President Abdrabu Mansour Hadi offered personal apology to the US President Barack Obama and the US people after a large mob of Yemeni people stormed the US embassy in protest against a movie offending the prophet of Muslims, Muhammad, Saba reported Thursday.
“Those who attacked the US embassy in Yemen were a ‘demagogic mob’ that could not realize the Zionist aim, especially after a Jewish author published the offending movie,” Hadi was quoted as saying.
“The mob sought to harm the Yemeni-US relations and, of course, they took advantage of improper security measures amid persistent divisions inside the security systems that were caused by the 2011 political crisis,” he added.
According to eyewitnesses, the protesters flowed to the US embassy’s HQ, broke into one of its external yards and burned some cars and other equipment.
They also burned tires on the streets and threw stones to inside the embassy. The authorities controlled the situation driving out those who broke in and now tense calm has been reported around the embassy. Eyewitnesses also said policemen at the heavily guarded building fired bullets in the air injuring people.
President Hadi warned that such acts will affect the good relations between the Yemen and US peoples, Saba said, pointing out that he has formed a panel to investigate the events at the US embassy and punish those involved.
One of the protesters said they all wanted to get inside the US embassy in Sanaa to send a message that offending Islam and its symbols such Prophet Muhammad is ‘completely unacceptable’.
“Islam teaches us to respect the religions, messengers and beliefs of the others. But the Western countries which allege protection and respect of other religions continue to offend the Muslims,” Talal Al-Khateeb said.
Answering how the movie has offended Muhammad, Talal said the prophet was pictured as sexy and killer and the movie also degraded the Muslims in general.
The US increased its aid to Yemen this year and is one of the sponsors of the power-transfer deal that was reached after the last year’s uprising.