Yemen said yesterday it would stop granting entry visas to travelers at the country’s international airports in order to “halt terrorist infiltration,” the Saba state news agency said.
The measure comes as pressure mounts on Yemen to crack down on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is entrenched in mountain redoubts east of the capital and claimed responsibility for the botched Christmas Day bid to down a US airliner over Detroit.
“Yemen has stopped granting visas at the airport to halt terrorist infiltration,” Saba said.
Separately, a military official said that “in light of this decision, granting visas to foreigners will take place only through the embassies of Yemen, and after consulting security authorities to verify the identities of travelers.”
Six airports in Yemen receive international flights.
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 traveling.
Meanwhile, the UK government said on Wednesday it would create a new terrorist no-fly list, target specific airline passengers for tougher security checks and suspend some international flights in response to a growing terrorism threat posed by Yemen and Somalia.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons he had ordered a hardening of air travel security after the failed Detroit airliner attack, as intelligence agencies’ alarm grows regarding a terrorism threat in Africa and the Arabian peninsula.
Brown said the UK would expand a watch list that already contains more than 1 million names, start full body scans at UK airports next week and suspend the two weekly direct flights between the UK and Yemen.
Steps to tighten airport security follow a meeting between Britain’s military, intelligence and border security chiefs, and talks between Brown and US President Barack Obama, both on Tuesday.
Brown said Britain and other nations face a sharply growing threat from al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists based in Yemen and the Sahel, a swathe of north Africa that takes in nations such as Somalia, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia.
“We know that a number of terrorist cells are trying to target Britain and other countries,” Brown told lawmakers.
He said Britain would improve information-sharing with allies on suspected terrorists, or those linked to known extremists, and create two new watch lists — a no-fly list, and a separate log of people who must go through enhanced screening before they will be allowed to board flights to the UK.
Currently, Britain keeps a watch list of people refused a visa or entry into the UK — and a smaller list of suspected terrorists.
The new no-fly list is likely to detail the suspected terrorists and serious criminals banned from entering the UK, though officials declined to estimate how many individuals would be listed. Brown did not say how officials plan to select passengers for enhanced airport security checks.
Brown said he and Obama had agreed that efforts to harden security at home “must be matched by demanding greater guarantees about security in those international airports from which there are flights” into Britain or the United States.
“The security of our citizens must be our priority,” Brown told legislators.
He said Yemen is “an incubator and safe haven” for terrorists, and that, with Somalia, it poses the most significant terrorist threat to the world after the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
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