The U.S. Embassy was closed at least through Tuesday, and air traffic between Kenya and neighboring Somalia was banned after the Pentagon raised the terrorism threat level in the country, Kenyan and embassy officials said. The U.S. Embassy, which was shut down on Friday, will stay closed Monday and Tuesday, “and if necessary additional days thereafter,” spokesman Tom Hart said. Hart said the closure was due to “new and concrete information concerning the continuing threat of terrorist activity in Kenya and East Africa.” Late Friday, civil aviation authorities banned all air traffic between Kenya and Somalia, a lawless country beset by clan warfare that has not had a central government since 1991. Somalia has been labeled as a haven for terrorists by Pentagon officials. Henry Ochieng, a director at the civil aviation authority, said the ban is indefinite. It affects a Somali-owned commercial passenger airline, United Nations flights and dozens of small, private aircraft that ferry Kenyan-grown khat, a semi-narcotic leaf, to Somalia. Full Story
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