Anti-American violence is spreading across the Middle East, with mobs rioting
at US missions in Tunisia, Sudan and Morocco.

 

Hundreds of protesters rioted outside the U.S. embassy in Tunisia on
Wednesday night. Police in the capital of Tunis were forced to fire teargas
canisters at the mob when some 300 rioters stormed the American embassy
compound. The rioters, however, were pushed back. Up to that point, the
demonstration had been relatively peaceful, with demonstrators brandishing black and white Salafi Muslim
banners.

 

Throughout the Middle East, United States embassies have been warning
American citizens to avoid crowded places, and to “remain alert at all times.”
Even demonstrations that appear to be peaceful “can turn suddenly violent,” the
embassy alert warned citizens living in Arab countries throughout the region.

 

In Morocco, considered a “moderate” Arab nation with few radical Islamist
leanings, hundreds of protesters gathered in Casablanca, the nation's largest
city. Demonstrators torched American flags outside the U.S. Consulate, according
to an AFP reporter, chanting anti-Obama and anti-American slogans. No
violence was reported. The mostly young protesters, who reportedly gathered via
a call through Internet social networks, were heavily contained by Moroccan
police.

 

They, like protesters throughout the Middle East, used the excuse of their
rage over an amateur video produced in the U.S. that had made news as an
“profane insult to the Prophet Mohammed,” the founder of Islam, as the
justification for the riots. Some used it as an excuse for violence.