olice troopers man a checkpoint near the British embassy in Sanaa yesterday.
PARIS: Interpol issued a global security alert after jailbreaks linked to Al Qaeda freed hundreds of militants, as the US and other Western powers planned to temporarily close certain embassies over terror threats.
Washington ordered its embassies across the Islamic world temporarily closed, while Germany, Britain and France were to shut their missions in Yemen for at least two days.
Interpol said it suspected Al Qaeda was involved in recent jailbreaks across nine countries, including Iraq, Libya and Pakistan.
The global police agency said the jailbreaks “led to the escape of hundreds of terrorists and other criminals” in the past month alone and issued a security alert.
It has also asked its 190 member countries to help “determine whether any of these recent events are coordinated and linked” and to immediately convey any intelligence which could help prevent another attack.
The Interpol alert comes the day after Washington’s worldwide travel warning, citing unspecified plans by Al Qaeda to strike US interests in the Middle East or North Africa in August.
Interpol, based in Lyon in central eastern France, noted that August is the anniversary of attacks in India, Russia and Indonesia.
This week also marks the 15th anniversary of the US embassy bombings in the Kenyan capital Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania that killed more than 200 mostly African citizens and injured thousands.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey told ABC News that the threats were directed at Western interests, and were “more specific” than previous threats.
While an exact target was unknown, “the intent seems clear. The intent is to attack Western, not just US, interests,” Dempsey said in an interview for the programme This Week.
AFP
