Travel advice

On Monday June 16, the UK Foreign Office issued a travel advisory raising the terror threat level in the UAE to "high".

On Tuesday June 17, the US Embassy in Abu Dhabi put out a warden message warning all Americans about the threat of terrorist attacks as the summer approaches.

Neither the UK Foreign Office nor the US Embassy mentioned a specific threat, but warned of the "general security situation in the Middle East".

So what’s new? The general security situation for both nationals and expatriates living in the Arabian Gulf has been shaky since August 2, 1990, when Saddam Hussain invaded Kuwait. What followed of course was Desert Storm under Bush Sr, a second show of strength under Bill Clinton, the war in Afghanistan and then a second Desert Storm under Bush Jr which in June 2008 we call the "War in Iraq".

What was amazing to observe was how the ‘advisory’ began as a small wire note by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), quickly followed by one from Reuters, the next from the Associated Press which led to an announcement on CNN and then on the BBC. And before you could say "What’s going on?", every online site around the world was humming with the news.

A thorough check on the UK Foreign Office website showed however that although the threat level to the UAE was raised, the country is not on the restricted list.

The travel advice by the country shows that the FCO advises against all travel to two countries – Chad and Somalia. Further, there are 28 countries on the "advises against all travel to parts of" list, nine countries on the "advises against all but essential travel to" list and another 28 countries on the "advises against all but essential travel to parts of" list. That’s 67 countries. And most of them are in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Warnings are a good thing. Being forewarned is being forearmed and this blog does not aspire to criticise the UK or the US governments for providing information to help their nationals form their own judgments about travelling to or operating in any particular country.

But every country around the world is under the threat of terror and each one is doing its best to protect its citizens. The UAE, like the others, protects its people too.

Nirmala Janssen
editor@alnisrmedia.com

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