Terror threat: US evacuates consulate in Pakistan

A terrorist threat prompted the State Department to evacuate all non-emergency staff from the U.S. Consulate in Lahore, Pakistan, the department said. The Thursday evacuation was a result of "specific threats concerning the U.S. Consulate in Lahore," the State Department said in a statement. Lahore is the provincial capital of Punjab and is Pakistan's second-largest city. Punjab is Pakistan's most developed, populous and prosperous province. Most of al-Qaida's core leadership is believed to live in Pakistan, and Lahore is reputed to be home to other extremists sympathetic to the group, including Lashkar-e-Toiba, or Army of God, one of the largest and most active Islamist terrorist organizations in South Asia. "We have picked up what we regard as a threat worthy of taking this [evacuative] action," a senior U.S. official told CNN. "The department is taking appropriate steps to protect our employees and others who may be visiting our facilities," a senior State Department official told NBC News. The "ordered departure" applied to all U.S. diplomats and staff in Lahore, except for a handful of emergency personnel, officials said. The diplomats were moved to Islamabad, the nation's capital, officials said. A new State Department travel warning to U.S. citizens said, "The presence of several foreign and indigenous terrorist groups poses a potential danger to U.S. citizens throughout Pakistan. It warned U.S. citizens "to defer all non-essential travel." There were conflicting reports about whether the latest threat was related to the terror plot that has temporarily shut down 19 U.S. diplomatic posts across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. One U.S. official told CNN it was not related. The senior State Department official speaking to NBC News also said it was not related. But a second U.S. official told CNN officials were not clear about the connection. "We are still digging and trying to trace whether it is related," the official said. "I'm not willing to say it's related, but can't say it is unrelated. We just don't have that level of granularity yet," the official said. No U.S. diplomatic posts in Pakistan were closed as a result of the earlier warning.