US warns citizens on travel to Egypt as American killed

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Warning its citizens against travelling to Egypt, the US today said its non-emergency diplomatic staff could leave the country after an American freelance photographer was killed during protests against President Mohamed Mursi a year after his election.

“The department of state authorised the departure of a limited number of non-emergency employees and family members,” it said in the updated warning.

It cautioned US citizens “to defer non-essential travel to Egypt at this time due to the continuing possibility of political and social unrest.”

“US citizens are urged to remain alert to local security developments and to be vigilant regarding their personal security.”

The US citizen, a 21-year-old who reportedly worked for an American cultural centre in the coastal city of Alexandria, was stabbed to death as he took photographs of the headquarters of the Freedom and Justice Party being set on fire.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama, currently on a tour of Africa, has said that the US is concerned about protests and political unrest in Egypt. He says the top priority is making sure the US embassy in Cairo and American consulates are safe.

About 200 US marines, stationed in Italy and Spain, have been put on alert to be ready to protect the US embassy and American government personnel and citizens if violence broke out against Americans.

Meanwhile, in the canal city of Port Said, an Egyptian journalist was killed and several others injured when unknown men threw a small explosive device at anti-Mursi protesters, a security official and witnesses said.

Another man was killed earlier during the clashes in Alexandria.

Clashes also erupted in the Nile Delta provinces of Daqahliya and Beheira, and across the country over 130 people were wounded, security officials said.

The offices of the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of Mursi’s Muslim brotherhood, were torched in Alexandria and at Aga in Daqahliya, and FJP offices were stormed in Beheira.

The skirmishes are seen as a prelude to mass anti-Mursi protests planned for tomorrow, the anniversary of his turbulent maiden year in office as Egypt’s first democratically elected president.

Mursi, 62, has been accused by opponents of failing the 2011 revolution that brought him to power and of ignoring nearly half of the electorate, of around 50 million who did not vote for him last year.

Tomorrow’s protest has been called by Tamarod (Arabic for Rebellion), a grassroots movement which is demanding Mursi’s resignation and a snap election.