SANAA/CAIRO (Reuters) – Demonstrators attacked the US embassies in Yemen and Egypt yesterday in protest at a film they consider blasphemous to Islam, and the United States sent war ships towards Libya, where the US ambassador was killed in related violence this week.
In Libya, authorities said they had made four arrests in the investigation into the attack that killed ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americas in Benghazi on Tuesday.
US President Barack Obama, facing a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before seeking re-election, has vowed to bring to justice those responsible for the Benghazi attack, which US officials said may have been planned in advance – possibly by an al Qaeda-linked group.
US 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.”
The amateurish production, entitled the Innocence of Muslims, and originating in the United States, portrays Mohammad as a womaniser, 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 violent protests across the Muslim world.
Demonstrations spread further yesterday, with US embassies again the targets of popular anger among Muslims questioning why the United States has failed to take action against the makers of the film.
Hundreds of Yemenis broke through the main gate of the heavily fortified US embassy compound in Sanaa, shouting “We sacrifice ourselves for you, Messenger of God.” They smashed windows of security offices outside the embassy and burned cars.
A security source said at least 15 people were wounded, some by gunfire, before the government ringed the area with troops.
In Egypt, protesters hurled stones at a police cordon around the US embassy in Cairo after climbing into the compound and tearing down the American flag. The state news agency said 13 people had been hurt in violence since late on Wednesday.
Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the US embassy in Kuwait and hoisted banners, one of which read in English: “USA stop the bullshit. Respect us.”
In Bangladesh, Islamists tried to march on the US embassy in Dhaka and Iranian students protested in Tehran. Earlier in the week, there were protests outside US missions in Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan and state-backed Islamic scholars in Sudan have called a mass protest after Friday prayers
The US ambassador to Libya was killed during a protest against the film when Islamists armed with guns, mortars and grenades staged military-style assaults on the Benghazi mission.
A Libyan doctor said Stevens died of smoke inhalation. US information technology specialist Sean Smith also died at the consulate, while two other Americans were killed when a squad of security personnel sent by helicopter from Tripoli to rescue diplomats from a safe house came under mortar attack.
Of the latter, one was identified by his family as Glen Doherty, 42, a former Navy SEAL who worked as a private security contractor. US media identified the other man as another former navy SEAL – Tyrone Woods, aged 41.
In an interview with the US network ABC News last month Doherty said he was working with the State Department on an intelligence mission to round up and destroy shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.
Thousand of these missiles went missing in Libya after Muammar Gaddafi’s overthrow by in a US-backed uprising last year, prompting concerns that they could end up in the hands of al Qaeda militants.
Stevens, 52, had spent a career operating in perilous places, mostly in the Arab world, and became the first American ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs, the US envoy to Afghanistan, died in a 1979 kidnapping attempt.
Tuesday’s incident, on what was the 11th anniversary of al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, has created a worrying foreign policy crisis for Obama ahead of his re-election bid.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Colorado yesterday, Obama said he had ordered his administration to do whatever was necessary to protect Americans abroad and that aides had been in contact with other governments “to let them know they’ve got a responsibility to protect our citizens.”
