US, UK close Yemen embassies over al-Qaeda threats

The US and Britain locked up their embassies in Yemen on Sunday after new threats from al-Qaeda, and the White House expressed alarm at the terror group's expanded reach in the poor Arab nation where an offshoot apparently ordered the Christmas Day plot against a US airliner.

President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, cited "indications al-Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target" in the capital, possibly the embassy, and estimated the group had several hundred members in Yemen. Security reasons led Britain to act, too; it was not known when the embassies would reopen. (AP)