The US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens has died from smoke inhalation in an attack on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi following fierce clashes at the compound, Libyan security sources said.
An armed mob attacked and set fire to the building in a protest against an amateur film deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, after similar protests in Egypt's capital.
"One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes," Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee, said on Wednesday, adding that rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the building from a nearby farm.
"There are fierce clashes between the Libyan army and an armed militia outside the US consulate," he said. He also said roads had been closed off and security forces were surrounding the building.
The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt, where a group of protesters scaled the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday evening and entered its outer grounds, pulled down an American flag, then tried to burn it outside the embassy walls, according to witnesses. On Wednesday morning, a sit-in of several dozen protesters continued outside the embassy in Cairo, Egyptian state media reported.
In both Cairo and Benghazi, protesters said they were demonstrating against a U.S.-released film that insulted the prophet Muhammad. Both the Egyptian and Libyan governments condemned the security breaches, but the incidents raised the question of to what extent governments in countries where suspicions of the U.S. run high are willing or able to provide security for American diplomats.
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