Protests over an American-made film spread across the Muslim and Arab world.

BBC has live coverage of the demonstrations as well as a much more detailed analysis of the events unfolding. Al Jazeera also has some excellent live coverage and details of the mounting violence. They also analyzed why exactly such an obscure film should produce such an uprising.

Demonstrations against an anti-Islam film continue to spread around the Middle East and other Muslim countries.

• Protesters smashed into the German Embassy in the Sudan and set part of it on fire.
• More have scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Tunis. An Associated Press reporter on the scene says thousands of demonstrators have massed outside the embassy and several were seen climbing the outer wall, raising a flag on which was written the Muslim profession of faith.
• In the Lebanese city of Tripoli security forces clashed with a crowd of protesters after they set fire to a KFC and an Arby’s restaurant.
• Demonstrators in the eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan burned a U.S. flag and chanting “Death to America” and “We condemn the film.” The demonstration ended peacefully, according to a local official, but the Afghan government has indefinitly blocked YouTube to prevent people there from watching the clips.
• At home, the University of Texas, NDSU evacuated buildings, after a bomb threat was called in by someone claiming to be a member of Al-Qaeda.

In a letter published in The New York Times, Khairat el-Shater, the deputy president of the Muslim Brotherhood said:

Despite our resentment of the continued appearance of productions like the anti-Muslim film that led to the current violence, we do not hold the American government or its citizens responsible for acts of the few that abuse the laws protecting freedom of expression.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s also addressed the protests:

In Libya and elsewhere in recent days, we have seen terrible attacks and unrest. There is no justification for such killing and brutality. A hateful, disgusting film appears to have sparked the violence. It is shameful to exploit the fundamental right to free expression by deliberately provoking bigotry and bloodshed. It is also wrong to exploit the anger; this only feeds the cycle of recrimination and senseless violence.

With all the protests spreading (US Embassys in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Iraq and the German Embassy in Sudan) and US warships parked off the coast of Libya, the outlook is certainly not good. In my opinion, any action the US takes short of evacuating its citizens might simply add more fuel to the fire.