It has been confirmed that some 50 U.S. Marines have been deployed to Libya on Wednesday to reinforce security at U.S. diplomatic facilities in the aftermath of an attack in the eastern city of Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
The Marines are members of an elite group known as a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) whose role is to respond on short notice to terrorism threats and to reinforce security at U.S. embassies. They operate worldwide and the contingent that was dispatched to Libya was based in Spain.
Meanwhile, the maker of the movie which generated the protest that led to the killings is said to have been “upset” by the killing of the Americans and has gone into hiding. According to a consultant on the low-budget movie titled “Innocence of Muslims,” the filmmaker, Sam Bacile, is “very upset that the ambassador got murdered… he melted, he fell apart,” when he heard about the killings.
The actors in the movie were said to have strong American accents, and the movie portrays Muslims as immoral and gratuitously violent. However, President Barack Obama quickly ordered increased security at US diplomatic posts around the world, while denouncing the deadly assault in Benghazi – an Islamist stronghold in eastern Libya – which coincided with the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
