The day after one-third of U.S. diplomatic posts throughout the world were temporarily closed due to a "serious threat" of an attack from al Qaeda, the government has announced some longer closures, according to NBC News.
Officials extended closures at 15 embassies through Saturday, as well as closing four more. While nine embassies have reopened, an additional 19 will be closed through Saturday, "out of an abundance of caution," according to the State Department.
"This is not an indication of a new threat stream, merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees including local employees and visitors to our facilities," the State Department said in a statement that was released on Sunday night.
The statement went on to say that many of the embassies would remain closed for the celebration of Eid at the end of Ramadan.
"Out of an abundance of caution, we've decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates including a small number of additional posts," the statement continued.
The embassy closures occurred in much of the Arab and Muslim world. While one-third of embassies had closed Sunday, U.S. posts in Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah and Erbil reopened on Monday.
Missions in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antanarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali and Port Louis will remain closed until at least Saturday.
The threat appears to be linked to Yemen, but the State Department has only confirmed that the warnings are generally tied to al Qaeda, according to officials.
Yemen is the home of a wing of al Qaeda, which is considered to be responsible for terrorists strikes in the United States, including the Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bomb an airplane in Detroit.
"The one thing we can talk about is the fact that there's been an awful lot of chatter out there," Sen. Saxby Chabliss, the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press." He called the chatter "very reminiscient of what we saw pre-9/11."
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An NBC News update on the US Embassy closures.
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