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

US missions attacked in Egypt, Libya; one American official dead

Cairo: Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked U.S. diplomatic missions on Tuesday, leading to the death of an American staffer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after fierce clashes at the compound, a Libyan official said.

"One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes," Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee, said, adding he did not know the exact number of injured or what the cause of death was.

The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt where protesters scaled the walls of the Cairo embassy and tore down the American flag and burned it during protests over what demonstrators said was a U.S. film that insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

On Tuesday, Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and seat of Sunni learning condemned a symbolic "trial" of the Prophet organized by a U.S. group including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Koran.

Jones said that on Tuesday's anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he had released a video promoting a film that portrayed the Prophet in a "satirical" manner. Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet offensive.

Gunmen in Benghazi attacked the compound on Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces, officials said. "There is a connection between this attack and the protests that have been happening in Cairo," Hurr said.

The U.S. State Department did not refer to any deaths, but said in a statement: "We can confirm that our office in Benghazi, Libya, has been attacked by a group of militants. We are working with the Libyans now to secure the compound. We condemn in strongest terms this attack on our diplomatic mission."

Among about 2,000 protesters gathered in the Egyptian capital was Ismail Mahmoud, who, like others, did not name the film that angered him, but called on President Mohamed Mursi, Egypt's first civilian president and an Islamist, to take action.

"This movie must be banned immediately and an apology should be made," said the 19-year-old Mahmoud, a member of the "ultras" soccer supporters who played a big role in the uprising that brought down Hosni Mubarak last year.

Once the U.S. flag was hauled down in Cairo, some protesters tore it up and displayed bits to television cameras. Others burned the remnants outside the fortress-like embassy building in central Cairo. But some protesters objected to the flag burning.

BENGHAZI CLASHES

In Benghazi, Reuters reporters on the scene could see looters raiding the empty U.S. consulate's compound, walking off with desks, chairs and washing machines.

Unknown gunmen were shooting at the buildings, while others threw handmade bombs into the compound, setting off small explosions. Small fires were burning around the compound.

Passersby entered the unsecured compound to take pictures with their mobile phones and watch the looting.

No security forces could be seen around the consulate and a previous blockade of the road leading to it had been dismantled.

"The Libyan security forces came under heavy fire and we were not prepared for the intensity of the attack," Hurr said.

In Washington, a U.S official who spoke on condition of anonymity said, "We have no reason to believe, at this time, that the Cairo protests and the attack in Benghazi are connected in motive."

Libya's interim government has struggled to impose its authority on a myriad of armed groups that have refused to lay down their weapons and often take the law into their own hands.

A number of security violations have rocked Benghazi, Libya's second biggest city and the cradle of last year's revolt that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

The breaching of the U.S. Embassy walls in Cairo comes at a delicate time in U.S.-Egyptian relations, and as the United States appeared to be easing its caution over Mursi.

Last week, U.S. officials said they were close to a deal with Egypt's government for $1 billion in debt relief. Washington had also signaled its backing for a badly needed $4.8 billion loan that Egypt is seeking from the International Monetary Fund.

"I would urge you not to draw too many conclusions because we've also had some very positive developments in our relationship with Egypt," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

"One of the things about the new Egypt is that protest is possible," she said. "Obviously we all want to see peaceful protest, which is not what happened outside the U.S. mission, so we're trying to restore calm now."

Washington has a large mission in Egypt, partly because of a huge aid program that followed Egypt's signing of a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. The United States gives $1.3 billion to Egypt's military each year and offers the nation other aid.

Following the protest, Egypt's Foreign Ministry said it was committed to giving all embassies the protection they needed.

© Thomson Reuters 2012