Protests Continue Across Muslim World
September 17, 2012
Demonstrations continued today across the Muslim world in protest of Innocence of Muslims, an amateur, anti-Islam video thought to have been produced in the United States. Indonesians hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, capital of the world’s most populous Muslim nation. In the Philippines, thousands rallied in protest in the city of Marawi. In Lebanon, Hezbollah Sheikh Nassan Hasrallah’s call for further protests prompted thousands of people to mass in Beirut and other cities. In Afghanistan, protesters fired weapons in the air and torched police cars in Kabul. On September 15 in Afghanistan, Taliban militants, claiming to be enraged by the video, attacked a heavily fortified NATO camp, killing two U.S. Marines.
Since the first violent reaction to the film erupted in Egypt and Libya on September 11, some 40 people are believed to have been killed. On September 11, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans died in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. In Cairo on September 11, an angry mob scaled the wall of the U.S. embassy and pulled down and burned the American flag.
A group of Muslim women gather for outdoor prayers in Indonesia, where more than 85 percent of the people are Muslims. (c) Photobank
The exact origins of the film are unknown, though American authorities have uncovered some connection between it and one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a convicted felon living in California. A 14-minute trailer for the film was posted on the video-sharing website YouTube. American officials are still investigating whether the attacks were actually triggered by the video or whether they were pre-planned by some terrorist organization to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
Additional World Book articles:
- Afghanistan War
- Diplomatic corp
- Foreign Service
- Iran 1979 (a Back in Time article)
- The Middle East: From Fall to Spring (a special report)
