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Arab world roils with anti-U.S. demonstrations
By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
September 14th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
September 14th, 2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
U.S.
embassies in Yemen and Egypt have been attacked by angry mobs, stemming
from a film posted online that mocked Islam. American warships have
headed to Libya following the death of a U.S. ambassador who was killed
after protestors stormed the embassy there.
At least 15 people were reportedly wounded, some by gunfire, before the Yemeni government ringed the area with troops.
In Egypt, people threw stones at a police cordon around the U.S. embassy in central Cairo after climbing into the embassy compound and tearing down the American flag. Thirteen people were hurt in violence following initial protests earlier this week.
In Benghazi, Libya, Islamists staged military-style assaults on the mission and a safe house refuge on the 11th anniversary of al Qaeda's attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
The U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the attacks in Benghazi. Eight Libyans were injured.
President Barack Obama vowed to "bring to justice" those responsible for the attack, which U.S. officials said may have been planned in advance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the government had nothing to do with the video, entitled "The Innocence of Muslims," which she called "disgusting and reprehensible."
The U.S. military moved two destroyers towards the Libyan coast, in what an official said was a move to give the administration flexibility for any future action against Libyan targets.
A Marine Corps anti-terrorist team has been deployed to boost security in Libya, whose leader Muammar Khadafi was ousted in a U.S.-backed uprising last year.
There is trouble elsewhere, as President Obama revealed that the U.S. consulate in Berlin was partially evacuated after an employee fell ill on opening a suspicious envelope.
Bangladeshi Islamists tried to march on the U.S. embassy in Dhaka and Iranian students protested in Tehran outside the Swiss embassy. There were also protests at U.S. missions in Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco.
Clips of the film "Innocence of Muslims," had been circulating on the Internet for weeks before the protests erupted.
The film is an amateurish production portraying Mohammad as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser. Any representation of the Prophet is typically considered blasphemous among Islamists.
Clinton said Washington rejected the film's message absolutely. "It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose: to denigrate a great religion and provoke rage," she said.
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