This article, found in the Sept.24th issue of Time magazine, lays out a possible progression of events that culminated in the deaths of 4 Americans in Bengazi, Libya, on Sept.11. According to the author of the article, Bobby Ghosh, along with the reporting of 8 other individuals, the violence “looked spontaneous, but was anything but. Instead it was a sequence of provocations…” The story then explains:
It began in July, with a posting of a 14 minute film clip on YouTube by the filmmaker of Innocence of Muslims [a derogatory movie about the prophet Mohammed.] However, neither the clip nor the Hollywood movie screening earlier in 2012, had appeared to generate any reaction. But the clip had been seen by one Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-American Coptic Christian known for promoting inflamatory anti-Muslim statements, who posted the film clips on an Arabic blog, also sending a link to the post to a large email list. This in turn was seen by Terry Jones, the Koran- burning pastor from Florida, who then generated more of the same.
The “flames” then spread to Egypt where Sheik Abdullah, a TV host on an Islamist satellite station known for his severe criticism of Coptic Christians, broadcast the Arabic dubbed clips on his Sept.8th show. This action stirred up the ire of the second largest Egyptian parliamentary group, the Salafists, an Islamic fundamentalist movement that had been organizing small protests outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo, demanding the release of a sheik imprisoned in North Carolina. On Sept.11th many of the group were found outside the embassy, together with two of their leaders, (one the brother of the head of al-Qaeda.) The mob, minus the leaders, then attacked the embassy in Cairo, but the violence was contained to removing the U.S. Flag.
However, a similar group of protesters outside the embassy in Libya resorted to extreme violence, stirred up by armed jihadists, firing grenades into the main consulate building and later the building where the consulate staff had been evacuated, killing the four Americans.
I apologize for the long post, but as I started writing, it became an attempt to sort out the events leading up to all the horrible violence on this Sept 11.