US warns of new global terror threats due to Iraq occupation

WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 21, 2003
The United States said Monday it feared the military defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime had increased the potential for terrorist attacks on US interests overseas and urged Americans around the world to redouble their security precautions.

"Tensions remaining from the recent events in Iraq may increase the potential threat to US citizens and interests abroad, including by terrorist groups," the State Department said in a statement.

"The US government remains deeply concerned about the security of US citizens overseas," it said in a "worldwide caution" that renewed an existing warning issued on March 19 just hours after the Iraq war began.

"US citizens are encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness," it said.

The threats noted in the statement were suicide operations, kidnappings and bombings including attacks that might use non-conventional weapons such as chemical or biological agents.

It also stressed that terrorists and other extremist groups were now likely to target civilian facilities including residential neighborhoods, private clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events, resorts and beaches.

"If such facilities cannot be avoided, US citizens should increase their security awareness at such locations," the department said.

Unusually, the global warning, which is not set to expire until September, comes amid signs that the threat against US and western interests may be lessening in some places.

Last week, the State Department said it would allow diplomats who had been ordered to leave Pakistan and Israel over war-related terrorism fears to return to the country.

Those decisions, which kept in place general warnings against US citizens traveling to the two countries, were announced on Thursday, a day after the Department of Homeland Security lowered the domestic terrorist attack alert in the United States from "high" to "elevated."

The domestic alert -- introduced after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001 blamed on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network -- had been raised to its second-highest level on March 17, just before the start of the Iraq war.

Non-essential US diplomats and the families of all embassy employees in Syria and Kuwait remained barred from those two countries although State Department officials said they expected the orders to be lifted shortly.

SPACE.WIRE