Assault on U.S. consulate in Benghazi leaves 4 dead, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens

J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Ambassador to Libya, who was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, eastern Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. / State Department

Updated at 9:27 a.m. Eastern

(CBS/AP) U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was among four Americans killed in an attack by Muslim protesters on the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi the previous evening, the U.S. government confirmed Wednesday.

"I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens," President Obama said in a written statement released Wednesday morning. The U.S. government had confirmed one American death on Tuesday.

President Obama said he had ordered heightened security at all U.S. diplomatic offices around the world in the wake of the attack in Benghazi and a similar but less violent incident in Cairo on Tuesday. Both incidents were sparked by hardline Muslims protesting a film made in the U.S. which insults the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

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.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

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

Stevens, 52, was the first U.S. ambassador to be killed in the line of duty since 1979. A Libyan doctor who says 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.

Ziad Abu Zeid said Stevens was brought to the Benghazi Medical Center by Libyans Tuesday night with no other Americans, and that initially no one realized he was the ambassador. Abu Zeid said Stevens had "severe asphyxia," apparently from smoke inhalation, causing stomach bleeding, but had no other injuries.

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Al-Sharef said two U.S. Marines sent to Benghazi when the clash erupted were shot and killed by the well-armed protesters. It was not immediately clear whether the Marines were part of Stevens' security detail. The American whose death was confirmed on Tuesday also died of a gunshot wound. He was identified by the State Department on Wednesday as Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.

Deputy Libyan Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur said on his Twitter account that, "Amb. Stevens was a friend of Libya and we are shocked at the attacks on the U.S. consulate." The Libyan Prime Minister also expressed grief and condemned the attack.

According to his biography page on the U.S. Embassy's website, Stevens "was the American representative to the Transitional National Council in Benghazi during the revolution," in Libya. Benghazi was the capital of rebel-held Libya during the uprising to oust Qaddafi.

An armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012.

/ Getty

According to al-Sharef, the angry mob stormed the consulate after the U.S. troops who responded fired rounds into the air to try and disperse the crowd. Al-Sharef 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 Muslim's in al-Libi's native Libya to take revenge for his death.

Al-Sharef said the Libyan guards employed to guard the consulate building were far outgunned by the protesters, and thus retreated when the building was stormed.

Hours before the protest erupted in Benghazi, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, tearing down and replacing the American flag with an Islamic banner.

CBS News' Alex Ortiz reported from Cairo that about 40 or 50 protesters had again gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday, but they were far outnumbered by Egyptian security personnel.

Tuesday's attacks were the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Muammar Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, in uprisings last year.

8 Photos

U.S. Embassy protest in Cairo

There have been indications in recent months that radical, armed Islamic groups have gained a foothold in Libya since the fall of the Qaddafi regime.

One of the groups to emerge in post-revolution Libya, Ansar al-Sharia, claimed responsibility Wednesday for the attack in Benghazi, which has been condemned by the country's new government.

The protests in both countries were sparked by outrage over the film ridiculing Muhammad, which was produced by an American-Israeli in California and being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States. Excerpts from the film, dubbed into Arabic, were posted on Youtube during the summer.

"While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants," Mr. Obama said in the statement Wednesday morning, calling Stevens "a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton strongly condemned the attack on Tuesday and said she had called Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, "to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya."

Clinton expressed concern that the protests might spread to other countries. She said the U.S. is working with "partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide."

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet," Clinton said in the statement released by the State Department. "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

Sam Bacile, an American citizen who said he produced, directed and wrote the two-hour film, has gone into hiding, The Associated Press reports.

He told the AP from an undisclosed location that he had not anticipated such a furious reaction.

"I feel sorry for the embassy. I am mad," Bacile said.

The incidents also led to an exchange between the campaigns of Republican standard bearer Mitt Romney and President Obama, over the nature of a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo following the attack there.

[Shortstmp]

The State Deparment received 180 requests for increased security from Embassies worldwide in the 6 month period preceding the attack. The Benghazi compound was a CIA front and a high risk operation. Ended badly. Now it's a political hot potatoes that will be milked for all it's worth. Pales in comparison to the embassy attacks under Bush where 57 died without a question by congress. Whitewater, fast and Furios and Vince Foster.

