US closed its embassy in Yemen

The State Department of the United States on 10 February 2015 confirmed that it has closed its Embassy in Yemen and evacuated its staff due to the ongoing political instability and the uncertain security situation.

Yemen has been in crisis for months, with Houthi fighters besieging the capital Sanaa and then taking control of the state.

After years of crisis, Yemen conflicts grown into a full-blown civil war. The conflicts are of regional, political, tribal and sectarian rivals against each other.

Yemen is home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most active branches of the global Sunni Islamist group. Moreover, Yemen shares a long border with top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. Embassy in Yemen is the third in an Arab country that has closed since the turmoil of the Arab Spring began in December 2010. The other two were in Damascus, Syria, which was closed in Feb 2012, and Tripoli, Libya, which was closed in July 2014.

The embassy in Yemen was operating with only a small portion of its usual diplomatic staff and had closed to the public for all but emergency services in January 2015. It had been operating with reduced manpower since September 2014, when the State Department ordered all nonessential personnel to leave the country.