Officials: U.S. closing embassy in Yemen

Worsening security conditions key concern for U.S.

WASHINGTON — The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen amid political deadlock and deteriorating security conditions after the takeover of the country by Shiite rebels, two U.S. officials said.

The officials said that diplomats were being evacuated from the country on Tuesday and that the embassy in Sanaa would suspend operations until conditions improve. Yemen has been in crisis for months with Iran-linked Shiite Houthi rebels besieging the capital and then taking control.

The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the closure publicly on the record.

Marines providing the security at the embassy will also likely leave, the officials said, but American forces conducting counterterrorism mis- sions against al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate in other parts of the country would not be affected.

Spokesmen at the Pentagon and State Department had no immediate comment.

Although operations against al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate will continue, the closure of the embassy will be seen as a blow to the Obama administration, which has held up its partnership with ousted Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government as a model for his strategy in combatting terrorism, particularly in unstable countries.

“Yemen has never been a perfect democracy or an island of stability,” President Barack Obama said late last month as conditions in the capital, Sanaa, worsened. “What I’ve said is, is that our efforts to go after terrorist networks inside of Yemen without an occupying U.S. army, but rather by partnering and intelligence-sharing with that local government, is the approach that we’re going to need to take.”

The embassy closure will also complicate the CIA’s operations in Yemen, U.S. intelligence officials acknowledge. Although CIA officers could continue to work out of U.S. military installations, many intelligence operations are run from embassies. The CIA’s main role in Yemen is to gather intelligence about members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and occasionally kill them with drone strikes.

There were 23 U.S. drone strikes reported in Yemen last year, 26 in 2013 and 41 in 2012, according to Long War Journal, a website that tracks them through media reports.

The Houthis last week dissolved parliament and formally took over after months of clashes. They then placed President Hadi and his Cabinet ministers under house arrest. Hadi and the ministers later resigned in protest.

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen is the third in an Arab country that has closed since the turmoil of the Arab spring began in December 2010. The other two were embassies in Damascus, Syria and Tripoli, Libya. The embassy in Damascus was closed in Feb 2012 and the embassy in Tripoli was closed in July 2014.

HANI MOHAMMED / AP Houthi Shiite Yemenis stand guard outside parliament during a meeting Monday in Sanaa, Yemen. Yemen’s Shiite rebels are meeting with political rivals for the first time since cementing their power grab last week by dissolving parliament.