Yemen stops granting visas at airports

Yemen has stopped issuing entry visas to foreigners at airports and border crossings in a move designed to keep out "terrorist elements," a government publication said Thursday, DPA reported.

The new measures aim to prevent suspected terrorists from entering the country, the Defence Ministry newspaper 26 September said, citing a security official source.

"All entry visas for foreigners who visit Yemen will no longer be issued at airports," the source was quoted as saying.

Instead, the visas will only be issued through Yemeni embassies abroad, following a check by security authorities "to prevent the infiltration of any terrorist elements," the source told the paper.

Yemen came under intensive pressure from the United States to crack down on al-Qaeda after a Nigerian man tried to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on December 25.

The Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, stayed in Yemen for three months, studying Arabic, before he left the country early in December.

In order to encourage more tourists to visit the country, Yemeni authorities have in the past few years been granting visas on arrival.