Fearing the prospect of protesters sacking the embassy and getting their hands on embarrassing documents, the Obama Administration has ordered diplomats at the US Embassy in Beirut to begin destroying a large portion of their classified documents.
State Department officials say that the move wasn’t in response to any specific threat against the Beirut embassy, but protests are planned inside Lebanon and they are apparently fearing that they will lead to a march against them.
The State Department says it has ordered all US embassies around to world to review security procedures and suggested Beirut was not the only embassy which decided to destroy documents, though others were not specifically named.
They also issued a new travel warning, cautioning Americans to avoid “all travel to Lebanon” and saying that any Americans who don’t flee the nation “should understand that they accept risks in remaining.”
