WASHINGTON, May 19: When the Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda placed a bounty on her husband’s head, Mary Feierstein learned of it from a friend who called and said, “You must be a mess!”
US Ambassador Gerald Feierstein was thousands of km away at the US Embassy in Sanaa, without his wife and family on what is called an “unaccompanied” posting.
He is one of more than a thousand US diplomats on such tours of duty in danger spots around the world, part of a trend that is changing the definition of being a diplomat.
Over time, his wife has learned to stay calm when the phone rings unexpectedly at her home outside Washington. For nearly five years, she has not lived in the same country as her husband, a career diplomat who specializes in the Middle East and South Asia.
After militants stormed the US Embassy in Yemen last September, breaking through to the inner building and ripping plaques and lettering from the walls, Feierstein called his wife to tell her he was OK.
He had also called her a few years earlier when he was based in Islamabad, Pakistan, and a bomb went off near his residence. He was unhurt in that attack.
But when Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – considered by US officials to be al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate – offered 3 kg of gold last December for the killing of Feierstein, it was Mary’s turn to call her husband. He played down the danger.
“He said it was old news. They are constantly under threat, you know,” Mary Feierstein said in her first media interview since the threat.
After a police officer came to her home to give her his card and tell her to call him if she needed any help, “that’s when I got scared,” Feierstein said.
The new perils for foreign service officers were spotlighted last September 11, when militants overran the temporary US mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans, including Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. Two other US diplomats were killed in Afghanistan in the past year.
(AGENCIES)
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