[gongmanyao]

by the way do you know we can't post in the internet without revealing who we are? where is the freedom? what happened to the constitutional rights for individual privacy?
Several liberal bosses are controlling the whole media opinions, that why every media say the same thing except just few. Do you know mr O systematically hires net bloggers & using Facebook & twitters to control public opinion? Who will open their eyes and wake up before too late?

[rockribbedrushy]

Four dead Americans?
One of whom was the Ambassador?
Nothing to see here.
Move on, please.
No one will suffer ANY consequences
including Obama.
He sleeps peacefully in the knowledge that
you will wholeheartedly vote for him again.

[NoBombsForPeace]

I wish Gaddafi was still in power. None of this would have happened under his watch. Now we have another country run by crazy bearded Salafis with bombs and AK-47s.....great!

[Joedupont]

Dear Editor,
Back in 1987 American artist Andres Serrano won awards for displaying a
picture of a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's
urine. Serrano received $15,000 for the work, part of it from the
taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts! Christians did not burn
down Serrano's apartment in NYC. Last year "The Book of Mormon," which won
nine Tony awards as it mocked the Mormon faith. The same Hillary Clinton
who apologized for a Mel Brooks like trailer about Mohammad, stood and
applauded the blasphemous play insulting Mitt Romney's religious beliefs.
The Latter Day Saints did not burn down the Eugene O'Neill Theatre New
York, NY where it is performed. It is delusional or disingenuous for Obama
and Hillary to blame the slaughter of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens on
some sophomoric satiric movie trailer about Mohammad! I thought Obama said
that with GW gone the world would love us? What happened?

[Francesco111]

When will US and all Western democracies understand that intervening in an Islamic country is helping one sect of Allah to displace another sect of Allah. And neither will be compatible with Western concept of individual rights and democracies as both would rather have Sharia-type civilisation. Best keep out and help only if they will further your interests.

[truthenjustice]

GOOD NEWS! Four suspects have been arrested in the Libya Embassy attacks. Now the US Navy can disregard Obama's orders to dredge up Osama bin Laden and shoot him again.

[truthenjustice]

If there is one thing I know from 28 years of military service:

When vastly outnumbered and charged by an armed mob of blood-crazed assailants intent on killing you - Shoot first, Aim later!

[CTsherman1955]

Thank you President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for your wisdom and foresight in not seeing the obvious on the 9-11 anniversary in your "Arab Spring" countries. You should both be impeached. It is sickening that our 4 American citizens were butchered due to your incompentence. Your administration's apologies encouraged this result. This is "hope & change" on the international scene.

[dc86]

very, sooo very true! Americans have to save thier own selves these days even after re electing the same idiots! No hope and change here until 2016 if we are still alive? I do however wish justice for those Americans in Benghazi for fighting for serveral hours while this administration watchedthem get murdered on live feed! They fought hoping the calvary was coming to help them! God Bless them!

[dc86]

very, sooo very true! Americans have to save thier own selves these days even after re electing the same idiots! No hope and change here until 2016 if we are still alive? I do however wish justice for those Americans in Benghazi for fighting for serveral hours while this administration watchedthem get murdered on live feed! They fought hoping the calvary was coming to help them! God Bless them!

[johnnico88]

I do not think a movie caused this...I think US Government policy that has created a power vacuum after the 'arab spring', is the main cause.

[l_lunette]

US Government policy doesn't control internal affairs of other countries. The transitional government didn't adequately plan for law and order after the revolution was over. People have been getting killed all over Libya since then. I'd agree there's a power vacuum, but I hold the Libyan government responsible. The transitional leaders planned this for years and they knew the risks relative to longstanding tribal issues, radical Muslims, etc. They didn't have a plan for police and public safety, bottom line. Even during the war the fighting troops were often poorly organized. The transitional govt. has not built alliances, there's still an east/ west divide, and the streets are often run by vigilantes with machine guns. They need to deal with this, and I don't think you can hold anyone else responsible.

[rockribbedrushy]

L_LUNETTE replies: They need to deal with this, and I don't think you can hold anyone else responsible."

The Ambassador begged for more security and the response from the top down was nothing!
The State Dep't watched for SEVEN HOURS and did NOTHING!
While he and the others were being tortured, raped and brutally MURDERED nothing was done!

Obama, Clinton and whoever else is responsible needs to pay for this!