Yemen halts port entry visas over Qaeda threats

Yemen announced on Thursday that it would suspend granting entry visas to foreign travelers at the country's international airports in order to "halt terrorist infiltration," the Saba state news agency reported.

The measure comes as pressure mounts on Yemen to crack down on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is entrenched in mountain redoubts east of the capital and claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bid to down a U.S. airliner over Detroit.

"Yemen has stopped granting visas at the airport to halt terrorist infiltration," Saba said.

Entry visas would only be granted now through Yemen embassies abroad after travelers would be subject to background security checks, Saba reported.

The measure was meant to "prevent the infiltration of any suspected terrorist elements," a military official was quoted as saying by the defense ministry newspaper September 26 as saying.

Six airports in Yemen receive international flights.

Targets of new measure

There was no immediate explanation as to who might be the target of the new measure, but until now very few nationalities were required to apply for visas in advance of travelling.

Earlier this week the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report warning that AQAP may be training as many as three dozen U.S. citizens who converted to Islam in prison.

The Americans traveled to Yemen upon their release, ostensibly to study Arabic, but "possibly for al-Qaeda training," the report said, citing U.S. law enforcement sources.

Under previous regulations, these people would have been allowed to enter the country automatically, without being previously vetted.

While "there is no public evidence of any terrorist action" by the former convicts, who may have been radicalized in prison, several have "'dropped off the radar' for weeks at a time," according to the report.

US extremists

U.S. officials "are on heightened alert because of the potential threat from extremists carrying American passports and the related challenges involved in detecting and stopping homegrown operatives," it added.

The most high-profile Yemeni-American in the country is fugitive radical imam Anwar al-Awlaqi, a native of the state of New Mexico who is now in hiding, presumably in a part of eastern Yemen where his family's tribe holds sway.

A White House aide has directly accused Awlaqi of having links with the man suspected of shooting dead 13 people at a Texas military base in November, Major Nidal Hasan.

U.S. Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Adviser John Brennan has also said he might have had contact with the man who allegedly attempted to blow up the U.S. airliner on Dec. 25, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

U.S. officials are also worried about 10 non-Yemeni Americans—"blonde-haired, blue-eyed types"—who travelled to Yemen, converted to Islam, became fundamentalists, married Yemeni women and fit the profile of Americans that al-Qaeda has sought to recruit.

In Washington on Wednesday, top U.S. officials told lawmakers that Yemen's leaders had made "a decisive turn" against al-Qaeda.

"In terms of the government of Yemen's determination and willingness to confront a threat of al-Qaeda militants in the country, we should be and we are encouraged by recent steps the government has taken," said Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.

The U.S. State Department's top counter-terrorism official, Daniel Benjamin, told the Senate committee he had "no reason to contradict" the report and that some Yemeni institutions had proved "effective incubators of radicalization."

In terms of the government of Yemen's determination and willingness to confront a threat of al-Qaeda militants in the country, we should be and we are encouraged by recent steps the government has taken

Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs