by Kofi Oppong Kyekyeku, Face2FaceAfrica.com
The United States has urged its citizens to leave more than a dozen Middle Eastern countries immediately due to escalating military strikes involving the U.S., Israel and Iran.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of State called on Americans to exit more than a dozen countries in the region, citing mounting security threats linked to the intensifying US-Israeli assault on Iran and latter’s response.
In recent days, the department had already revised travel advisories for several countries, warning against travel. The latest guidance goes further, urging departures from Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Mora Namdar, the State Department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, posted the directive on X, telling US citizens to “DEPART NOW” from the listed countries by using commercial flights where possible “due to serious safety risks”.
The warning coincided with developments on the ground. Earlier Monday, the US Embassy in Amman announced that staff had left the compound “due to a threat”, signaling heightened concern even in countries not directly targeted.
In Washington, the method of communication raised eyebrows. Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane described the reliance on a social media post as highly irregular.
“The fact that the State Department is referring us to a tweet from an assistant secretary of state, and this isn’t necessarily official policy – but perhaps they are saying it is official policy – this is not at all how it is usually done,” Culhane said.
“This is really, truly bizarre. I can’t say that I have seen anything like this in my very long time covering Washington,” she said.
She stated that formal evacuation notices typically follow established internal procedures and are announced through structured channels.
“This is not how this is done. The State Department has very complex processes to notify Americans in these places that they need to leave. That hasn’t happened. It’s not official government policy, at least it doesn’t appear to be yet, because this isn’t how they announce official government policy,” Culhane added.
Practical questions also loom large as commercial aviation across parts of the region faces disruption from ongoing missile exchanges.
“It’s not quite clear what this means, and exactly how Americans could leave the entire Middle East since commercial traffic has been interrupted so much because of all of the missiles,” she said.
“This is going to be a very big question, especially for all of the Americans in the Middle East”.
States and Israel launched a sweeping round of strikes on Iran, reportedly killing senior officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran answered with its own wave of attacks across the region.
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the confrontation had initially been expected to last four to five weeks but acknowledged it could stretch beyond that timeframe, deepening uncertainty for Americans still in the region.
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