US envoy killed in Libya consulate attack

The United States ambassador to Libya, J Christopher Stevens, was killed along with three of his staff members in an attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday night by an armed mob angry over a short American-made video mocking the Prophet Mohammed. It was the first death of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades.

Demonstrators also stormed the fortified walls of the American Embassy in Cairo. Tuesday's violence came on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, and was inspired by Egyptian media reports about a 14-minute trailer for the video, "Innocence of Muslims", released on the web.

Condemning the killings, President Barack Obama said: "While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants."

The trailer of the contentious video, an amateurish effort, was uploaded on YouTube by Sam Bacile, identified as a 52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He told the website he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film. "Islam is a cancer," Bacile was quoted as saying. The video gained international attention when Florida pastor Terry Jones began promoting it to coincide with September 11.

The attack at the compound in Benghazi was far more deadly than administration officials first announced on Tuesday night, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said one American had been killed and one injured.

Among those killed was Sean Smith, an information management officer who joined the foreign service 10 years ago. The State Department did not identify the other two, pending notification to their relatives. Smith, who was married and a father of two, previously served in Iraq, Canada and the Netherlands.

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