Cii News | 12 September 2012

The traditional black Islamic flag replaced the Stars and Stripes of the United States at the US Embassy in Cairo after protestors breached its walls yesterday. The demonstration were in response to the airing of third rate movie linked reportedly to US pastor, Terry Jones, defiling Islam and the Messenger Muhammad (SAW).

Jones has previously publicly burnt the Quran. The movie was being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States.

Armed groups also attacked the US Consulate in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi resulting in the death of one US official.

Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

AP reported that it was the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned the attack and said she had called Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif “to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya.”

In Cairo the protesters scaled the embassy walls, pulled down the US flag, attempted to burn it and then tore it apart.

A black flag with the proclamation of Islamic faith inscribed on it was then put up.

The large numbers continued to grow and by midnight the protest ended. The protested took place on the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy in New York where the Twin Towers were struck by two planes resulting in the US invasion of Afghanistan that culminated in the attack on Iraq.