U.S. Embassy in Yemen May Be Abandoned Due to Muslim Unrest

The U.S. Embassy in Sana’a, Yemen is reportedly on the brink of needing to be evacuated for reasons similar to why the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, Libya was abandoned earlier this year; that would be the threat of Muslim jihadists. It wasn’t just two months ago, during his now infamous speech on his ISIS strategy, that Barack Obama said the following about Yemen:

“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

Now we’re being told that the U.S. Embassy in Yemen might need to be abandoned closed evacuated:

A day after the State Department said it would reduce the number of American staff at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, CNN is reporting the embassy may be evacuated due to deteriorating security in the country.

Monday’s drawdown in embassy staffing coincided with the Treasury imposing sanctions on Yemen’s former president and two military commanders linked to the powerful Shiite Houthi rebel group and comes amid a rise in anti-American protests.

The sanctions were imposed after the U.N. Security Council on Friday added the same three men to its sanctions list for threatening the peace security and stability of Yemen.

Thousands of Houthis and supporters of the ex-president demonstrated against the U.S. on Friday and demanded that the American ambassador leave the country. Despite the staffing reduction, the State Department said the embassy in Sana remains open.

Clashes at Sanaa airport between Yemeni police and Shiite rebel gunmen left three dead on Tuesday, a security official said.

Two policemen and a civilian were killed in the clashes that erupted overnight between police and armed men based at the airport since the northern rebels seized the capital unopposed on Sept. 21.

The gunfight caused a brief interruption of air traffic, the official said.

In the case of Libya, the evacuation of the U.S. embassy wasn’t supposed to signify anything permanent. That was in July, when we were told that the staff was simply being ‘temporarily relocated’. Little more than one month later, terrorists the U.S. backed in Libya overran the embassy, which remains abandoned – if it’s still standing at all.

print

, , , , , , ,