The US State Department has ordered non-essential US diplomats and embassy dependants out of Kuwait, Israel and Syria and has warned US citizens to leave because of the threat of war with Iraq.
The steps, which mirrored US precautions before the 1991 Gulf War, were announced after US President George W. Bush said there was only one more day to find a diplomatic end to the Iraq crisis before Washington moves to a war footing.
The British Foreign Office has also warned its citizens and non-essential staff to leave Kuwait.
In three separate "travel warnings," the State Department told US citizens not to travel to the countries and strongly urged those there to leave, citing in part the danger of Iraq or "terrorist organisations" using chemical or biological weapons should war break out.
On Friday the Department of Foreign Affairs here warned Irish citizens against travelling to Jordan and Syria. This follows a warning last month from the Department against travelling to Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Territories, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain.
UN observers monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border said today that they had stopped all operations in the demilitarised zone amid US preparations for an attack on Iraq.
"Effective today, we have ceased all operations under...our security plan," Mr Daljeet Bagga, spokesman of the UN Iraq-Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM), said.
"We are still here in the DMZ (demilitarised zone) but we have ceased operations and are awaiting further instruction," he said.
UNIKOM, set up after the 1991 Gulf War, last week began withdrawing civilian and military staff from the DMZ straddling the 200-km desert frontier, which US forces would have to cross in any invasion of Iraq.