US ambassador to Libya KILLED

US ambassador to Libya John-christopher (L) killed on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (RT pic)

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RT reports ...

The US ambassador to Libya was killed by local militia in an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Reuters quoted Libyan official as saying. US embassy in Libya has not yet commented on the report.

J. Christopher Stevens and three other consulate employees were reportedly killed on Tuesday during clashes between armed militia members and army soldiers, as a mob stormed the compound.

The ambassador allegedly died of suffocation in the fire, BBC reports.

US State Department neither confirmed nor denied the death of its ambassador.

The US diplomatic facility in eastern Libya was evacuated following violent clashes, and an enraged crowd of militia members stormed the building and set it on fire.

The violence was part of a protest against an American amateur film deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad. 

A similar incident took place in Cairo, Egypt’s capital.

AL-Jazeera reports ... 

The US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, has died from smoke inhalation in an attack on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, security sources have told Al Jazeera.

An armed mob attacked and set fire to the building in a protest against an amateur film deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad, after similar protests in Egypt's capital.

The ambassador was paying a short visit to Benghazi when the consulate came under attack on Tuesday night, Al Jazeera's Suleiman Idrissi reported from the eastern Libyan city.

He died of suffocation during the attack, along with two US security personnel who were accompanying him, security sources told Al Jazeera. Another consulate employee, whose nationality could not immediately be confirmed, was also killed.

Two other staffers were injured, Idrissi reported.

The bodies of the dead were transported to the Benghazi international airport, to be flown to Tripoli and then onwards to a major US airbase in Germany.

Abdel-Monem al-Hurr, a spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee, said on Wednesday that rocket-propelled grenades had been fired at the consulate from a nearby farm.

"There [were] fierce clashes between the Libyan army and an armed militia outside the US consulate," he said. He also said roads had been closed off and security forces surrounded the building.

A group calling themselves the 'Islamic law supporters' carried out the attack in response to the relaese of the film, Al Jazeera's Idrissi reported.

Just hours earlier on Tuesday, thousands of Egyptian demonstrators apparently angry over the same film - a video produced by expatriate members of Egypt's Coptic community resident in the US - tore down the Stars and Stripes at the US embassy in Cairo and replaced it with a black Islamic flag.

The two incidents came on the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US.

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behaviour as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet," said a statement by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who also confirmed the death of the consulate employee.

"The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others," she said. 

US envoy dies in Benghazi consulate attack - Africa - Al Jazeera English