[The mobs were set off by
Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute trailer for the video, called
“Innocence of Muslims,” that was released on the Web. The trailer opens with
scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn
the homes of Egyptian Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting
the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer,
a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug.]
.jpg) |
Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters
Protesters in Cairo, angered by an anti-Muslim video, scaled
a wall at the United States Embassy on Tuesday to capture and destroy
an American flag there.
|
CAIRO — Protesters angry
over an amateurish American-made video denouncing
Islam attacked the United States Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Tuesday,
killing a State Department officer, while Egyptian demonstrators stormed over
the fortified walls of the United States Embassy here.
On the 11th anniversary
of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the assaults were a violent reminder that
the changes sweeping the region have hardly dispelled the rage against the
United States that still smolders in pockets around the Arab world.
The mobs were set off by
Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute trailer for the video, called
“Innocence of Muslims,” that was released on the Web. The trailer opens with
scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn
the homes of Egyptian Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting
the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer,
a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug.
The trailer was uploaded
to YouTube by Sam Bacile, whom The Wall Street Journal Web site identified as a
52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He told the
Web site he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film.
“Islam is a cancer,” Mr. Bacile was quoted as saying.
The video gained
international attention when a Florida pastor began promoting it along with his
own proclamation of Sept. 11 as “International Judge Muhammad Day.”
In a statement on
Tuesday, the pastor, Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla.,
called the film “an American production, not designed to attack Muslims but to
show the destructive ideology of Islam” and said it “further reveals in a
satirical fashion the life of Muhammad.”
He said the embassy and
consulate attacks illustrated that Muslims “have no tolerance for anything
outside of Muhammad” and called Islam “a total deception.”
Mr. Jones inspired
deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 by first threatening to burn
copies of the Koran and then burning one in his church. He also once reportedly
hanged President Obama in effigy.
In Benghazi on Tuesday,
protesters with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the
United States Consulate and set it on fire, Libyan officials said. Some news
reports said American guards inside the consulate had fired their weapons, and
a brigade of Libyan security forces arriving on the scene had battled the
attackers in the streets as well.
Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed late Tuesday that a State Department officer
had been killed in the Benghazi attack, and she condemned the violence. “Some
have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory
material posted on the Internet,” she said. “The United States deplores any
intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. But let me be
clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”
The death in Benghazi
appears to be the first such fatality in a string of attacks and vandalism against
foreign and especially Western diplomatic missions in Libya in recent months.
Since the fall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya’s transitional government has
struggled to rebuild an effective police force, control the weapons that have
flooded the streets and restore public security.
Local Islamist militant
groups capitalizing on the security vacuum have claimed responsibility for some
attacks, and some reports on Tuesday suggested that one such group, Ansar
al-Sharia, had claimed responsibility for that day’s assault.
In Cairo, thousands of
unarmed protesters gathered outside the embassy during the day. By nightfall,
some had climbed over the wall around the embassy compound and destroyed a flag
hanging inside. The vandals replaced it with a black flag with an Islamic
profession of faith — “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet” —
favored by ultraconservatives and militants.
Embassy guards fired
guns into the air, but a large contingent of Egyptian riot police officers on
hand to protect the embassy evidently did not use their weapons against the
crowd, and the protest continued, largely without violence, into the night.
A spokesman for the
Muslim Brotherhood, the mainstream Islamist group and the sponsor of Egypt’s
first elected president, Mohamed Morsi, urged the United States government on
Tuesday to prosecute the “madmen” behind the video, according to the
English-language Web site of the state newspaper, Al Ahram.
The spokesman asked for
a formal apology from the United States government and warned that events like
the video were damaging Washington’s relations with the Muslim world. He also
emphasized that any protests should remain peaceful and respect property.
There should be
“civilized demonstrations of the Egyptian people’s displeasure with this film,”
the Brotherhood spokesman said, according to the newspaper Web site. “Any
nonpeaceful activity will be exploited by those who hate Islam to defame the
image of Egypt and Muslims.”
Bracing for trouble
before the start of the protests here and in Libya, the American Embassy
released a statement shortly after noon that appeared to refer to Mr. Jones:
“The United States Embassy in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by
misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn
efforts to offend believers of all religions.” It later denounced the
“unjustified breach of our embassy.”
Apparently unaware of
the timing of the first embassy statement, the Republican presidential
candidate, Mitt Romney, put out a statement just before midnight Tuesday
saying, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama administration’s first response was
not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those
who waged the attacks.” Mr. Romney also said he was “outraged” at the attacks
on the embassy and consulate.
Responding to Mr.
Romney’s statement, Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, said, “We are
shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the
tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would
choose to launch a political attack.”
Suliman Ali Zway contributed reporting from
Tripoli, Libya.
