Libyan officials: US drones behind airport closure

Benghazi: U.S. drones hovered over the eastern city of Benghazi on Friday and militia forces fired toward the crafts, prompting authorities to close the airport for several hours for fear a commercial aircraft could be hit, Libyan officials said.

Abdel-Basit Haroun, the head of the militia in charge of city security, said the drones could easily be spotted from the ground. He says men angry over perceived foreign intervention fired in the air and authorities closed the airport.

"The drones are like bees," he said, referring to the long hours the drones were seen, with their buzzing noise heard in different neighbourhoods of Benghazi. Militias, known as brigades, fought regime forces during Libya's eight-month civil war that led to Moammar Gaddafi's fall last year. Since then, many have roles in keeping security, though they have not been integrated into government forces.

An airport official confirmed the firing on the drones was the reason for the airport shutdown.

U.S. officials said drones in Libya include Predators and Reapers, which are being used for surveillance and are largely unarmed. While drones have been there consistently, officials have increased their coverage and cycles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to the media.

The American consulate in Benghazi came under deadly attack on Tuesday night when an angry mob and heavily armed Islamists demonstrating against a film denigrating Prophet Muhammad stormed the compound, setting the building on fire. Four Americans, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.

So far, the identity of the attackers is unknown, though Libyan leaders have vowed to work with the Americans in catching them. Authorities in Libya say they arrested four suspects linked to the attack. Haroun, however, said no one had been arrested and that the announcement is only for media consumption.

Along with drone surveillance, the U.S. has deployed an FBI investigation team, and a small surge of U.S. intelligence officers to try to track down al-Qaida sympathizers thought responsible for turning the demonstration into a violent militant attack.

Two ex-Navy SEALs among dead in Libya attack

Washington: Two of the four Americans killed in Tuesday's attack on the US consulate in Libya were former members of the elite Navy SEALs, US officials said on Thursday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the identities of the former SEALs as Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, praising them as decorated military veterans who "served our country with honour and distinction."

Ambassador Chris Stephens and Sean Smith, an information management officer, also were killed in Tuesday's harrowing assault in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"Our embassies could not carry on our critical work around the world without the service and sacrifice of brave people like Tyrone and Glen," Clinton said in a statement.

Doherty had been working on a mission to track down shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles in Libya, according to ABC News.

US military and intelligence officials have warned that thousands of the weapons, so-called MANPADs, were unaccounted for after Libya's former dictator, Moamer Gaddafi, fell from power.

The former SEAL described his job in an interview with ABC last month, saying he had travelled across the country chasing leads and then once the weapons were found, his team would destroy them on the spot, the American television network said.

Woods served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing security at US diplomatic posts in Central America and the Middle East.

"He had the hands of a healer as well as the arm of a warrior, earning distinction as a registered nurse and certified paramedic," Clinton said, adding that he is survived by his wife Dorothy and three sons, including Kai, born just a few months ago.

Speaking about Doherty, Clinton said the man who put his life on the line in hotspots throughout the world "died the way he lived - with selfless honour and unstinting valour."

Doherty reportedly trained as a sniper and medical officer in a seven-year career with the SEALs, before leaving to work at a private security company.

According to an account of the attack from senior officials, Doherty was one of two people who died after staff were evacuated to an annex near the main US consulate building.

With the main building engulfed in flames, the annex then came under sustained gunfire until Libyan forces eventually managed to restore order in the early morning hours.

At least three other Americans were wounded in the attack.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney issued a statement earlier Thursday mourning the death of Doherty, who was from Massachusetts, where Romney served as governor.

"Ann and I extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Glen Doherty, a native of Winchester, Massachusetts, who was among those killed in Tuesday's assault on our consulate in Libya," his statement said.

"Glen served America with bravery and distinction, and gave his life in an effort to save others."

The US State Department defended its security arrangements at the Benghazi consulate, even though dozens of militants were able to breach the compound and keep US security teams at bay for hours.

"We condemn the attack that took the lives of these heroes in the strongest terms, and we are taking additional steps to safeguard American embassies, consulates, and citizens around the world," Clinton said.

"This violence should shock the conscience of people of all faiths and traditions."

She called for unity in the face of the violence.

"We honour the memory of our fallen colleagues by continuing their work and carrying on the best traditions of a bold and generous nation," the top US diplomat added.

U.S. embassies attacked in Yemen, Egypt after Libya envoy killed

Sanna/ Cairo: Demonstrators attacked the U.S. embassies in Yemen and Egypt on Thursday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam and American warships headed to Libya after the death of the U.S. ambassador there in related violence earlier in the week.

