ARAB FALL: U.S. ambassador to Libya, 3 Americans killed as Muslims in rampage over Muhammad movie
Officials say Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...vacuate-staff-article-1.1157387#ixzz26GJYqzvk
The U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed Tuesday night after demonstrators stormed the country’s U.S. consulate, firing rocket propelled grenades and setting fires.
Ambassador Chris Stevens died in Benghazi alongside Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith and two other unidentified embassy employees. He was 52.
President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous attack” in a statement Wednesday morning.
The four Americans killed “exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives,” Obama said.
Obama also ordered “all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how Stevens died but Libyan officials said his car was hit with rocket fire while he and the other three men were fleeing the embassy for a safer location.
Other sources told the Saudi news station Al Arabiya that Stevens died from asphyxiation. Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera also reported that he suffocated due to smoke inhalation.
Stevens, from northern California, became U.S. Ambassador to Libya in May after previously serving as Special Representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council during the Libyan revolution of 2011 and as the Deputy Chief of Mission from 2007 to 2009.
Throughout the revolution, Obama said, Stevens “selflessly served our country and the Libyan people” and supported Libya’s transition to democracy as an ambassador.
“His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice,” Obama wrote.
Family members were understadably devestated by the news. “Oh my God. Oh my God. No," step-sister Michal Commandy said.
As a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, Stevens worked in Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus and Riyadh. Before joining the service in 1991, he was an international trade lawyer.
"As the conflict in Libya unfolded, Chris was one of the first Americans on the ground in Benghazi," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement issued Wednesday morning. "He risked his own life to lend the Libyan people a helping hand to build the foundation for a new, free nation."
"He spent every day since helping to finish the work that he started," she continued. "Chris was committed to advancing America’s values and interests, even when that meant putting himself in danger."
Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, who leaves behind a wife and two children, previously served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague, Clinton said.
“Like Chris, Sean was one of our best,” she wrote.
Clinton also confirmed the death of one U.S. State Department officer from the protest in Benghazi. He was shot earlier Tuesday, and a second was wounded.
A parallel protest erupted Tuesday night in neighboring Cairo after clips from an anti-Muhammad film were posted to YouTube dubbed into Arabic.
Variously titled “Innocence of Muslims” or “Muhammad, Prophet of the Muslims,” the low-budget movie was produced by an Israeli-American real estate developer and promoted by Koran-burning Florida pastor Terry Jones.
The film depicts Islam’s holiest prophet as a violent womanizer, and Muslims in general as homosexuals and child molesters.
The Council on American-Islamic Relationships slammed the film as an “ignorant attempt to provoke the religious feelings of Muslims in the Arabic-speaking world.”
Bacile, from California, is reportedly in hiding at an undisclosed location, but unrepentant. The movie was meant as a deliberate provocation, said Bacile, who declared: “Islam is a cancer, period.”
Furious demonstrators in Cairo climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy there and replaced the American flag with a pro-Islam banner.
With News Wire Services
abartkewicz@nydailynews.com
Officials say Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...vacuate-staff-article-1.1157387#ixzz26GJYqzvk
The U.S. ambassador to Libya was killed Tuesday night after demonstrators stormed the country’s U.S. consulate, firing rocket propelled grenades and setting fires.
Ambassador Chris Stevens died in Benghazi alongside Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith and two other unidentified embassy employees. He was 52.
President Barack Obama condemned the “outrageous attack” in a statement Wednesday morning.
The four Americans killed “exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives,” Obama said.
Obama also ordered “all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how Stevens died but Libyan officials said his car was hit with rocket fire while he and the other three men were fleeing the embassy for a safer location.
Other sources told the Saudi news station Al Arabiya that Stevens died from asphyxiation. Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera also reported that he suffocated due to smoke inhalation.
Stevens, from northern California, became U.S. Ambassador to Libya in May after previously serving as Special Representative to the Libyan Transitional National Council during the Libyan revolution of 2011 and as the Deputy Chief of Mission from 2007 to 2009.
Throughout the revolution, Obama said, Stevens “selflessly served our country and the Libyan people” and supported Libya’s transition to democracy as an ambassador.
“His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice,” Obama wrote.
Family members were understadably devestated by the news. “Oh my God. Oh my God. No," step-sister Michal Commandy said.
As a member of the U.S. Foreign Service, Stevens worked in Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus and Riyadh. Before joining the service in 1991, he was an international trade lawyer.
"As the conflict in Libya unfolded, Chris was one of the first Americans on the ground in Benghazi," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement issued Wednesday morning. "He risked his own life to lend the Libyan people a helping hand to build the foundation for a new, free nation."
"He spent every day since helping to finish the work that he started," she continued. "Chris was committed to advancing America’s values and interests, even when that meant putting himself in danger."
Foreign Service officer Sean Smith, who leaves behind a wife and two children, previously served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague, Clinton said.
“Like Chris, Sean was one of our best,” she wrote.
Clinton also confirmed the death of one U.S. State Department officer from the protest in Benghazi. He was shot earlier Tuesday, and a second was wounded.
A parallel protest erupted Tuesday night in neighboring Cairo after clips from an anti-Muhammad film were posted to YouTube dubbed into Arabic.
Variously titled “Innocence of Muslims” or “Muhammad, Prophet of the Muslims,” the low-budget movie was produced by an Israeli-American real estate developer and promoted by Koran-burning Florida pastor Terry Jones.
The film depicts Islam’s holiest prophet as a violent womanizer, and Muslims in general as homosexuals and child molesters.
The Council on American-Islamic Relationships slammed the film as an “ignorant attempt to provoke the religious feelings of Muslims in the Arabic-speaking world.”
Bacile, from California, is reportedly in hiding at an undisclosed location, but unrepentant. The movie was meant as a deliberate provocation, said Bacile, who declared: “Islam is a cancer, period.”
Furious demonstrators in Cairo climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy there and replaced the American flag with a pro-Islam banner.
With News Wire Services
abartkewicz@nydailynews.com
