This story is so weird. And with every advancement this week, it just gets weirder.
“Fury about a film that insults the Prophet Mohammad tore across the Middle East after weekly prayers on Friday with protesters attacking U.S. embassies and burning American flags as the Pentagon rushed to bolster security at its missions,” reports Reuters.
Tunisia, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Afghanistan, 20 countries so far are involved, just three days after the bizarrely bad YouTube video triggered (or was used as an excuse for) an attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libya that killed an ambassador and three other Americans on September 11. And outrage is spreading beyond the mideast, to Muslim centers in Asia and elsewhere.
Of course, one could rightly argue that the outrage isn’t really about the video—but about the fallout of years of US wars in the region. A trigger, if you will, but not the underlying cause of the conflict.
The broadening of the protests appeared to reflect a pent-up resentment of Western powers in general, and defied pleas for restraint from world leaders including the new Islamist president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, whose country was the instigator of the demonstrations that erupted four days earlier on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Below, screengrab of a very useful Google Map of the protests, assembled by some guy named John.
• Read more: Boing Boing news archive for “Innocence of Muslims.”
