Protests over anti-Muslim film continue

Cairo (CNN) -- Protests over an offensive anti-Muslim film bled into a third day Thursday near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Demonstrators threw rocks and Molotov cocktails as police tried to disperse them by firing tear gas canisters from police vehicles as they drove through Tahrir Square, near the embassy.

At least 13 protesters and six police officers were injured, Egyptian government officials said Thursday.

The clashes came amid heightened tensions at U.S. diplomatic missions in the region following Tuesday's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other consular officials. of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, 

The protests follow the online release of a film produced in the United States that denigrates Prophet Mohammed.

About 500 people, many chanting anti-American slogans, demonstrated Wednesday in Cairo against the film. The protest continued into Thursday.

The protest turned violent as demonstrators threw rocks and pushed through barbed wire fencing outside the embassy, according to Alla Mahmoud, a spokesman for the Egyptian Interior Ministry. Two police trucks and a car were set afire.

"Forces were able to push them down toward Tahrir Square farther from embassy street," Mahmoud said, adding that some arrests had been made.

By early Thursday, protesters had been pushed 100 yards from the embassy, said journalist Ian Lee in Cairo.

Earlier, Egypt's president spoke in the "strongest terms" about Tuesday's incident at the Cairo embassy -- but not against the attack.

Tuesday, police and Egyptian army personnel formed defensive lines around the U.S. Embassy to prevent demonstrators from advancing, but not before the protesters placed a black flag atop a ladder in the American compound. Police arrested four protesters.

WhiIe Egypt's prime minister called Tuesday's incident "regrettable" and unjustified, its president condemned the anti-Muslim film that incited the protesters.

President Mohamed Morsy made a reference to Egypt's duty to protect diplomatic missions and its opposition to unlawful protesters, but did not mention those who stormed the embassy.

"The presidency condemns in the strongest terms the attempt of a group to insult the place of the Messenger, the Prophet Mohammed ... and condemns the people who have produced this radical work," the president said in a statement posted on his Facebook page. "The Egyptian people, both Muslims and Christians, refuse such insults on sanctities."

The statement noted that "the Egyptian government is responsible to protect private and public properties and diplomatic missions in addition to embassy headquarters of various countries" and that "it respects and protects the right of expression and the right to protest peacefully under the law and will firmly oppose any irresponsible attempt to veer off the law."

The incident comes during a delicate period in the relationship between the United States and Egypt under Morsy, the country's first leader since the overthrow last year of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak -- a key Western ally.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with Morsy on Wednesday "to review the strategic partnership between the United States and Egypt, and our ongoing efforts to strengthen bilateral economic and security cooperation," the White House said in a statement early Thursday.

During the call, the statement said, Obama told Morsy that "he rejects efforts to denigrate Islam, but underscored that there is never any justification for violence against innocents and acts that endanger American personnel and facilities."

Morsy "expressed his condolences for the tragic loss of American life in Libya and emphasized that Egypt would honor its obligation to ensure the safety of American personnel," according to the White House statement.

The Cairo incident was not nearly as bad as the violence in neighboring Libya, where an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi killed four Americans, including Stevens. A pro-al Qaeda group was to blame for that attack, according to sources tracking militant groups in the region.

In his statement, Morsy called on Egyptian diplomats in Washington "to take legal action against those people who seek to ruin relationships and discussions between people and countries.

Warships - Marines, Drones, heading to Libya

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon dispatched a contingent of Marines to Libya, moved warships toward its coast, and planned to use drones in a stepped up search for those responsible for an attack on a U.S. consulate that killed the American ambassador and three others.

A senior military official told CNN that the Pentagon and other agencies would review a video of Tuesday's assault by heavily armed militants on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, another diplomat and two security personnel.

Breaking: photos of slain US ambassador surface

Photos purporting to be of slain US Ambassador Christopher Stevens being dragged through the streets have begun surfacing on Libyan and Arabic TV networks. 

The Consulate was attacked by a group of protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad, according to the Associated Press, but evidence now indicate the attack was a premeditated plot by an al Qadea 

"This was a coordinated attack, more of a commando-style event," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told CBS News Capitol Hill producer Jill Jackson. "It had both coordinated fire -- direct fire and indirect fire. There appeared to be military maneuvers approaching the facility."

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack.

Stevens, a diplomat and lawyer, was the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.

His ties to the Bay Area ran broadly and deeply. Born and raised in Piedmont, Stevens attended Piedmont High School before graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982, and the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco in 1989.

Murdered American diplomat - a gamer - posted he might die before consulate attack.

One of the American diplomats killed Tuesday in a bloody attack on a Libyan Consulate told pals in an online gaming forum hours earlier that he'd seen suspicious people taking pictures outside his compound and wondered if he and his team might "die tonight."

Sean Smith, a foreign service information management officer assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, was well known in the online gaming forum EVE Online, where he went by the name "vilerat," and was seen as a leader by his fellow gamers. Smith was killed along with three others, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, when the consulate was attacked by an angry mob.

But hours before the bloody assault, Smith sent a message to Alex Gianturco, the director of "Goonswarm," Smith's online gaming team or "guild."

“Assuming we don’t die tonight,” the message, which was first reported by Wired, read. “We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/12/diplomat-killed-in-libya-to-fellow-gamers-assuming-dont-die-tonight/#ixzz26I5Nw7gn

Attacks were premeditated - planned by al Qaeda ..

(CBS/AP) U.S. officials believe that an attack on a U.S. Consulate in Libya resulting in the death of an American ambassador may have been planned and not solely the actions of a spontaneous mob demonstrating against an online video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

"This was a coordinated attack, more of a commando-style event," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told CBS News Capitol Hill producer Jill Jackson. "It had both coordinated fire -- direct fire and indirect fire. There appeared to be military maneuvers approaching the facility."

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Tuesday.

A U.S. source told CBS News investigative producer Pat Milton that authorities were "leaning" toward the theory that al Qaeda planned the attack and that the protest seems to have been a fortuitous coincidence for the militants. The fact that some of the attackers were armed with rockets and grenades is one of the factors leading to that initial conclusion.

Rogers told Jackson there was a "high likelihood" that the attack had an affiliation with "al Qaeda elements in Libya."

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said there had been threats that Islamic militants might try to take revenge for the death of al Qaeda's No. 2 commander Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in June, and he said the U.S. consulate should have been better protected.

Confirming al-Libi's death for the first time in a video posted online Monday, al Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahri called on Muslims in al-Libi's native Libya to take revenge for his death.

Some authorities are looking at the possibility that the attack may have been planned to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and this week's killing in Yemen of Saeed al-Shihri, who was second in command of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Milton reports.

U.S. officials believe the militants were using the demonstration against the video as a cover to get into the consulate and then take as much revenge as they could on Americans, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

"Absolutely it's a terrorist attack," Rogers told Jackson. "This was not done by the Libyan government. It was done by an external group we believe has at least extremist ties, maybe al Qaeda ties, and the style and the signature of the attack clearly would be something that we have seen before and would be in line with something al Qaeda would do."

Military officials told CBS News an anti-terrorism team of U.S. Marines was being deployed to Libya to help secure U.S. interests in the country following the attack. The State Department said, however, that no Americans were remaining at the facility in Benghazi. State officials would not confirm how many Americans were evacuated, or to where.

Al-Sharef said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - at the consulate compound after the initial wave of the attack. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the attackers the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Stevens was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979. A Libyan doctor who said he treated Stevens told The Associated Press Wednesday that the diplomat died of severe asphyxiation and that he tried for 90 minutes to revive him.

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