The United States told its citizens in Yemen on Tuesday to leave immediately and airlifted out some US government personnel, following warnings of potential attacks that have pushed Washington to shut diplomatic missions across the Middle East. The poorest Arab country, Yemen is the base for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the most active branches of the network founded by Osama bin Laden, and militants have launched attacks from there against the West.
US sources have told Reuters that intercepted communication between bin Laden's successor as al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, and the Yemen-based wing was one part of the intelligence behind their alert last week. Britain, which has already advised for more than two years that its citizens in Yemen should "leave now", announced it was temporarily evacuating all its embassy staff.
Yemen is one of a handful of countries where Washington acknowledges targeting militants with strikes by drone aircraft. In the latest strike on Tuesday, a US drone fired five missiles at a car travelling in the central Maarib province killing all four of its occupants, local tribal leaders said. Yemen's state news agency Saba said four al Qaeda militants were killed in the attack.
The US State Department's announcement urging Americans to leave the country follows a worldwide travel alert on Friday which prompted Washington to shut diplomatic missions across the Middle East and Africa. Some of its European allies have also closed their embassies in Yemen. "The Department urges US citizens to defer travel to Yemen and those US citizens currently living in Yemen to depart immediately," the statement posted on its website said.
"On August 6, 2013, the Department of State ordered the departure of non-emergency US government personnel from Yemen due to the continued potential for terrorist attacks," it added. Britain also said on Tuesday it had withdrawn all staff from its embassy in the capital Sanaa, adding there was "a very high threat of kidnap from armed tribes, criminal and terrorists".
Restoring stability to Yemen - a country close to major shipping lanes and torn by regional and sectarian separatism and tribal violence as well as the al Qaeda insurgency - has been a priority for the United States. In a statement issued in Washington, Pentagon spokesman George Little said the US Air Force "transported personnel out of Sanaa, Yemen, as part of a reduction in emergency personnel" in response to a request by the State Department. He did not specify which types of personnel were involved or where they were taken. "The US Department of Defence continues to have personnel on the ground in Yemen to support the US State Department and monitor the security situation," the statement said.
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi criticised the measures but said they would not affect relations with the United States. "Unfortunately, these measures, although they are taken to protect their citizens, in reality they serve the goals that the terrorist elements are seeking to achieve," Qirbi told Reuters. "Yemen had taken these threats seriously and had taken all the necessary measures to protect all the foreign missions in the country," he added.