US ambassador 'killed in Libya'

[Jaygray]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19570254

A number of potential outcomes to this scenario occurs; none of them great.

[klr]

And the cause? An "anti-Islamic" film.

[MrJonno]

Not sure what consequences there could be, its not the Libya government that is involved unless someone knows otherwise, just a lot of pressure to catch those involved

[Bella Fortuna]

The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three American members of his staff were killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi by protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad, Libyan officials said Wednesday.

They said Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed Tuesday night 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 guns and rocket propelled grenades.

The three Libyan officials who confirmed the deaths were deputy interior minister for eastern Libya Wanis al-Sharaf; Benghazi security chief Abdel-Basit Haroun; and Benghazi city council and security official Ahmed Bousinia.

The State Department said Tuesday that one American was killed in the attack. It has not confirmed the other deaths.

The attack on the Benghazi consulate took place as hundreds of protesters in neighboring Egypt scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and tore down and replaced the American flag with a black Islamic banner.

The attacks in Benghazi and Cairo were the first such assaults on U.S. 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, Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year.

The protests in both countries were sparked by outrage over a film ridiculing 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.

Stevens, 52, 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 Gadhafi. He was confirmed as ambassador to Libya by the Senate earlier this year.

Before Tuesday, five U.S. ambassadors had been killed in the line of duty, the last being Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan in 1979, according to the State Department historian's office.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that one State Department officer had been killed in the protest at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. She strongly condemned the attack and said she had called Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif "to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya."

Clinton expressed concern that the protests might spread to other countries. She said the U.S. is working with "partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide."

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet," Clinton said in a statement released by the State Department. "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

In Benghazi, a large mob stormed the U.S. consulate, with gunmen firing their weapons, said Wanis al-Sharef, an Interior Ministry official in Benghazi. A witness said attackers fired automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate as they clashed with Libyans hired to guard the facility.

Outnumbered by the crowd, Libyan security forces did little to stop them, al-Sharef said.

The crowd overwhelmed the facility and set fire to it, burning most of it and looting the contents, witnesses said.

The violence at the consulate lasted for about three hours, but the situation has now quieted down, said another witness.

"I heard nearly 10 explosions and all kinds of weapons. It was a terrifying day," said the witness who refused to give his name because he feared retribution.

Hours before the Benghazi attack, hundreds of mainly ultraconservative Islamist protesters in Egypt marched to the U.S. Embassy in downtown Cairo, gathering outside its walls and chanting against the movie and the U.S. Most of the embassy staff had left the compound earlier because of warnings of the upcoming demonstration.

"Say it, don't fear: Their ambassador must leave," the crowd chanted.

Dozens of protesters then scaled the embassy walls, and several went into the courtyard and took down the American flag from a pole. They brought it back to the crowd outside, which tried to burn it, but failing that tore it apart.

The protesters on the wall then raised on the flagpole a black flag with a Muslim declaration of faith, "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his prophet." The flag, similar to the banner used by al-Qaida, is commonly used by ultraconservatives around the region.

The crowd grew throughout Tuesday evening, with thousands standing outside the embassy. Dozens of riot police lined up along the embassy walls but did not stop protesters as they continued to climb and stand on the wall though it appeared no more went into the compound.

A senior Egyptian security official at the embassy area said authorities allowed the protest because it was "peaceful." When they started climbing the walls, he said he called for more troops, denying that the protesters stormed the embassy. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry promised in a statement to provide the necessary security for diplomatic missions and embassies and warned that "such incidents will negatively impact the image of stability in Egypt, which will have consequences on the life of its citizens."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Egyptian police had removed the demonstrators who entered the embassy grounds.

Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any fashion, much less in an insulting way. The 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

A 14-minute trailer of the movie that sparked the protests, posted on the website YouTube in an original English version and another dubbed into Egyptian Arabic, depicts Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way, showing him having sex and calling for massacres.

The website's guidelines call for removing videos that include a threat of violence, but not those that only express opinions. YouTube's practice is not to comment on specific videos.

Sam Bacile, a 56-year-old California real estate developer who identifies himself as an Israeli Jew and who said he produced, directed and wrote the two-hour film, "Innocence of Muslims," said he had not anticipated such a furious reaction.

Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, Bacile, who went into hiding Tuesday, remained defiant, saying Islam is a cancer and that he intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

Bacile said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam's flaws to the world.

"Islam is a cancer, period," he repeatedly said in a solemn, accented tone.

Though Bacile was apologetic about the deaths in Benghazi, he blamed lax embassy security and the perpetrators of the violence. "I feel the security system [at the embassies] is no good," said Bacile. "America should do something to change it."

