‘Depart Immediately,’ State Dept. Tells Americans in Yemen : The Two-Way : NPR
Warning that “the security threat level in Yemen is extremely high,” the State Department is urging any Americans in that country to “depart immediately.”
The ominous advisory follows the “temporary shutdowns of 19 American diplomatic posts across the Middle East and Africa,” The Associated Press reminds readers. It also comes after a more general worldwide “travel alert” issued last Friday.
As we wrote Monday, the missions were shuttered over the weekend after the U.S. gathered what lawmakers say is some of the most serious intelligence since before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicating that terrorists are planning new strikes — most likely in the regions where diplomatic posts were closed, but possibly elsewhere.
From ‘Morning Edition’: NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston talks with Linda Wertheimer about the terrorism alerts
On Morning Edition, NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston said the decision to close the diplomatic posts and issue the warnings came, U.S. officials say, after intelligence agencies picked up electronic communications between Ayman al-Zawahri — al-Qaida’s leader since the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden — and Nasir al-Wuhayshi. He’s the head of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and may now be the No. 2 man in all of al-Qaida.
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