Spreading Middle East violence brings political chaos

Tripoli - American, German and British embassies are among those under siege in the Middle East by Islamists under the guise of being offended by a short movie trailer out of California depicting Mohammed in an insulting manner.

Protests widely reported to be against the film were staged Friday in Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, according to a Reuters report Meanwhile, demonstrators broke into the German embassy in Khartoum on Friday and hoisted an Islamic flag as Sudanese police fired tear gas in a failed effort to block about 5,000 protesters who surrounded the German embassy. A nearby British mission was also threatened by a ring of protesters. A witness told Reuters, police eventually stood by as a crowd forced its way into Germany's embassy and tore the place up. Police fired another barrage of tear gas at protesters as they approached the U.S. embassy near Khartoum. "Tomorrow we will all get out to defend Prophet Mohammad ... We will do this peacefully but with strength," Salah el-Din Awad, general secretary of the scholars' body in Khartoum state told reporters after meeting government officials on Thursday. Meanwhile, police were confronted by throngs of protesters adjacent to the U.S. embassy in Cairo after a nationwide protest was called by the Muslim Brotherhood, the faction controlling Egypt since Islamist president Mohamed Mursi took power. In Lebanon, a security officer reported that a man was killed in Tripoli when protesters attempted to break into a government building. Also, a U.S. fast food restaurant was burned down and twelve members of security forces were wounded by rocks hurled by violent demonstrators, the source said. Violence erupted when Islamist militants used antiaircraft weapons and rocket-propelled grenades to storm the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, late Tuesday. The American ambassador and three members of his staff were killed in that assault which focused world attention on the radicalization of countries swept up in the so-called Arab Spring.