PHNOM PENH, Nov 29 (AFP) - The US embassy in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh decided to scale back its operations amid fears of an attack coordinated by the Saudi-born Muslim leader Osama bin Laden, according to a statement received Monday.
"The US embassy has received information of a purported terrorist threat against US diplomatic installations in Phnom Penh ... allegedly sourced to an Islamic extremist group linked to terrorist bin Laden," the embassy statement said.
It said while the embassy would "continue to assess the credibility of the threat," it would only remain operational with reduced staffing and "provide only emergency services to American citizens."
The statement did not specify the source of the apparent threat from bin Laden, who is currently residing in Afghanistan and has been blamed by the United States for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in east Africa.
The measures follow a report in a little-known local English-language newspaper, The Vision, which itself quoted a series of unnamed Western diplomats. It was unclear if the report was the source of the alert.
The report claimed bin Laden, together with a "Muslim terrorist group" from the Philippines, was looking to establish training camps along Cambodia's isolated jungle frontier with Thailand and Laos.
The British embassy here said it had received "no such information" and operations continued as normal, but refused to say if security precautions had been stepped up at the mission.
Several other Western diplomats dismissed The Vision's report as "highly questionable."
Earlier this month the United Nations imposed sanctions on war-torn Afghanistan after the ruling Taliban militia failed to hand over bin Laden, who is on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's 10 most wanted list.
