WASHINGTON has ordered all non-essential staff to leave Tunisia and Sudan after its embassies were stormed by Muslims protesting against an anti-Islam movie and as al-Qaeda called for more attacks on US targets. American officials have already deployed counter-terrorism marine units to Libya and Yemen and stationed two destroyers off the North African coast.

But Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Saturday flatly rejected a US request to send special forces to protect the Khartoum embassy, the official SUNA news agency said, quoting his office.

Hours later, US officials announced that Washington would evacuate all non-essential staff and family members from Sudan and Tunisia and warned American citizens against travel to the two countries. In cities across the Muslim world protesters
have vented their fury at the film Innocence of Muslims -an amateur movie produced in the US -by targeting symbols of American influence ranging from embassies and schools to fast-food chains. Advertisement Protests erupted again on Sunday, with hundreds of students pouring into the streets of Kabul shouting anti-US slogans, while the Bangladeshi government condemned the film as "reprehensible".

With Muslim anger boiling, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on Saturday issued a call for more violence against US diplomatic missions in the Middle East and Africa, and urged attacks on American interest in the West, the SITE Intelligence Group said. In the worst violence triggered by the film, the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday when suspected Islamic militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the US consulate in Benghazi. AQAP, al-Qaeda's Yemeni offshoot, did not claim direct responsibility for the attack in the eastern Libyan city. But it said the killing of al-Qaeda deputy leader Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi in a drone strike in Pakistan in June had "increased the enthusiasm and determination of the sons of (Libyan independence hero) Omar al-Mukhtar to take revenge upon those who attack our prophet", according to SITE. "May the expulsion of embassies and consulates lead to the liberation of Arab lands from the American hegemony and arrogance," it said in another statement.

In Afghanistan, heavily armed Taliban fighters on Friday stormed a strongly fortified air base in Helmand province where Britain's Prince Harry is deployed, killing two US marines in an assault the militia said was to avenge the anti-Islam film.
A NATO spokesman on Sunday revealed that six US fighter jets and three refuelling stations were destroyed and six aircraft hangars damaged in the attack. Lieutenant Colonel Hagen Messer conceded that the scale of damage -carried out by more than a dozen attackers dressed in US Army uniforms and armed with guns, rockets and suicide vests who managed to storm the airfield -was unprecedented.

Friday's attack came after at least 11 protesters died as police battled to defend US missions from mobs in Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. Washington was configuring its forces to cope with the widespread violence, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said. "We have to be prepared in the event that these demonstrations get out of control," Panetta told Foreign Policy magazine. On Friday, guards on the roof of the US embassy in Khartoum fired warning shots at protesters who had breached the compound walls waving Islamic banners. The same group had earlier ransacked parts of the British and German missions.

A similar assault, mostly by hardline Islamists on the US embassy in Tunis on Friday, ended with four people dead and 49 injured. In the past week, US embassy compounds have also been breached in Egypt and Yemen, whose parliament rejected the presence of US marines although the government had already accepted them. The head of Libya's national assembly, Mohammed al-Megaryef, said foreign elements might have been involved in the "meticulously executed" attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

It came on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the US. On Saturday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton undertook a round of telephone diplomacy, calling her counterparts in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Britain and France, as well as the prime minister of Libya and the Somali president, in a bid to rally support, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

In her conversation with LibyanPrime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagur, Clinton renewed her offer of US support to the government of Libya as it works to nationalise and strengthen its security forces, integrate militias and combat extremism, according to Nuland.



http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/us-pulls-tunisia-sudan-embassy-staff/story-fn3dxix6-1226475142675

Great!!!
That is more like it.
Bring your citizens home!!!!
Pull them from Nigeria too!!!!

^^^Not sure why you think that is great? It means things are not getting better. Its worrying actually. This should now blow over. Is this going to the whole month?

^^^
Do you hear of protests from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries?
I think it is a good Idea to pull the US citizens from troubled areas. Do you want those HOODLUMS to kill 'em?

We do not need this distraction so close to the elections. America values the lives of Americans. Great move!

No I understand that but my point is, it is nothing to celebrate becouse it means things are going to be worse. We should rather pray that this stops now. Its enough.

sweetcheecks: No I understand that but my point is, it is nothing to celebrate becouse it means things are going to be worse. We should rather pray that this stops now. Its enough.

Prayer without works?
Time to MOVE!!!
Keep praying and we shall keep MOVING!

This Islamist are taking this too far. Most of those mumus have not even seen the video

^^^^I think they needed something to use but they are really taking it way too far.

German embassy in Khartoum, Sudan was also attacked.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/49032759

No comment.

Felix, Germany

sweetcheecks: ^^^^I think they needed something to use but they are really taking it way too far.

They are just a bunch of brain washed mumus. Imagine lets say the men will get 7 virgins are the women also expecting 7 virgins? This is what happens when you think like cows and not humans

Eish! People better hold on fast to what they believe and demand clear indications of their faith becouse the world is in turmoil. With China protests against Japan, both hard headed and have a long time gripe with each other. Hezzbullah, calling on an international law against religious mocking but i think fre speech at large. I am afraid it is that dreaded time when we wont be able to worship and preach freely. Most religions infringecon others belief and that is a fact!!!