Anti-American fury sweeps Muslim world

Fury about a film that insults the Prophet Mohammad tore across the Middle East and beyond after weekly prayers Friday, with protesters attacking U.S. embassies and burning American flags as the Pentagon rushed to bolster security at its missions. The obscure California-made film triggered an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya’s city of Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans late Tuesday, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States. In Tunis, at least three people were killed and more than two dozen were wounded, state television reported, following police gunfire near the U.S. Embassy in the city, the cradle of last year’s Arab Spring uprisings for democracy. At least one person died in the Sudanesecapital Khartoum, a doctor said, after some of thousands of protesters had leapt into the U.S. Embassy. As U.S. military drones faced Islamist anti-aircraft fire over Benghazi, about 50 Marines landed in Yemen a day after the U.S. Embassy there was stormed. For a second day in the capital Sanaa, police battled hundreds of young men around the mission. In Khartoum, wider anger at Western attitudes toward Islam also saw the German Embassy overrun, with police doing little to stop demonstrators who raised a black Islamist flag. Violence at the U.S. Embassy followed protests against both Washington and the Sudanese government, which is broadly at odds with the West. The protests present U.S. President Barack 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. Obama, who was at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington to greet a flight bringing home remains of the four dead from Benghazi, vowed to “stand fast” against anti-U.S. violence in the Arab world. “Their sacrifice will never be forgotten, we will bring to justice those who took them from us. We will stand fast against the violence on our diplomatic missions,” Obama said. It also emerged that Libya had closed its airspace over the Benghazi’s airport for a time because of heavy anti-aircraft fire by Islamists aimed at U.S. reconnaissance drones flying over the city. 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. The Pentagon also said it had sent a “fast” platoon of Marines to Yemen to bolster U.S. Embassy security after clashes in Sanaa. There were protests in 20 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. 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 Islamic law but they urged protesters not to take their anger out on diplomats. In the Sinai peninsula, militants opened fire on an international observer base near El Gorah, close to the borders of Israel and the Gaza Strip, and burned tires blocking a road to the camp, a witness and a security source reported. The source said two members of the force were wounded. 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. A Reuters 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 Mohammad 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. Protesters also clashed with police in Yemen, where one person died and 15 were injured 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 toward 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 occupied Jerusalem’s Old City as a few dozen demonstrators tried to march on the nearby U.S. consulate. The largest protests were in the Gaza Strip, with at least 30,000 Palestinians staging rallies across the coastal territory. 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, but were stopped from marching to the U.S. Embassy. Thousands of Iranians held nationwide protests. There were also rallies in Malaysia, Nigeria, Kuwait, Jordan, Algeria, Kenya, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan and Iraq. From DailyStar