Hundreds of Yemeni demonstrators broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified compound in eastern Sanaa, shouting "We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God". Earlier they smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars.

"We can see a fire inside the compound and security forces are firing in the air. The demonstrators are fleeing and then charging back," one witness told Reuters. A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by bullets. An embassy spokesman said its personnel were reported to be safe.

In Egypt, protesters hurled stones at a police cordon around the U.S. embassy in central Cairo after climbing into the embassy and tearing down the American flag. The state news agency said 13 people were injured in violence which erupted on Wednesday night after protests on Tuesday.

A day earlier, Islamist gunmen staged a military-style assault on the U.S. consulate and a safe house refuge in Benghazi, eastern Libya. The U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the assault, carried out with guns, mortars and grenades. Eight Libyans were injured.

U.S. President Barack Obama vowed to "bring to justice" the Islamist gunmen responsible and the U.S. military moved two navy destroyers towards the Libyan coast, in what a U.S. official said was a move to give the administration flexibility for any future action against Libyan targets.

The military also dispatched a Marine Corps anti-terrorist security team to boost security in Libya, whose leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in a U.S.-backed uprising last year.

The attack, which U.S. officials said may have been planned in advance, came on the 11th anniversary of al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

Film

The attackers were part of a mob blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad. Clips of the Innocence of Muslims, had been circulating on the Internet for weeks before the protests erupted.

They show an amateurish production portraying the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. For many Muslims, any depiction of the Prophet is blasphemous and caricatures or other characterisations have in the past provoked protests all over the Muslim world.

An actress in the California production said the video as it appeared bore no resemblence to the original filming. She had not been aware it was about the Prophet Mohammad.

Among the assailants, Libyans identified units of a heavily armed local Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia, which sympathises with Al Qaeda and derides Libya's U.S.-backed bid for democracy.

U.S. officials said some reporting from the region suggested members of Al Qaeda's north-Africa based affiliate may have been involved.

Yemen, a key U.S. ally, is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), viewed by Washington as the most dangerous branch of the militant network established by Osama bin Laden.

Mr Obama said he had ordered an increase in security at U.S. diplomatic posts around the globe. Protests also erupted this week outside U.S. missions in Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco.

The attacks could alter U.S. attitudes towards the wave of revolutions across the Arab world that toppled secularist authoritarian leaders in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia and brought Islamists to power.

The violence also could have an impact on the closely contested U.S. Presidential race ahead of the November 6 election.

Republican Mitt Romney, Mr Obama's challenger, criticised the President's response to the crisis. He said the timing of a statement from the U.S. embassy in Cairo denouncing "efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims" made Mr Obama look weak as protesters were attacking U.S. missions.

Mr Romney said it was "disgraceful" to be seen to be apologizing for American values of free speech. Mr Obama's campaign accused Romney of trying to score political points at a time of national tragedy. Obama said Romney had a tendency "to shoot first and aim later."

Western countries denounced the Benghazi killings and Russia expressed deep concern, saying the episode underscored the need for global cooperation to fight "the evil of terrorism".

The attack raised questions about the future U.S. diplomatic presence in Libya, relations between Washington and Tripoli, and the unstable security situation after Gaddafi's overthrow.

Safe house

Mr Stevens, a 52-year-old California-born diplomat who spent a career operating in perilous places, became the first American ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs, the U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, died in a 1979 kidnapping attempt.

A Libyan doctor pronounced him dead of smoke inhalation. U.S. information technology specialist Sean Smith and two other Americans who have not yet been identified also were killed when a squad of U.S. troops sent by helicopter from Tripoli to rescue the diplomats from the safe house came under mortar attack.

"It was supposed to be a secret place and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it," Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, commander of a Libyan special operations unit ordered to meet the Americans, said of the safe house.

Witnesses said the crowd at the consulate included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen. Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief apologised to the United States over the attack.

Many Muslim states focused their condemnation on the film and will be concerned about preventing a repeat of the fallout seen after publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. This touched off riots in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in 2006 in which at least 50 people died.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the making of the movie a "devilish act" but said he was certain those involved in its production were a very small minority.

The U.S. embassy in Kabul appealed to Afghan leaders for help in "maintaining calm" and Afghanistan shut down the YouTube site so Afghans would not be able to see the film.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, took the unusual step of telephoning a radical Florida Christian pastor, Terry Jones, and asking him to withdraw his support for the film. Earlier provocative acts by Jones, like publicly burning a Koran, had sparked Muslim unrest.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the attack was the work of a "small and savage group."

© Thomson Reuters 2012