Kuwait Advises Citizens to Reconsider Traveling to Lebanon After Bomb Threat

The Kuwaiti embassy in Beirut was evacuated on Thursday after an anonymous caller threatened to rocket the compound, prompting the Kuwaiti foreign ministry to advise its citizens to reconsider traveling to Lebanon.

 

“Reuters news agency received a telephone call from an anonymous person at 9:50 am saying the embassy would be bombed with two rockets at 10 am Thursday,” a security official said. He said the caller then hung up.

 

The agency called Lebanese authorities which immediately boosted security around the embassy compound in Beirut”s Bir Hassan neighborhood, still under renovation, and an office building annex opposite Arisco Center on the main Hamra thoroughfare.

 

The Voice of Lebanon radio station said police dogs searched the embassy after it was evacuated and nothing was found.

 

A foreign ministry official told the state-run Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, that Kuwaiti citizens who want to go to Lebanon should “think twice” given the current political situation.

 

Tarek Khaled al-Hamad, the embassy”s charge d”affaires, said it was the first time that the mission received a direct threat.

 

“We must take the threat seriously,” Hamad told LBC television.

 

He said the embassy did not suspect any particular party of being behind the threat.

 

Hamad called on Kuwaitis to be vigilant when moving around in Lebanon.

 

The threat came a day after four Kuwaiti lawyers filed a lawsuit against two Shiite MPs for holding a rally to mourn top Hizbullah commander Imad Mughniyeh, blamed for hijacking a Kuwaiti jetliner.

 

It also comes amid escalated tension in Lebanon and amid threats of attacks against Israel by Hizbullah after Mughniyeh”s killing in Damascus.

 

The edgy situation has also prompted Saudi Arabia to call on its citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, while the French embassy ordered its cultural centers in Sidon and Tripoli to shut down for security concerns.