.S. Embassy, killing 19 people including an 18-year-old American woman and six militants. None of those killed or wounded were U.S. diplomats or embassy employees. Al-Qaida in Yemen claimed responsibility.

In March 2003, two people were shot dead and dozens more are wounded as police clash with demonstrators trying to storm the embassy. In March 2008, three mortars missed the U.S. Embassy and crashed into a high school for girls nearby, killing a security guard

Last January, gunmen in a car exchanged fire with police at a checkpoint near the embassy, hours after the embassy received threats of a possible attack by al-Qaida. Nobody was injured.

As recently as July, security was upgraded in San’a after intelligence reports warned of attacks planned against the U.S. Embassy.

In Washington, the State Department had no immediate comment on the embassy closure.