Unrest eases across Mideast

CAIRO – Al-Qaida’s most active branch in the Middle East called for more attacks on U.S. embassies Saturday to “set the fires blazing,” seeking to co-opt outrage over an anti-Muslim film even as the wave of protests that swept 20 countries this week eased.

Senior Muslim religious authorities issued their strongest pleas yet against resorting to violence, trying to defuse Muslim anger over the film a day after new attacks on U.S. and Western embassies that left at least eight protesters dead.

The top cleric in U.S. ally Saudi Arabia denounced the film but said it can’t really hurt Islam, a contrast to protesters’ frequently heard cries that the movie amounts to a humiliating attack that requires retaliation. He urged Muslims not to be “dragged by anger” into violence. The head of the Sunni Muslim world’s pre-eminent religious institution, Egypt’s Al-Azhar, backed peaceful protests but said Muslims should counter the movie by reviving Islam’s moderate ideas.

In the Egyptian capital Cairo, where the first protests against the movie that denigrates the Prophet Muhammad erupted, police finally succeeded in clearing away protesters who had been clashing with security forces for days near the U.S. Embassy. Police arrested 220 people and a concrete wall was erected across the road leading to the embassy.

No significant protests were reported in the Mideast on Saturday; the only report of violence linked to the film came from Australia, where riot police clashed with about 200 protesters at the U.S. Consulate in Sydney.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, President Barack Obama paid tribute to the four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, who were killed in an armed attack on the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city on Benghazi this week. He also denounced the anti-U.S. mob protests that followed.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the most dangerous of the terror network’s branches to the U.S., called the killing of Stevens “the best example” for those attacking embassies to follow.

“What has happened is a great event, and these efforts should come together in one goal, which is to expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims,” the group said. It called on protests to continue in Muslim nations “to set the fires blazing at these embassies.”

It also called on “our Muslim brothers in Western nations to fulfill their duties in supporting God’s prophet … because they are the most capable of reaching them and vexing them.”

The U.S called the Yemen al-Qaida branch the most dangerous threat after it plotted a series of attempted attacks, including the Christmas 2009 failed bombing of a passenger jet. It has suffered a series of blows since, including the recent killing in a drone strike of its No. 2 leader, Saeed al-Shihri. Yemen’s U.S.-backed government has been waging an offensive against the group, taking back territory and cities in the south that the group’s fighters seized last year.

So far, there has been no evidence of a direct role by al-Qaida in the protests.

U.S. and Libyan officials are investigating whether the protests were a cover for militants, possibly al-Qaida sympathizers, to carry out a coordinated attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and kill Americans. Washington has deployed FBI investigators to try and track down militants behind the attack.

The United States sent an elite, 50-member Marine unit to Yemen’s capital to bolster security at the embassy there, which protesters broke into on Thursday and then tried again to assault Friday. A similar team was dispatched to Tripoli, Libya, on Wednesday after the deadly attack the night before on the Benghazi consulate.

But the Sudanese government said Saturday it had refused to allow a similar Marine deployment to the embassy in Khartoum.