Bacile said the film was produced in English and he doesn't know who dubbed it in Arabic. The full film has been shown once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year, he said.

Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Christian in the U.S. known for his anti-Islam views, told The Associated Press from Washington that he was promoting the video on his website and on certain TV stations, which he did not identify.

Both depicted the film as showing how Coptic Christians are oppressed in Egypt, though it goes well beyond that to ridicule Muhammad a reflection of their contention that Islam as a religion is inherently oppressive.

"The main problem is I am the first one to put on the screen someone who is [portraying] Muhammad. It makes them mad," Bacile said. "But we have to open the door. After 9/11 everybody should be in front of the judge, even Jesus, even Muhammad."

For several days, Egyptian media have been reporting on the video, playing some excerpts from it and blaming Sadek for it, with ultraconservative clerics going on air to denounce it.

Medhat Klada, a representative of Coptic Christian organizations in Europe, said Sadek's views are not representative of expatriate Copts.

"He is an extremist ... We don't go down this road. He has incited the people [in Egypt] against Copts," he said, speaking from Switzerland. "We refuse any attacks on religions because of a moral position."

But he said he was concerned about the backlash from angry Islamists, saying their protest only promotes the movie. "They don't know dialogue and they think that Islam will be offended from a movie."

I was going to say, I thought the last US ambassador killed in the line of duty was my cousin, Adolph Dubs... haven't seen his name in print in years, how weird...

[orpheus]

I was going to say, I thought the last US ambassador killed in the line of duty was my cousin, Adolph Dubs... haven't seen his name in print in years, how weird...

Sorry if this brings up bad memories for you, Bella.

[orpheus]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that one State Department officer had been killed in the protest at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. She strongly condemned the attack and said she had called Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif "to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya."

Clinton expressed concern that the protests might spread to other countries. She said the U.S. is working with "partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide."

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet," Clinton said in a statement released by the State Department. "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

(bold mine)

I wish she wouldn't presume to speak for me. On the other hand, at least this is a step forward from the State Dept. response to the Danish cartoons and the fatwa against Rushdie: in those cases they washed their hands of it and insinuated that the cartoonists and Rushdie were to blame. (Maybe the change is because this time it was a government official who was the target rather than ordinary people? That would be pretty disgusting.)

[Bella Fortuna]

I was going to say, I thought the last US ambassador killed in the line of duty was my cousin, Adolph Dubs... haven't seen his name in print in years, how weird...

Sorry if this brings up bad memories for you, Bella.

Oh no, it's fine - thank you, though. I was ten when he was killed and had only met him a couple of times. I remember watching his funeral on TV, and seeing President & Mrs. Carter comforting his widow and family; it was very odd knowing these people and seeing that.

[Tyrannical]

The US technically has jurisdiction over the murder too I believe.

[tantamount]

Don't they remember that NATO and the US helped them defeat Qaddafi?

Where's the love?

[Seth]

Don't they remember that NATO and the US helped them defeat Qaddafi?

Where's the love?

In that Hellfire we're eventually going to stuff up their asses in the night. It may take 11 years, but we'll off the goat-fuckers who did this eventually. We NEVER forget.

[laklak]

So, Obama's campaign promise to "talk to" the radical Islamist world worked out about as well as Chamberlain's "dialog" with Adolf back in '39, eh? And here I thought it was going to usher in a brave, new world of peaceful, multi-cultural coexistence..

[Coito ergo sum]

Lucky we didn't have a hostage crisis.... cue conspiracy theory.... "ambassador actually killed by Americans to avoid repeat of Iranian hostage crisis..."

[Coito ergo sum]

So, Obama's campaign promise to "talk to" the radical Islamist world worked out about as well as Chamberlain's "dialog" with Adolf back in '39, eh? And here I thought it was going to usher in a brave, new world of peaceful, multi-cultural coexistence..

...well, look on the bright side, the rise of the oceans has stopped and the planet has begun to heal.

[laklak]

So, Obama's campaign promise to "talk to" the radical Islamist world worked out about as well as Chamberlain's "dialog" with Adolf back in '39, eh? And here I thought it was going to usher in a brave, new world of peaceful, multi-cultural coexistence..

...well, look on the bright side, the rise of the oceans has stopped and the planet has begun to heal.

I'm SO happy to wake up every morning and know that Obama is President! He's just the bestest and most smartestist president EVAH!

[Coito ergo sum]

If loving Obama is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

The way he's handling the embassy crisis.....masterful. Only a true genius and thoughtful leader could do it as well.

When will he call in the Russian Black Sea fleet featured at the Democrat National Convention to help out?