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posed by anti-US riots.
The announcements came as the Libyan government claimed Al Qaeda might have been responsible for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed the American ambassador and three others.
The terrorist network has urged Muslims around the world to step up their protests and kill more diplomats in Islamic countries.
“Given the security situation in Tunis and Khartoum, the State Department has ordered the departure of all family members and non-emergency personnel from both posts and issued parallel travel warnings to American citizens,” a US government spokesman said on Saturday.
In Tunisia, the warning advised Americans that the international airport in Tunis is open and encouraged all US citizens to depart on commercial flights. It said Americans who chose to remain in Tunisia should use extreme caution and avoid demonstrations.
On Friday, protesters climbed the walls into the US Embassy in Tunis, torching cars in the parking lot, trashing the entrance building and setting fire to a gym and a neighbouring American school that is now unusable.
In Sudan, the warning said that while the Sudanese government has taken steps to limit the activities of terrorist groups, some remain and have threatened to attack Western interests. The terrorist threat level remains “critical” throughout Sudan. The department noted that US officials are already required to travel in armoured vehicles and to get permission to travel outside Khartoum, where crowds torched part of the German Embassy and tried to storm the US Embassy on Friday.
A US official said on Saturday that Sudan’s government is holding up the deployment of an elite Marine team that the US planned to send to Khartoum to boost security at the embassy. The head of Libya’s national congress told al-Jazeera that last week’s attack, which killed US ambassador Chris Stevens, was the work of Al Qaeda.
“If you take into account the weapons used, like RPGs and other heavy weapons, it proves that it was preplanned,” Mohamed Al Magarief said. “It’s a dirty act of revenge that has nothing to do with religion.”
But in Egypt, the prime minister claimed that far from all being radical jihadists, some protesters admitted they had been paid to attend demonstrations.
Some members of Congress have hit out at the billions in aid paid to Arab countries, arguing that countries with populations hostile to the US should not benefit from American funding.
“Our Treasury is bare,” said Kentucky senator Rand Paul. “There is a multitude of reasons why we should not continue to send good money after bad.”
Al Qaeda made its appeal to Muslims as riot police clashed with around 200 protesters at the US Consulate in Sydney on Saturday whilie demonstrations against the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims” spread across the world.
The Al Qaeda statement said; “Whoever comes across America’s ambassadors or emissaries should follow the example of Omar al-Mukhtar’s descendants (Libyans), who killed the American ambassador,” the group said.
“Let the step of kicking out the embassies be a step towards liberating Muslim countries from the American hegemony,” a statement posted on an AQAP website on Saturday said.
In Australia, Ten Network television news showed a policeman knocked unconscious as the mostly male crowd hurled bottles and other missiles. Many of the protesters were wearing Muslim dress.
Police used pepper spray against the protesters, who chanted “Obama, Obama, we love Osam” and waved placards saying “Behead all those who insult the Prophet.”
Fury about the film swept across the Middle East after Friday prayers, with protesters attacking US embassies and in protests that killed at least seven people and prompted Washington to send troops to bolster security at its missions.
“The film published in America which insults our Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, comes as part of the continuing crusader wars against Islam,” AQAP’s statement said, referring to European wars in the region some 1 000 years ago.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is a group of militants mainly from Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and is regarded by the United States as the most dangerous branch of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.
The group has used Yemen, a key regional US ally, to plot attacks on the United States. Washington has backed a Yemeni army campaign that drove al Qaeda and its allies from their southern stronghold this year.
Muslims have blamed the US government for the amateurish film of obscure origin. Washington has condemned the film and said it does not condone any insult to any religion. A protester holds a home made sign during a rally in Sydney’s central business district as anger over a film that insults the Prophet Mohammed spread to Australia on Saturday
Praising the attacks by angry demonstrators in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Sudan on US and other Western missions as “natural responses to a huge insult”, the statement said that American embassies should be burned and diplomats killed.
It said defending the Prophet’s honour was a “religious duty and obligation to the Muslim nation, each according to his ability”.
The group also said that Muslims living in the West have an extra duty to be involved in attacks on key targets.
“They are more capable of doing harm and reaching the enemy is easier for them,” it said.
Mourners shout slogans as they carry the coffin of Mohammed al-Tuwaiti, a protester shot dead on Thursday as riot police dispersed protesters who stormed the US embassy’s compound in Sanaa, Yemen. — Agencies-HR.
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