WASHINGTON, July 6 (Xinhua)-- U.S. diplomats have been hit with unprecedented security restrictions with many being confined to fortress-like embassy compounds, Associated Press reported Friday.
Lockdowns and prohibitions on travel now apply to Americans posted to embassies and consulates in at least 28 nations, according to an Associated Press survey of State Department warnings, internal directives and officials. More than half the nations are identified as key to curbing the spread of militant Islam.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the number of posts deemed too dangerous for U.S. diplomats to bring families has doubled, from 10 to 21. And since the 1980s, the number of missions where employees receive danger pay has soared from two, Colombia and Lebanon, to 26.
The U.S. State Department has found difficult to recruit employees to serve in hotspot countries, including new embassies opening in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In addition to Kabul and Baghdad, the no-family rules also cover all seven U.S. missions in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as well as 12 posts in Bosnia, the Central African Republic, Congo, Kosovo, Liberia and Sudan.
Even in countries where spouses and children are allowed, travel restrictions have been imposed because of threats from Islamic militants, other terrorism concerns, civil disturbances and, to a lesser extent, crime and disease, the report said.
At least 19 employees of U.S. embassies have died of unnatural causes in the line of duty over the past decade, according to the American Foreign Service Association, the union for U.S. diplomats.
The AP survey did not include countries where the United States has no diplomatic presence, notably Iran, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Somalia. Nor does it include nations that have slapped travel restrictions on U.S. diplomats in retaliation for similar measures imposed by Washington, such as Cuba, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.
