CAIRO — From Tunis to Cairo to Jakarta, Indonesia, the Muslim world erupted in protests aimed at the United States on Friday as anger over a small-time movie that mocks the prophet Muhammad boiled over into assaults on embassies or demonstrations in nearly two dozen countries.
As governments struggled to contain a wave of fury in which U.S. embassy compounds in Sudan and Tunisia were broken into and others were targeted, the violence appeared to overwhelm whatever goodwill was built up during the Arab Spring, when the United States tried to support many countries’ efforts toward democracy and freedom.
On Friday, it was the freedom to target American-linked buildings that most defined the day, as many governments appeared to be taken by surprise at the strength of the protests. Not even KFC and Hardee’s were safe, with franchises in Tripoli, Lebanon, torched by protesters as security forces opened fire on them, killing at least one person.
It was impossible to know how many of the thousands of demonstrators who filled streets outside U.S. outposts were motivated by reports about the movie — which was made under mysterious circumstances, apparently by individuals in California — and how many were venting anger at the United States for other reasons. A short clip of the film has been available on the Internet for weeks, but apparently didn’t generate much attention until it was subtitled in Arabic and sent to Egyptian journalists.
But the vehemence and volatile nature of the protests in capital after capital — images of which were broadcast around the globe almost instantly via blogs, social media networks and cable news stations — were unmistakable.
Anti-U.S. demonstrations spread to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Britain, East Jerusalem, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, Turkey, the West Bank and Yemen, according to U.S. officials and news reports, with many protesters chanting religious slogans and railing against the denigration of Islam in the obscure low-budget film.
In Tunisia, whose toppling of an autocrat in 2011 set the Arab Spring in motion, an American school was largely destroyed in Tunis, the capital, and protesters set fire to cars inside the U.S. Embassy parking lot. U.S. officials said Tunisian security provided a “very strong presence,” confronting stone-throwing crowds with tear gas and gunfire and pushing demonstrators out of the embassy compound.
In Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, buses full of protesters stormed the German Embassy and set it ablaze, then headed for the U.S. Embassy on the outskirts of the city. Thousands gathered there, and many were trying to climb the embassy walls when police opened fire. At least three protesters were seen motionless on the ground, according to the Associated Press.
President Barack Obama made formal a previously announced decision to dispatch U.S. Marine quick-response teams to Libya and Yemen. In a letter to the House and Senate, Obama said that the security forces from the U.S. Africa Command “are equipped for combat,” although their purpose is solely to protect American citizens and property. Officials said plans are in motion to send a third team to Sudan, but that they are awaiting agreement from that government, with which U.S. relations are strained.
Obama later joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as the bodies of four Americans killed in Tuesday’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, arrived from Germany to land at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland aboard a military plane. The flag-draped transfer cases, including that of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were carried solemnly to waiting hearses by Marines.
U.S. intelligence officials said they have tentatively concluded that the Libya assault was carried out by a group aligned with al-Qaida, but wasn’t directed by the terrorist network’s core leadership. Still unable to reach the charred Benghazi compound, the officials have relied on intelligence from an array of sources, including news footage, intercepted phone calls and e-mails, as well as information from human sources recruited by the CIA, officials said.