Obama promises justice, riot escalates in Middle East
15 Sep 2012 2:43 AM GMT
President Barack Obama has vowed of being relentless in pursuit of those responsible for the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, which resulted in the killing of his Libyan envoy and three other Americans.
‘What I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice,’ Obama said at a campaign speech in Golden, Colorado referring to the death of four Americans including the US Ambassador to Libya.
‘I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America,’ he vowed.
Obama’s statement came as the US launched a massive investigation to find out people who have been behind the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The US President, however, did not give any indication as to who were behind the attack.
The US Government will do everything it can to protect the safety and security of its personnel in Yemen, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters when asked about the spread of anti-US protests to Yemen.
Noting that protest that there are taking place in different countries across the world in response to the movie that has circulated on the Internet, Carney said the US government had nothing to do with this movie.
‘We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. America has a history of religious tolerance and respect for religious beliefs that goes back to our nation’s founding. We are stronger because we are the home to people of all religions, including millions of Muslims, and we reject the denigration of religion,’ he said.
‘We also believe that there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. Muslims in the United States and around the world have spoken out against violence, which has no place in religion and is no way to honor religion,’ he said, adding that Islam respects the fundamental dignity of human beings, and it violates that dignity to wage attacks on innocents. ‘It is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions,’ he observed.
VIOLENCE EXPLODES
‘What I want all of you to know is that we are going to bring those who killed our fellow Americans to justice,’ Obama said at a campaign speech in Golden, Colorado referring to the death of four Americans including the US Ambassador to Libya.
‘I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. It will not dim the light of the values that we proudly present to the rest of the world. No act of violence shakes the resolve of the United States of America,’ he vowed.
Obama’s statement came as the US launched a massive investigation to find out people who have been behind the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The US President, however, did not give any indication as to who were behind the attack.
The US Government will do everything it can to protect the safety and security of its personnel in Yemen, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters when asked about the spread of anti-US protests to Yemen.
Noting that protest that there are taking place in different countries across the world in response to the movie that has circulated on the Internet, Carney said the US government had nothing to do with this movie.
‘We reject its message and its contents. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. America has a history of religious tolerance and respect for religious beliefs that goes back to our nation’s founding. We are stronger because we are the home to people of all religions, including millions of Muslims, and we reject the denigration of religion,’ he said.
‘We also believe that there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence. Muslims in the United States and around the world have spoken out against violence, which has no place in religion and is no way to honor religion,’ he said, adding that Islam respects the fundamental dignity of human beings, and it violates that dignity to wage attacks on innocents. ‘It is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions,’ he observed.
VIOLENCE EXPLODES
- Thousands of people yelling ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’ rallied in central Tehran on Friday to protest an anti-Islam film blamed for violent anti-US demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was separately quoted by state media as claiming ‘lowbrow Zionists... seek to create a religious war between the followers of (different) faiths.’
- Around 5,000 protesters in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, angry over an anti-Islam film stormed the embassies of Britain and Germany, which was torched and badly damaged. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters as several of them scaled the roof of the German embassy and others attacked its facade and tore down the flag to replace it with a black Islamist one.
- A demonstrator was killed and 25 people hurt in clashes with police on Friday after an angry crowd of Islamists set fire to a KFC restaurant in northern Lebanon, a security source said. The attack on the US fast-food chain’s outlet came as Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Lebanon for a three-day visit, calling for Christian-Muslim coexistence and attacking religious extremism. The demonstrators poured out of a mosque after weekly Muslim prayers in the centre of the northern port city, waving traditional Islamist black flags. Police responded with tear gas and by firing into the air. The fatal victim died of a gunshot wound, but the circumstances were not clear.
- Egypt’s ruling Muslim Brotherhood cancelled nationwide demonstrations on Friday, except for a symbolic protest at the iconic Tahrir Square here against a film deemed offensive to Islam. On Wednesday, the party had called for nationwide demonstrations outside the main mosques in the country’s 27 provinces against the film.
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