US takes on Islam film fury
Date September 16, 2012
World in turmoil … Sudanese demonstrators pray as smoke rises from the US embassy in the capital, Khartoum. Photo: Reuters
THE US is deploying forces to cope with violence in as many as 18 different locations as deadly Muslim anger spreads over a movie made in the US that mocks Islam.
Two US marines were killed in Afghanistan when insurgents armed with guns and rockets stormed a heavily fortified air base late on Friday in an attack that the Taliban militia said was to avenge the film.
The attack on Camp Bastion in Helmand province, which continued into yesterday, was a major security breach at a base where Britain's Prince Harry is stationed; he has been the target of specific death threats.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the ceremony for the transfer to the US of the remains of the four diplomats killed in Libya. Photo: AFP
It came after at least six protesters died in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Sudan on Friday as police battled to defend American missions from mobs of stone-throwers.
Symbols of US influence in cities across the Muslim world came under attack - embassies and schools as well as fast food chains - as protesters vented their fury at the low-budget American-made film, Innocence of Muslims, a 13-minute trailer for which was shown on YouTube.
US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Washington was configuring its forces to be able to cope with widespread violence following its deployment of marine counter-terrorism units to Libya and Yemen, and its stationing of two destroyers off the North African coast.
''We have to be prepared in the event that these demonstrations get out of control,'' Mr Panetta told Foreign Policy magazine.
He did not offer any specifics. But the magazine said the Pentagon was discussing, but had not yet decided, whether to send a third platoon of 50 specially trained marines to protect the US embassy in Khartoum.
Guards on the embassy's roof fired warning shots on Friday as protesters breached the compound waving Islamic banners, after earlier ransacking parts of the British and German missions in the Sudanese capital.
The US embassy compounds in Egypt and Yemen have also been breached in the past week and on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed when a mob torched the consulate in Benghazi.
Panetta said it was still too early to say exactly what happened in Benghazi, where there have been suggestions that al-Qaeda sympathisers, rather than angry Muslim protesters, might have been responsible.
''It's something that's under assessment and under investigation, to determine just exactly what happened here,'' he said.
The consulate assault came on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. The head of Libya's national assembly, Mohammed al-Megaryef, on Friday blamed al-Qaeda as he laid a bouquet of flowers in front of the devastated mission.
In Washington, President Barack Obama welcomed home the bodies of the four US officials killed in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and cradle of last year's Western-backed revolt which overthrew and killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
''Their sacrifice will never be forgotten, we will bring to justice those who took them from us,'' Mr Obama said at Andrews Air Force Base. ''We will stand fast against the violence on our diplomatic missions.''
The unrest across the Muslim world clouded Pope Benedict XVI's three-day visit to Lebanon to promote Muslim-Christian co-existence.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday urged leaders in Arab and Muslim countries to ''call immediately for peace and restraint''.
AFP
