2009-09-22

Pretoria - All US government facilities in South Africa, including the Pretoria embassy and regional consulates were closed on Tuesday because of an unexplained security threat.

A notice on the embassy's website had the following notice:

"CLOSURE OF ALL U.S. GOVERNMENT FACILITIES IN S.A.
Based on information recently received by the Regional Security Office, all US Government facilities in South Africa will be closed on Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

"Our current assumption is that all US Government facilities will be open on Wednesday, September 23, 2009."

There was no answer at the Pretoria office when News24 tried to contact the embassy, while officials at the Cape Town consulate refused to comment. There is also a consulate in Durban.

Embassy bombings

AFP reported that offices of the US Agency for International Development were also closed.

"We received information from the regional security office which I cannot discuss," embassy spokesperson Sharon Hudson-Dean said.

In 1998, suicide bombers targeted US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing a total of 213 people, including 12 Americans and 34 local embassy staff, in one of the most devastating attacks carried out by al-Qaeda prior to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

These blasts sparked an enormous effort to bolster security at US embassies around the world, and particularly across Africa.

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