U.S. Tightens Security at Africa Embassies

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Security tightened noticeably at U.S. embassies across West Africa on Friday, one day after the State Department temporarily closed six missions because of fears of terrorist attacks.

Britain also closed four of its African embassies--Gambia, Namibia, Madagascar and Senegal--on Friday because of a possible security threat.

Gendarmes cordoned off three streets surrounding the shuttered U.S. Embassy in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, rerouting traffic through a key part of the bustling downtown and angering commuters and motorists.

“This is an American problem. I don’t understand why we should be forced to suffer inconvenience because of that,” said a local jewelry seller who refused to give his name. He said police forced him to move his stall.

Although the embassy in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s commercial capital, remained open Friday, U.S. Marine guards and security personnel swept electronic detectors across the engines of vehicles entering the embassy. Several nearby roads were blocked off.

However, an officer stationed outside the U.S. Embassy in Lome, Togo, said that security there already was tight and had not been beefed up.

The other U.S. embassies shut down were in Madagascar, Liberia, Namibia and Gambia. A decision would be made over the weekend on whether they will be reopened Monday.

The United States and Britain did not cite any specific threats or terrorist organizations, but a Gambian official said American officials feared that Saudi exile and accused terrorist Osama bin Laden was plotting another attack on U.S. embassies.

Bin Laden is wanted for last year’s U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. He is believed to be in Afghanistan.

“The Americans fear that Bin Laden is planning to mount terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in Gambia,” said Cherno Jallow, Gambia’s deputy permanent secretary in the Foreign Ministry.

Since the embassy bombings last August, missions around the continent have beefed up security, adding guards, bomb detectors and concrete crash barriers on streets.

Last week, Ghana criticized U.S. intelligence warnings that American facilities there also might be terrorist targets, saying the reports undermined its image as a haven for foreign investors.

Even so, there were obvious signs that security had been tightened outside the U.S. Embassy in Ghana’s capital, Accra, where more police than usual were on patrol.

Meanwhile, a Saudi national accused of involvement in the fatal bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa was linked to Bin Laden, a lawyer for the U.S. said Friday.

At a hearing Thursday to determine whether Khaled al Fawwaz, 36, can be extradited from Britain to stand trial in the U.S., lawyer James Lewis said the suspect was a leader of the British branch of Bin Laden’s organization.

Evidence found at Fawwaz’s home pointed to him having an operational role in the organization, Lewis said.