U.S. official: Sudan balks at Marine troop mission
Sudanese protesters and riot police face off during a protest outside the German embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, as part of widespread anger across the Muslim world about a film ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad. / AP Photo/Abd Raouf
(AP) WASHINGTON - Objections by Sudan's government have held up the security mission of an elite Marine team that the U.S. planned to send to Khartoum, a U.S. official said Saturday.
As a result, the deployment has been delayed and possibly curtailed, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to disclose details on the troop movement.
The Marine unit, known as a fleet anti-terrorism security team, was ordered to Sudan in the wake of violence and protests against the U.S. Embassy.
Similar teams were sent to Libya on Wednesday after the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi, and to Yemen on Friday
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Demonstrators in Sudan stormed the German Embassy before moving on in buses to the U.S. Embassy, where police used tear gas to stop them scaling the walls. The protests were part of demonstrations across the Muslim world against an anti-Islam film.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Sudan's government "has recommitted itself both publicly and privately to continue to protect our mission," as obligated under the Vienna Convention. "We have requested additional security precautions as a result of yesterday's damage to our embassy. We are continuing to monitor the situation closely to ensure we have what we need to protect our people and facility."
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Obama's Arab Spring chickens and 2009 Cairo apology speech have come home to roost. If you are not feared in the Middle East, you will not be respected for apologizing. Have you ever heard an Arab government apologize for anything? No - the culture abhors weakness.
Now we reap what Obama's weakness and anticolonial apologism has sown.