U.S., Britain Close Embassies in Yemen in Response to Security Threats

TERRORISM -- January 3, 2010 at 9:39 AM EDT

U.S., Britain Close Embassies in Yemen in Response to Security Threats

The U.S. and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen Sunday, citing continued security threats from al-Qaida groups in the country. Both counties also plan increase aid to the government of Yemen to fight terrorism in the aftermath of the failed attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day.

According to the Associated Press, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the U.S. Embassy, which was attacked twice in 2008, was shut Sunday because of "indications al-Qaida is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of San'a, possibly our embassy."

In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama said that an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen apparently ordered the Christmas Day airliner plot, training and arming the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused in the failed bombing.

The British embassy also closed Sunday for security reasons and the BBC reports that a decision would be made on Monday whether to reopen it or not.

The New York Times reports that the closure comes the day after a quiet visit to Yemen's president by U.S. regional military commander Gen. David Petraeus, who delivered a message from President Obama of support for Yemen's unity and counterrorism efforts.

Last week, the NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown talked to Barbara Bodine, who was U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 1997 to 2001, and Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the London School of Economics, for more on the security situation in Yemen.

"One of the miracles of Yemen is that it's never quite failed, but it also never quite succeeds," Bodine said. "And the issue before us now is not to write it off as a failed or even failing state, but try to see what we can do to keep it from going to the wrong side of the failure curve."

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