Muslim world anger rises over film

The California-made film on the Profet triggered an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya's city of Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

In Tunis, at least five people were wounded by police gunfire near the U.S. embassy, and a big fire had reportedly erupted within the embassy compound. Protesters had earlier leapt over the compound wall.

Witnesses said Sudanese police fired tear gas at thousands of protesters to prevent them from approaching the U.S. embassy outside Khartoum, but some jumped over the wall

The wave of indignation and rage over the film, which portrays the Prophet Mohammad as a womanizer and a fool, coincided with Pope Benedict's arrival in Lebanon for a three-day visit.

The protests present Obama with a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before seeking re-election and tests Washington's relations with democratic governments it helped to power across the Arab world.

It also emerged that Libya had closed its air space over Benghazi airport temporarily because of heavy anti-aircraft fire by Islamists aiming at U.S. reconnaissance drones flying over the city, after President Barack Obama vowed to bring the ambassador's killers to justice.

The closure of the airport prompted speculation that the United States was deploying special forces in preparation for an attack against the militants who were involved in the attack.

A Libyan official said the spy planes flew over the embassy compound and the city, taking photos and inspecting locations of radical militant groups who are believed to have planned and staged the attack on the U.S. consulate.

There were protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

MARINES TO YEMEN

The Pentagon said it had sent a "fast" platoon of Marines to Yemen to bolster U.S. embassy security after clashes in Sanaa.

U.S. embassies were the main target of anger and protest but most embassy staff were not at work because Friday is the Muslim weekend across the Arab World.

The frenzy erupted after traditional Muslim Friday prayers. Fury over the film has been stoked by Internet video footage, social networks, preachers and word-of-mouth.

Protesters clashed with police near the U.S. embassy in Cairo. Two Islamist preachers in Egypt told worshippers that those who made the movie deserved to die under sharia (Islamic law) but they urged protesters not to take their anger out on diplomats or others.

Sudanese demonstrators broke into the German embassy in Khartoum and hoisted an Islamic flag, while one person was killed in protests in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Police in the Sudanese capital had fired tear gas to try to disperse 5,000 protesters who had ringed the German embassy and nearby British mission. Witness said police stood by as a crowd forced its way into Germany's mission.

Demonstrators hoisted a black Islamic flag saying in white letters "there is no God but God and Mohammed is his Prophet". They smashed windows, cameras and furniture in the building and then started a fire.

Staff at Germany's embassy were safe "for the moment", Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Berlin. He also told Khartoum's envoy to Berlin that Sudan must protect diplomatic missions on its soil.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry had criticized Germany for allowing a protest last month by right-wing activists carrying caricatures of the Prophet and for Chancellor Angela Merkel giving an award in 2010 to a Danish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet in 2005 triggering protests across the Islamic world.

BASHIR UNDER PRESSURE

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is under pressure from Islamists who feel the government has given up the religious values of his 1989 Islamist coup.

The official body of Sudan's Islamic scholars called for the faithful to defend the Prophet peacefully, but at a meeting of Islamists, some leaders had said they would march on the German and U.S. embassies and demanded the ambassadors be expelled.

The Foreign Ministry said in its statement: "The German chancellor unfortunately welcomed this offence to Islam in a clear violation of all meanings of religious co-existence and tolerance between religions."

Sudan used to host prominent militants in the 1990s, such as Osama bin Laden, but the government has sought to distance itself from radicals to improve ties with the West.

A Lebanese security source said a man was killed in Tripoli as protesters tried to storm a government building.

Earlier, a U.S. fast food restaurant was set alight. Twelve members of the security forces were wounded by stones thrown by protesters, the source said.

Protesters also clashed with police in Yemen, where one person died and 15 were injured on Thursday when the U.S. embassy compound was stormed.

U.S. and other Western embassies in other Muslim countries had tightened security, fearing anger at the film may prompt attacks on their compounds after the weekly worship.

Obama has promised to bring those responsible for the Benghazi attack to justice, and the United States also sent warships towards Libya which one official said was to give flexibility for any future action.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington had nothing to do with the crudely made film posted on the Internet, which she called "disgusting and reprehensible", and the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff called a Christian pastor in Florida to ask him to withdraw his support for it.

Palestinians staged demonstrations in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Israeli police, some on horseback, used stun grenades and made a number of arrests outside Jerusalem's Old City as a few dozen demonstrators tried to march on the nearby U.S. consulate.

"Israeli police prevented an illegal demonstration from reaching the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem and used stun grenades after rocks and bottles were thrown at them," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

In Nablus, in the northern West Bank, several hundred people protested and burned an American flag, witnesses said.

AMERICAN FLAGS BURNED

The largest protests were in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Islamist group Hamas, with at least 30,000 Palestinians staging rallies across the coastal territory.

Some 25,000 took to the streets of Gaza City, answering a call by Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad faction and waving the green and black flags of the two factions.

American and Israeli flags were set alight, along with an effigy of the film's producer.

Protesters in Afghanistan set fire to an effigy of Obama and burned a U.S. flag after Friday prayers in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Directing their anger against the U.S. pastor who supported the film, tribal leaders also agreed to put a $100,000 bounty on his head.

About 10,000 people held a noisy protest in the Bangladeshi capital. They burned U.S. flags, chanted anti-U.S. slogans and demanded punishment for the offenders, but were stopped from marching to the U.S. embassy. There was no violence.

