US warns of Sudan terror plots
From correspondents in Washington
November 15, 2003
THE United States renewed its existing travel warning for Sudan today, alerting US citizens for the first time to terrorist plots on Western interests there less than a week after temporarily closing its embassy in Khartoum due to an unspecified threat.
"The US government has received indications of terrorist threats aimed at American and Western interests in Sudan," the State Department said in the warning, which advised US citizens against all travel to the country.
"Terrorist actions may include suicide operations, bombings, or kidnappings," it said without elaborating.
Today's alert replaced an existing March 26 travel warning which noted the ongoing civil war in Sudan and anti-Western and American sentiment, but made no mention of "terrorist threats".
The warning was issued just four days after the US embassy in the Sudanese capital announced it was suspending normal operation for a week citing "a credible and specific threat to US interests in Khartoum".
Neither it nor the State Department in Washington would expand on Monday's brief embassy statement, which also advised US citizens in Sudan to be cautious and avoid gatherings of foreigners.
Although the embassy expressed appreciation for "strategic support" from Sudanese authorities "in confronting the present threat", officials in Khartoum insisted on Tuesday that the country remained safe for foreigners and said they had heard of no threat against Americans.
"There is no threat to the American interests in Sudan," Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Mutref Siddeiq was quoted as saying in the official Al Anbaa newspaper.
He added, however, that the security services "are vigilant in protecting foreigners in Sudan" and at least six police officers, instead of the usual one or two, were seen guarding the heavily fortified US embassy compound in western Khartoum.
The Khartoum embassy closure followed last Friday's shutting of US diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia, just a day before a deadly car bomb attack on a housing compound in Riyadh.
The US embassy in Riyadh said it and the US consulates in Jeddah and Dharhran were to reopen tomorrow. The Riyadh attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network. Bin Laden lived for a time in Sudan.
Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir's government has been trying to shed its Islamic militant image and improve relations with Washington, which since 1993 has maintained Khartoum on a list of states alleged to support terrorism.