U.S. officer killed in Libya attack

Published: Sept. 12, 2012 at 1:27 AM

BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- A U.S. official was killed by gunmen who attacked the U.S. Consulate in Libya over a U.S.-made video mocking Islam, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.

"I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi," Clinton said in a statement late Tuesday night after an armed mob, reported to include Islamic terrorists, attacked and set fire to the building in a protest against an amateur film deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad following similar protests in Cairo, Egypt's capital.

"As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed," she said. "We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack."

The officer's name was not immediately available.

At least one other American was wounded in the attack, which Libyan Deputy Interior Ministry official Wanis al-Sharef said included several dozen gunmen from the Ansar al-Sharia Islamist group who fired rocket-propelled grenades at the consulate.

The State Department did not immediately comment on his account.

The Tuesday night violence in Benghazi -- which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States -- followed protests in neighboring Egypt, where protesters in an angry crowd of some 2,000 people scaled the U.S. Embassy wall in Cairo Tuesday evening.

They pulled down an American flag and burned it, replacing the flag with a black banner with white letters reading, "There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Messenger," a phrase favored by ultraconservative Muslims and militants.

Protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo remained until early Wednesday, when police cleared them, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

No embassy personnel were injured in the Cairo incident, she said.

The mobs were set off by Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute trailer for the video, called the "Innocence of Muslims," allegedly supported by conservative Egyptian Coptic Christians living in the United States, al-Jazeera reported.

The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by a 52-year-old Israeli-American real estate developer in California named Sam Bacile, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Bacile told the Journal he raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film, which shows the Prophet Muhammad as a homosexual son of undetermined patrimony who advocates child slavery and extramarital sex, for himself, in the name of religion.

"Islam is a cancer," Bacile told the newspaper.

A scene from the film -- in which an actor playing a buffoonish caricature of Muhammad calls a donkey "the first Muslim animal" -- was broadcast Tuesday on Egypt's al-Nas TV.

The Rev. Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., who inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 by threatening to burn copies of the Koran and then burning one in his church, said he would show the trailer at his church Tuesday night.

A spokesman for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood called on Washington to prosecute the "madmen" behind the video and asked for a formal apology, Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported.

Spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan called for a million-man rally Friday to register Egypt's opposition to the film.

Clinton said Washington "deplores" any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, but "there is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

She also said she "called Libyan President [Mohamed] Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government's full cooperation."

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