Thousands of Iranians held nationwide protests. There were also rallies in Malaysia, Jordan, Kenya, Bahrain, Qatar, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iraq.

US President promises revenge over ambassador's killing

President Barack Obama yesterday vowed “to bring to justice the killers” of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador in Libya also condemning the “outrageous” attack. “Make no mistake, we will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden. Obama, however, vowed the attack would not break America’s bond with the newly liberated nation. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, 52, was killed when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff as the building came under attack by a mob armed with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the attack as the work of a “small and savage group” but said U.S.-Libyan ties would not suffer. “I ask myself, how could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction?” Clinton said.

Libya apologies

Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief apologized to the United States yesterday over the attack. “We apologize to the United States, the people, and to the whole world for what happened,” Magarief, president of Libya’s national assembly, told a news conference broadcast live on Al Jazeera television.

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) Adm. James Stavridis voiced “deep sadness” over Stevens’ “tragic” killing in a tweet. A U.S. Marine anti-terrorism team was being deployed to Libya to bolster security after the deadly attack, a U.S. defense official said yesterday, on condition of anonymity. France also condemned the “unspeakable actions,” and demanded that Libyan authorities act quickly to arrest those responsible. The U.N. and Organization of Islamic Cooperation strongly condemned the attack. The Benghazi attack came just hours after Islamists had stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo in a similar protest against the American-made film, “Innocence of Muslims” which pokes fun at the Prophet Muhammad.

Brotherhood calls for protests accoss Egypt

Nearly 3,000 demonstrators, most of them hard-line Islamist supporters of the Salafi movement, gathered at the embassy to protest the film. Witnesses said the attackers ripped up a U.S. flag, then looted the consulate before setting the flag on fire and replacing it with a black Islamic flag. Egyptian police persuaded the trespassers to calm down. The crowd then largely dispersed.

Egypt’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood yesterday called for nationwide protests tomorrow against the film. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Secretary-General Mahmud Hussein called “for peaceful protests on Friday outside all the main mosques” in a statement. Also, Egypt’s Coptic activists said they would stage a vigil late yesterday in protest against the film. Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said yesterday the film, which was reportedly produced by an Israeli-American, “has nothing whatsoever to do with Israel.” Still, he said Israel will “have to be vigilant.” Around 100 hardline Salafis Muslims protested outside the U.S. embassy in Tunisia yesterday against the film.
Compiled from AFP, AP and Reuters stories by the Daily News staff.

Film behind The vıolent protests

CAIRO – Agence France-Presse

A film portraying the life of the Prophet Mohammed, which touches on themes of pedophilia and homosexuality, has sparked attacks on a U.S. missions. Clips of the film have been posted on the Internet. The film “Innocence of Muslims” portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. The film was produced by Israeli-American Sam Bacile, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Who is US Envoy diplomat in Libya?

U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, a career officer with the U.S. foreign service, took up his post in Tripoli in May.

The Arabic and French-speaking diplomat also served in Libya as deputy chief of mission between 2007 and 2009. He served as a foreign service officer in Jerusalem, Damascus, Cairo and Riyadh. He is the sixth American envoy killed by terrorist. Stevens had supported the Libyan revolt that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi. “I was thrilled to watch the Libyan people stand up and demand their rights,” Stevens said shortly after he was appointed. “Now I’m excited to return to Libya to continue the great work we’ve started ]...] to help you, the Libyan people, achieve your goals.”

US ambassador in Libya killed

Deputy Interior Minister Wanis al-Sharif earlier accused supporters of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of carrying out the attack.

The attack in Libya came hours after Egyptian protesters climbed the walls of the US Embassy in Cairo, pulling down the American flag and temporarily replacing it with a black Islamic banner. Some tried to raise a black flag with the words “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger”, a Reuters witness said.

The attacks in Benghazi and Cairo were the first such assaults on US diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime authoritarian leaders, Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year. The protests in both countries were sparked by outrage over a film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad produced by an Israeli filmmaker living in California and being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States. Excerpts from the film dubbed into Arabic were posted on YouTube.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government on Wednesday distanced itself from the filmmaker whose movie sparked the deadly riot in Libya, but said it will be “vigilant” at its diplomatic offices overseas. The movie, “Innocence of Muslims,” was produced by Sam Bacile, a 56-year-old California real estate developer who has said he’s both Israeli and American.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said those killed in Libya had been “committed to helping the Libyan people reach for a better future.”

Stevens was a career diplomat who spoke Arabic and French and had already served two tours in Libya, including running the office in Benghazi during the revolt against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. He was confirmed as ambassador to Libya by the Senate earlier this year.

His State Department biography, posted on the website of the US Embassy to Libya, says he “considers himself fortunate to participate in this incredible period of change and hope for Libya.”

Clinton said Stevens had a “passion for service, for diplomacy and for the Libyan people.”

“This assignment was only the latest in his more than two decades of dedication to advancing closer ties with the people of the Middle East and North Africa which began as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco,” Clinton said.

He “risked his own life to lend the Libyan people a helping hand to build the foundation for a new, free nation. He spent every day since helping to finish the work that he started,” she said.

Stevens joined the Foreign Service in 1991 and spent his early State Department career at posts in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Israel. After working for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff for Republican Sen. Richard Lugar, Stevens was posted to Libya as deputy chief of mission.