According to a cable seen by NBC News, the State Department is ordering all US embassies and consular posts worldwide to conduct security reviews without delay.
The order, which came from Undersecretary for Management Jason Evans and was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, on Tuesday told embassies to conduct “immediate” security reviews, citing “the ongoing and developing situation in the Middle East and the potential for spill-over effects.”
The cable instructed all posts to report their security practices to Washington as soon as possible and to notify US citizens “when appropriate,” citing the department’s “no double standard policy,” which states that sensitive security information should be made available to private citizens.
The order was first reported by the Washington Post.
A spokesman said the State Department would not comment on internal communications and that it “continually” held so-called Emergency Action Committees, which are tasked with “preparing and responding” to potential security threats that could affect US citizens.
“Each embassy in the region held Emergency Action Committees (EACs), which included interagency representatives, prior to the start of Operation Epic Fury,” a State Department spokesman said on Feb. 28, using the name of the military strike against Iran.
The State Department “regularly directs” its diplomatic posts to convene EACs, and their timing and frequency are “determined by a range of operational considerations and not indicative of a new or specific threat,” the spokesman said.
An Iran-linked militia group fired a drone and rockets at the US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday, a US official said. Six of the seven projectiles were intercepted and there were no injuries or serious damage.
US embassies in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been targets of retaliatory strikes, while the explosion at the US embassy in Norway remains under investigation, with Norwegian police saying it may have been a deliberate attack related to the “current security situation”.
On the eve of the US’s first attack on Iran, the US told embassy staff in Israel to leave early if they wanted “out of an abundance of caution”.
The war in Iran is escalating into its third week as President Donald Trump and his administration send conflicting signals about its duration.
NBC News previously reported that US military officials have regularly provided Trump with off-ramps to war — options he has so far not chosen. Trump said Friday that he will know the conflict is over “when I feel it in my bones.”
