The US State Department advised on social media Tuesday that Americans should immediately leave 14 countries in the Middle East amid the US and Israel’s escalating conflict with Iran.
Assistant Secretary Mora Namdar posted on X that Americans should “depart now” from over a dozen nations “using available commercial transportation, due to serious safety risks.” The attached advisory lists Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
It’s highly unusual for the State Department to issue this kind of announcement through an assistant secretary on social media without issuing an official policy notice, as Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane notes. The advisory does not appear to be fully reflected on the department’s website, which still showed Level 2 advisories for Egypt as of Wednesday morning, urging travelers only to “exercise increased caution” rather than avoid or flee the countries. Before issuing Tuesday’s warning about specific countries, the department had issued a broad travel alert this weekend urging “worldwide caution.” The alert advises US citizens in the Middle East to “follow the guidance in the latest security alerts issued by the nearest US embassy or consulate.”
The inconsistency has led to confusion among travelers and tour operators in the region. “It’s been a hectic couple of days between phone calls to talk down travelers booked for Egypt and now to pick up the pieces (so to speak) after the 14 country list that was released with Egypt on it,” Chris Bazos, a Condé Nast Traveler travel specialist who operates in the region, says via email. “The consensus on the ground in Egypt, is why? They don’t really understand why they were the only African country added to that list. Their argument: They never stopped tourism during the Israel-Gaza conflict that began in October 2023, so why now?”
Currently, Bazos says, there are no issues in either Egypt or Jordan related to the war, but “we’re all on a wait and see basis as this continues to unfold.”
Naturally, Namdar’s tweet will cause travelers across the Middle East to scramble for a way out. But the US government has not specified how Americans are expected to “use commercial transportation” to depart many of these places, considering that much of the airspace over this area is temporarily closed. CNN reports that while a few flights are still managing to take off from Dubai and Abu Dhabi amid the chaos, the skies over Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, Iraq and Jordan remained “nearly empty” as of Tuesday morning. Retaliatory strikes by Iran have directly hit the Dubai, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait airports over the last two days, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers and causing a ripple effect of flight cancelations throughout Europe and Africa. Adding to the chaos, Iran appears to be striking five-star hotels, including Dubai’s iconic Jumeirah Burj Al Arab hotel and the Fairmont, which has reportedly “stunned” international tourists in the typically safe destination city.
And there’s no end in sight to the travel disruptions: President Donald Trump said on Sunday that we can expect the US and Israel’s assaults on Iran to last “four to five weeks” if necessary. A reporter asked him at the White House today why there wasn’t an evacuation plan in place for Americans in the Middle East, considering that commercial air travel is now severely restricted. “Because it happened all very quickly,” he said.
The State Department urged citizens to enroll in STEP, the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program, to get the latest security updates from the nearest US embassy or consulate. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a Facebook video that Americans in the Middle East can call the department’s emergency hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week for help. In a statement, the department said Tuesday that it is “facilitating charter flights from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan for American citizens, and will continue to secure additional capacity as security conditions allow.”
