Protests Spread Across Middle East as Anger Over Video Mounts

By CHRISTINE HAUSER and JENNIFER PRESTON

Protesters outside the American Embassy in Yemen captured in a video uploaded to YouTube by MediaCenterSanaa.

Protests spread across the Middle East and North Africa on Thursday, most of them directed at American Embassies and offices linked to United States diplomatic activities, as anger mounted over a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad.
As our colleagues, Nasser Arrabyee and Alan Cowell report, protesters attacked the American Embassy in Yemen and scuffled with the police for the third straight day at the American Embassy in Cairo.
In Yemen, protesters set vehicles at the embassy on fire and tore down an American flag.

The state news agency in Egypt reported multiple injuries among protesters in Cairo, where the Egyptian police fired tear gas.
Two days after assailants killed four Americans in Libya, including the ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, protests were also reported at American missions in Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia, where the police fired tear gas to disperse crowds.
Reuters reports that 200 protesters gathered outside the American Embassy in Tunisia.
In Morocco, protesters gathered in Casablanca to demonstrate against the contentious anti-Islamic video that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton described as “disgusting and reprehensible.”
A militant Shiite group in Iraq, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, once known for its violent attacks on Americans and other Westerners, reportedly said the anti-Islamic video would “put all American interests in danger.”
In Iran, protesters converged at the Swiss Embassy, where the United States has an interests section. (Washington does not have formal diplomatic ties with Tehran.) The Fars News Agency said that demonstrators burned a United States flag.
The turmoil is likely to spill into Friday after the main communal prayers in the afternoon. Yassin Musharbash, a writer who monitors forums where statements are posted by militant groups, wrote on his Twitter feed @abususu, that Jordanian Salafists were calling for protests after Friday Prayer.

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