Prophet Muhammad Film Stokes U.S. Attacks in Egypt, Libya

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Al Arabiya television, which said the attack was sparked by the controversial film, reported that one American was killed and another injured. 

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: Bloomberg Business Week
By Abdel Latif Wahba and Donna Abu-Nasr | September 11, 2012

Demonstrators attacked U.S. diplomatic missions in Egypt and Libya in protests against a film being made in the U.S. that they called offensive to Muslims.

An armed mob in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi stormed the U.S. diplomatic office there and set fire to the building yesterday, according to the Associated Press, which cited witnesses.

Al Arabiya television, which said the attack was sparked by the controversial film, reported that one American was killed and another injured. A statement from State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemning the incident made no mention of the status of staff there, and other officials declined to comment.

In Egypt’s capital, Cairo, Islamist demonstrators scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy, ripped down a U.S. flag and chanted “Obama, we are here to sacrifice for Osama.”

The Egyptian crowds, numbering in the hundreds, chanted “We are all Osama bin Laden” as the U.S. marked the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people on orders of the man the protesters were extolling.

Demonstrators in both countries said they were expressing anger at the production of a movie linked to a Coptic Christian in the U.S., saying it vilifies the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. A 14-minute movie trailer, posted on YouTube in English and Arabic, portrays Muhammad as a womanizer and fraud, according to the Associated Press.

The film controversy is reminiscent of the 2005 furor over Danish editorial cartoons involving the Prophet Muhammad that included attacks on Danish embassies and riots in Muslim countries. Any depiction of him is considered offensive by many Muslims.
Planned Protests

In Egypt, the call to protest was made by Wesam Abdel- Wareth, a Salafist leader and president of Egypt’s Hekma television channel, according to the state-run Ahram Online website.

Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said yesterday the organization plans to call for a million-person rally on Sept. 14 in opposition to the film, according to Ahram Online. He said the U.S. should issue a formal apology to the Muslim world for the film and prosecute the “madmen” whose activities were harming Washington’s relations with Arab and Muslim countries, the website said.

Ghozlan said that demonstrations should remain peaceful and “avoid any form of vandalism,” because violence and destruction would be “exploited by those who hate Islam to defame the image of Egypt and Muslims,” according to the website.

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