US government goes all in with 'do not travel' warning to this country

First introduced by the State Department in 1978, travel advisories inform citizens about the safety or danger of foreign nations they plan to visit.

Advisories are assigned based on a four-tier system. Level One's “Exercise Normal Precautions” means a country is just as or even safer than home, while Level Four's “Avoid All Travel” is the highest possible rung usually given out to active war zones, authoritarian governments, and countries with which the U.S. does not have formal diplomatic relations.

Nations with the latter rating include Russia, Haiti, Iraq, South Sudan, and North Korea.

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‘Significant risk of death or serious injury': Syria advisory updated

The Middle Eastern nation of Syria has also been under the same advisory for years amid a long-running civil war and revolution that eventually led to the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in 2024.

“Syria has experienced active armed conflict since 2011,” the current advisory reads. “No part of Syria is safe from violence. Hostage taking by armed groups, terrorism, remnants of war such as unexploded ordnance, and aerial bombardment pose significant risk of death or serious injury.”

The United States intervened in the war in 2014 with the stated goal of supporting the anti-Assad movement and fighting the Islamic State militant group. U.S. troops have been in the country throughout the prolonged military conflict.

With some sections of the advisory tweaked to reflect the situation on the ground on July 23, the new warning stresses that the U.S. government has not had embassy operations in the country since 2012 — the Eastern European nation of Czechia is one of the few Western countries to maintain an embassy and would be the only one able to take on cases of Americans who need diplomatic help.

The April 2017 missile strike on Shayrat Airbase was among the first direct military actions that the U.S. initiated in Syria.

Image source: Shutterstock

‘The U.S. government is unable to provide any routine or emergency consular services' in Syria

“The U.S. government suspended operations of the U.S. Embassy in 2012,” the advisory reads further. “Czechia serves as the protecting power for the United States in Syria. The U.S. government is unable to provide any routine or emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in Syria. Do not travel to Syria for any reason.”

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The advisory focuses on the fact that, due to U.S. involvement in the war, militant groups controlling different stretches of territory at any given time may have anti-American sentiment and target stray U.S. citizens who are in the country.

“In the past, U.S. citizens have been targets of abduction and detention in Syria,” the section reads. “Those in detention may not have access to fair judicial process or medical attention. Failure to obtain a legitimate entry visa directly from the Syrian government could result in detention.”

Getting to the country from outside the Middle East is also not particularly easy, as only a handful of commercial airlines currently fly into Syria due to the extreme risk in its airspace. Qatar Airways restarted limited service to Aleppo International Airport in January 2025, while Turkish Airlines runs some flights to Damascus.

“There are no cancelations of flights to Iran, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, and such claims are misleading,” a spokesperson for the airline told local media outlets amid escalation of the conflict between Iran and Israel earlier this month.