HSANAA -- President Ali Abdullah Saleh has urged Yemeni Citizens to shun extremism following an announcement that the United States is closing its embassy in Sanaa after the killing of six Al-Qaeda suspects in a missile strike attributed to the CIA.

"I call on all Yemeni elements who got entangled in the Al-Qaeda organization to repent and desist from committing offenses against their country," Saleh said in a televised speech marking the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan Wednesday.

Saleh, whose government has been engaged in a U.S.-inspired crackdown on Al-Qaeda suspects since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, urged Yemenis involved with Al-Qaeda to "renounce all methods of violence which cause immense damage to the country's economy, security and stability, and undermine Yemen's relations" with other countries, AFP reported.

"Islam rejects violence and extremism, and if these (Al-Qaeda militants) are truly Muslims, they must return to the right path ...

and integrate into society as good citizens whose rights and duties are stipulated by the Constitution," he said.

The Yemeni leader, whose speech was aired late Tuesday, called for international cooperation in combating "the global phenomenon" of terrorism.

He was speaking hours after Washington announced it was closing its embassy in Sanaa indefinitely amid fears it might become a target of retaliation for the killing of a top Al-Qaeda operative and five associates in Yemen.

"The embassy is closed to the public," an employee at the mission, contacted by telephone, confirmed to AFP Wednesday.

Security measures were boosted around the extensive embassy complex, whose main entrance was surrounded by concrete blocks and guarded by Yemeni troops in vehicles mounted with heavy machine-guns.

Other troops stepped up their patrols around the embassy. State Department Spokeswoman Lynn Cassell announced Tuesday that the Sanaa Embassy would be "closed to the public on November 6 to review its security posture."

"The embassy will reopen at the appropriate time," she said, declining to say when that might be.

The closure of the mission came as U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz implicitly confirmed that the United States carried out Sunday's missile strike which killed the six Al-Qaeda suspects in Marib Province, 200 kilometers (125 miles) east of Sanaa.

It was a "very successful tactical operation," Wolfowitz told the U.S. television network CNN Tuesday.

"One hopes each time you get a success like that not only to have gotten rid of somebody dangerous, but to have imposed changes in their tactics and operations and procedures," he said.

U.S. media said on Wednesday that the strike was carried out with the approval of the Yemeni government and under broad authority given by the White House.

Quoting a U.S. official with knowledge of the attack, the ***Washington Post*** said a Central Intelligence Agency-controlled predator drone fired the missile that killed the six.

The dead included Ali Qaed Sunian Al-Harithi, described as a top Al-Qaeda leader and planner of the October 2000 suicide attack on the Destroyer USS Cole in the south Yemeni port of Aden that killed 17 American sailors.

Al-Qaeda has also been blamed for the September 11 atrocities.

The paper said the strike which killed the six Al-Qaeda suspects was "carried out with the cooperation and approval" of the Yemeni government.

U.S. Ambassador Edmund Hull, formerly responsible for anti-terrorism measures at the State Department, was in Marib at the time, local sources said.