US extends embassy shutdown over terror fears The US Embassy building in Manama, Bahrain The US is keeping 19 diplomatic missions across the Middle East, Africa and Asia closed for most of this week because of the risk of an al-Qaeda-linked attack. The state department on Sunday said it had no new information about the potential threat, but that "an abundance of caution" had prompted it to order the closure until Saturday of embassies and consulates in countries ranging from Egypt to Mauritius and Bangladesh. It had already announced that these and a few other missions would be closed over the weekend. On Friday, the state department warned that al-Qaeda and affiliated groups were continuing to plot terrorist attacks that could take place this month. The potential threat was "emanating from the Arabian peninsula" and could be aimed at public transport systems or tourism resorts, it said. Members of Congress who have been briefed on the potential attack repeated warnings about the risks on Sunday. Saxby Chambliss, the Georgia Republican who is vice-chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, told NBC television that it was the "most serious threat" that he had seen in the past few years. "There has been an awful lot of chatter out there," said Mr Chambliss. Chatter means conversation about terrorists, about the planning that's going on, very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House homeland security committee, said the move to close the embassies was "a very smart call, particularly in light of what happened in Benghazi when warnings were not heeded." Four Americans were killed last year in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in Libya. Speaking on CBS, Mr McCaul warned of one of the most "specific threats" of a terrorist attack since 9/11. Lawmakers said that some of the information about the threat had been collected by the National Security Agency, whose electronic surveillance programmes have received intense criticism over the past two months. The UK government said on Friday that its embassy in Yemen would be closed on Sunday and Monday, citing a "high threat from terrorism throughout Yemen." According to US officials, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based group that has attempted to blow up US-bound aircraft, has been for several years the terror network's most potent regional affiliate. In the past 10 days, the US has launched three drone strikes in Yemen in areas where AQAP leaders were believed to be present. Michael Chertoff, former homeland security secretary, said on Sunday that in some ways al-Qaeda was now "more dangerous" because it had become "widely dispersed, a younger generation coming up with new ideas - not necessarily repeating what they've done in the past." Speaking on ABC, Mr Chertoff said: "Now we see them all the way from west Africa to South Asia, so it's a broader battlefield."