Assault on U.S. consulate in Benghazi leaves 4 dea

[teflep]

(CBS/AP) Libyan and American officials said Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was among as many as four Americans killed in an attack by Muslim protesters on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi the previous evening.

A U.S. official confirmed Stevens' death to CBS News Wednesday morning. There was still no direct U.S. confirmation of the other two American deaths first reported Wednesday morning by the Reuters news agency. The U.S. government confirmed one American death on Tuesday.

"I do condemn the cowardly act of attacking the US consulate and the killing of Mr Stevens and the other diplomats," Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur said on his Twitter account. "Amb. Stevens was a friend of Libya and we are shocked at the attacks on the U.S. consulate."

Abushagur said in a subsequent tweet: "I condemn these barbaric acts in the strongest possible terms. This is an attack on America, Libya and free people everywhere."

The U.S. Embassy in Libya, in the capital city of Tripoli, would say Wednesday only that officials were still gathering information on the attack in Benghazi, which an official called an "intense battle". All U.S. embassies around the world

Wanis al-Sharef, an Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said a total of 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.

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Al-Sharef said Stevens died of suffocation, while two U.S. Marines sent to Benghazi when the clash erupted were shot and killed by 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.

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.

Cbsnews.com

[marie427]

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