Libya, Benghazi | featured news

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.

So the Associated Press did a careful investigation of the ‘Sam Bacile’ who supposedly directed the hate film, ‘The Innocence of Muslims.’ And AP found that probably he does not exist, but is a persona used by a convicted Coptic Egyptian fraudster, Nakoula Bassely Nakoula.

“Innocence of Muslims” -- the crude and provocative anti-Islam video blamed for a wave of deadly violence against U.S. diplomatic outposts -- was promoted by a small band of anti-Muslim Christian activists, according to reports, but the true identity of its director remained unclear.

... Romney has falsely accused Obama of “apologizing for America” many times before. The line has been a dependable applause-getter with conservative audiences. But we found no basis for this claim in Obama’s previous speeches and remarks. And other fact-checkers came to similar conclusions.

John Avlon says Mitt Romney has been rightly comdemned from all corners for playing politics with an American crisis, making over-heated claims about the administration's response that are unrelated to reality.

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.

For all the harrowing images of the deadly attack on the American mission in Benghazi, the Obama administration is grappling with the possibility that its far bigger long-term problem lies in Egypt, not Libya.

In the second of his two campaign appearances Wednesday, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan sharpened his critique of President Obama's handling of the unfolding crises in Egypt and Libya.