U.S. Embassy in RP on alert

U.S. Embassy in RP on alert

MANILA (AFP): Philippine police have stepped up security around U.S. facilities amid threats of an attack on the U.S. Embassy here found on an aircraft in Kuwait, officials said on Thursday.

President Joseph Estrada said U.S. facilities "are being closely watched. Since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya ... we have alerted not only the police but the armed forces to patrol the U.S. Embassy and not just the embassy but other (facilities)."

A letter was found this week on an Emirates Airlines plane in Kuwait which threatened an attack on the embassy on Sept. 4.

According to an official toll, 247 people died in an Aug. 7 terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. A bomb at the U.S. Embassy in the Tanzanian capital left 10 people dead.

A Philippine Moslem political alliance charged on Thursday that the U.S. Embassy had made up the letter to prevent them staging a protest in front of the embassy on Friday.