US embassy in UAE to shut until Sunday

Travellers from Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region looking to apply for their visas for the US will now have to wait until after the Eid holidays as the US Foreign Office has confirmed that diplomatic missions in the region, including those in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, will remain closed until August 10.

The UAE is one of the several countries that have been affected by the temporary closure of 19 US diplomatic missions across the Mena region as a precautionary safety measure.

The US Embassy in Abu Dhabi has posted this message on its official website, which states: ‘The Department of State has instructed certain US embassies and consulates to close for days not previously scheduled as holidays in the period Monday, August 4 through Saturday, August 10.

 ‘These embassies and consulates will continue to provide emergency American citizen services’.

Aside from the UAE, diplomatic posts in Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa and Tripoli and African missions in Antananarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali and Port Louis will also remain closed until Sunday.

US officials met over the weekend as the threat level was raised over possibilities of a potential Al Qaeda activity due to intercepted messages.

The US Department of State has also issued a travel advisory that states: ‘Current information suggests that Al Qaeda and affiliated organisations continue to plan terrorist attack … in the period between now and the end of August’.

The travel alert expires on August 31.

Meanwhile, the British embassy has also extended the closure of its post in Sana’a, Yemen, until after the Eid holidays.

However, the UK embassy has confirmed on its website that it will remain open in the UAE ‘but staff have been advised to exercise extra vigilance as we approach Eid’.