Middle East, Libya | featured news

The White House is now describing the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazias a “terrorist attack,” a shift in emphasis after days of describing the lethal assault as a spontaneous eruption of anger over an anti-Islamic film made in California.

Libyan President Mohammed Magarief said on Sunday that about 50 people have been arrested in connection with the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last week, which he said was planned by foreigners linked to al Qaeda.

...The truth is that there is no single explanation. One answer is that last year's wave of political uprisings, the so-called Arab Spring, is responsible. After all, protests began in Egypt, which last year became the most populous Arab democracy, and spread to Libya, which became the largest by area.

If you can't keep track of all the Muslim protests erupting across the globe, you're not alone. The uproar over a 14-minute anti-Islam YouTube video has sparked furious protests from Somalia to Egypt to Sudan to Tunisia to Libya to Bangladesh to Indonesia to Pakistan. With new reports of protests surfacing every minute, we've compiled the latest reported incidents into this handy interactive Google Map. Click the locations and embedded links for more details about each incident.

President Obama today honored slain ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans killed in this week's attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya. "Chris Stevens was everything America could want in an ambassador, as the whole country has come to see," Obama said as the bodies of the slain men were returned to the United States.

Protests inspired by a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad entered a fourth straight day in Cairo, and other demonstrations erupted in the much of the Middle East after Friday Prayer.

Wanis el-Sharef, eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, said Thursday the attacks were suspected to have been timed to mark the 9/11 anniversary and that the militants used protesting civilians as cover. He said an unspecified number of militants suspected of taking part in the attack have been arrested and that others were being closely monitored by police to see whether they are linked to a group.

President Obama spoke with the leaders of Libya and Egypt late Wednesday to discuss security for U.S. personnel in the wake of attacks on diplomatic posts in both countries. In a phone call with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Obama "underscored the importance of Egypt following through on its commitment to cooperate with the United States in securing U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel," according to a statement issued by the White House.

The Israeli government is distancing itself from a filmmaker whose movie ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad sparked a deadly riot at an American consulate in Libya, but says it will be "vigilant" at its diplomatic offices overseas.

Former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem, whose body was found floating Sunday in the Danube river, died from drowning, Austrian police said.