The
US ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a
rocket attack on Tuesday night that targeted his car in the eastern
Libyan city of Benghazi, a Libyan official said on Wednesday.
"The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when
gunmen fired rockets at them," the official in Benghazi told Reuters.
Asked about the deaths, a US Embassy employee in Tripoli said: "We have
no information regarding this." The employee said the embassy could
confirm the death of one person.
The Libyan official said the US ambassador had been on his way to a
safer venue after protesters attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi and
opened fire, killing a staff member, in protest at a US film that they
deemed blasphemous to the Prophet Mohammad.
The official said the ambassador and three other staff were killed
when gunmen fired rockets at his car. He said the US Embassy had sent a
military plane to transport the bodies to Tripoli to fly them to the
United States.
Gunmen assaulted the Benghazi compound on Tuesday evening, clashing
with Libyan security forces, who withdrew under heavy fire. The
attackers fired at the buildings while others threw handmade bombs into
the compound, setting off small explosions. Small fires were burning
around the compound.
The assault followed a protest in neighbouring Egypt where
demonstrators scaled the walls of the US embassy, tore down the American
flag and burned it during a protest over the same film which they said
insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
US Cairo, Libya missions attacked
Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked US diplomatic missions on
Tuesday in a spasm of violence that led to the death of a State
Department officer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after
fierce clashes at the compound.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in a statement late on
Tuesday, confirmed the death of the US diplomat, who was not identified,
and condemned the attack on the Benghazi consulate, after a day of
mayhem in two countries that raised fresh questions about Washington's
relations with the Arab world.
The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt where
protesters scaled the walls of the Cairo embassy and tore down the
American flag and burned it during protests over what demonstrators said
was a US film that insulted the Prophet Mohammed.
On Tuesday, Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and seat of Sunni
learning condemned a symbolic "trial" of the Prophet organized by a US
group including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in
Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Koran.
But it was not immediately clear whether it was the event sponsored
by Jones, or another, possibly related, anti-Islam production, that
prompted the melee at the US Embassy in Egypt, and possibly the violence
in Libya.
Whatever the cause, the events appeared to underscore how much the
ground in the Middle East has shifted for Washington, which for decades
had close ties with Arab dictators who could be counted on to muzzle
dissent.
US President Barack Obama's administration in recent weeks had
appeared to overcome some of its initial caution following the election
of an Islamist Egyptian president, Mohamed Mursi, offering his
government desperately needed debt relief and backing for international
loans.
In Libya, gunmen in Benghazi attacked the US diplomatic compound on
Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces, officials said.
Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security
Committee, said, "There is a connection between this attack and the
protests that have been happening in Cairo."
But a US official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said he had no reason to believe the two incidents were linked.
Jones, the Christian pastor in Florida, said that on Tuesday's
anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, he had released a video promoting a film that portrayed
the Prophet in a "satirical" manner. Many Muslims consider any depiction
of the Prophet offensive.
US media, including The Wall Street Journal, reported that the film
at issue, entitled "Innocence of Muslims," was produced by an
Israeli-American real estate developer, but had been promoted by Jones.
In Cairo, among about 2,000 protesters gathered in the Egyptian
capital was Ismail Mahmoud, who, like others, did not name the film that
angered him, but called on Mursi, Egypt's first civilian president, to
take action.
"This movie must be banned immediately and an apology should be
made," said the 19-year-old Mahmoud, a member of the "ultras" soccer
supporters who played a big role in the uprising that brought down Hosni
Mubarak last year.
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