West shuts Middle East embassies amid security alert

The U.S. temporarily shuttered 22 embassies and consulates Sunday, primarily in Muslim countries, in what is said to be the most widespread closure ever. Nineteen of the offices will remain closed until Aug. 10.

Several European states have also shut embassies in Yemen over fears al-Qaeda is planning to launch attacks.

The U.S. closed its facilities Sunday, from Mauretania in the West to Bangladesh in the East, after saying that al-Qaeda issued a renewed warning to harm Western interests in revenge for U.S. drone attacks on its fighters and imprisonment of militants in Guantanamo.

The state department said it is extending its closure of several embassies and consulates in the Middle East until August 10 out of "an abundance of caution." Some posts, including Kabul, Baghdad, Basrah and Algiers, are allowed to reopen Monday.

"The threat was specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also that certain dates were given," Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., who chairs a House panel on counterterrorism and intelligence, told ABC on Sunday.

House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said he has seen no evidence linking the latest warnings to the National Security Agency's collection of "vast amounts of domestic data."

Some, however, argued that heightened security measures could give al-Qaeda an inadvertent image boost.

"The closure of some U.S. embassies sends a wrong message to the world that al-Qaeda is still strong," said Qais Mohammed, an engineer from Baghdad. "I think that adopting balanced and fair policies toward the Arab and Islamic world is the best way to safeguard U.S. embassies and interests in the region."

And some warned that the security measures aren’t sustainable.

"It sets a precedent," said Shadi Hamid, an analyst with the Brookings Doha Center. "What happens if you keep on getting credible threats?"

Britain, Germany and France also closed their embassies in Yemen Sunday, citing security reasons. In London, the Foreign Office said that a number of staff at the British embassy had been withdrawn from Sanaa, particularly because of increased concerns in "the final days of Ramadan and into Eid." Canada also announced that it would close its mission in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

"Terror threats are always taken seriously," a European diplomat who is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, told Al Jazeera. “I think we always have to take those seriously, especially in this region.”

“[W]e trust that if [the U.S.] has information regarding other targets, different embassies for example, that we will be informed,” he added.

The U.S. also issued a global travel alert Friday to warn its citizens of potential "terrorist attacks."

The day after the U.S. warning, international police agency Interpol asked member states to increase their vigilance against attacks after a series of prison breaks in Iraq, Libya and Pakistan in which it thinks al-Qaeda may be involved.

Some media outlets implied that Interpol’s security warning and the State Department’s global travel alert were connected, but national security consultant Tim Crockett told Al Jazeera that he thinks such allegations are tenuous.

"I'm not quite sure if there's a specific link to the prison breaks and the possible links that they had been assisted by al-Qaeda themselves and the worldwide alert issued by the State Department," he said.

In Washington DC, top U.S. officials met to review the threat, with President Barack Obama briefed following the session.

Susan Rice, Obama's national security advisor, led the meeting, which was also attended by top state department, defense department and intelligence agency officials. 

No official statements were made regarding the cause of the threat level elevation following the meeting.

In Yemen, local authorities said they were in a state of high alert. Soldiers blocked roads around the U.S. and British embassies in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, while troops with automatic rifles stood outside the French embassy, according to Reuters. Extra security also could be seen near U.S. embassies in Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan.

"There is a high level of coordination with the American side, and these measures have been taken due to fears of attacks by al-Qaeda," a Yemeni security official said.

Security was also bolstered around the Presidential Palace, as well as near the Saudi embassy in the center of the Yemeni capital, causing traffic jams.

Last week, suspected al-Qaeda militants killed the Saudi bodyguard and Yemeni driver of a Saudi diplomat in Sanaa, and gunmen shot and killed a Yemeni soldier guarding the Italian embassy, security sources said.

At least one person died and six others were wounded in clashes Friday between soldiers once loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's toppled president, and a rival army faction in Sanaa, police and medical sources said.

The friction added to rising tension in Yemen, which is increasing because of renewed U.S. drone attacks and security concerns.

Hakim Almasmari, editor of the Yemen Post, told Al Jazeera that the country is the most tense it has been in a year.

"[This is] mostly due to the lack of security presence in the government and because of drone strikes taking place this week," he said.

At least three have struck Yemen in the past seven days, killing 13 people, some of them civilians, he said.

"The timing of the strikes was very unfortunate" further compounding the impact on Yemeni people, Almasmari said, because they fell in the month of Ramadan and as President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was on a trip to the U.S.

"The threat of al-Qaeda is very strong right now," he said.

Al Jazeera and wire services