The US state Department has issued a worldwide travel alert
warning of the possibility of anti-American attacks in response to the killing
of two top al-Qaeda members.
The travel warning came a day after US officials said Anwar
Al-Awlaki, identified as “chief of external operations” for al
Qaeda’s Yemen branch, was killed in an attack by missiles fired from multiple
CIA drones in Yemen.
“The death of Awlaki, in the near term, could provide
motivation for anti-American attacks worldwide from individuals or groups
seeking to retaliate against US citizens or interests because of this
action,” the State Department said.
The drone strike
also killed Samir Khan, an American who served as editor of a glossy magazine
used as a propaganda and recruitment tool by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Government data released this week showed a 10.6 percent
rise in the number of American citizens travelling to the Middle East in 2010,
compared to an 8 percent drop in traffic to Asia and a 17.3 percent decline in
travellers to South America.
Overall, about 37.4 million Americans travelled overseas
last year, a decline of 3.8 percent on the year-earlier period.
The US Embassy in Riyadh last week issued an alert warning
an unidentified terrorist group may be planning to kidnap western nationals in the
Saudi Arabian capital, the latest in a series of advisories aimed at US
citizens in the Gulf.
In August, the US government told citizens to carefully
weigh the risks of visiting Saudi Arabia, warning of an ongoing security threat
from terrorist groups that could target Western interests.
The last reported attack on expatriates in the Gulf kingdom
was in 2007, following which the Saudi government launched a widespread
crackdown on Islamic militants.
“The fact that the
warning came out now just shows that there is still al-Qaeda activity in Saudi
Arabia that we haven’t seen in the recent past,” Theodore Karasik, a Middle
East security expert at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf
Military Analysis, said.
“It’s been very safe and secure so this development is very
interesting and I think it deserves more attention to the ‘why now’ part than
anything else. In Saudi, we haven’t had a kidnapping or a beheading for a very
long time.”
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