Christopher Stevens Video: Libyan Ambassador Was Pulled From Rubble Alive

Impact

Video has emerged of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens being pulled from the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya (graphic photos here). Stevens was alive at the time, as a group of Libyans, who did not know who Stevens was, took him to a private car so he could be taken to a nearby hospital. Several Libyans expressed frustration that there was no ambulance available to take Stevens, who was pronounced dead at the hospital. The doctor who had treated the ambassador said he died of severe asphyxiation. The consulate had been attacked in part using a rocket-propelled grenade. The blast resulted in the death of Stevens and three other Americans.

The attack came the same day as protesters in Cairo, Egypt scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy there and ripped down an American flag. Both the protests in Cairo and the attack in Benghazi have been blamed on the production of a low-budget anti-Islam film made in the U.S., Innocence of Muslims, which portrays the Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as violent and a sexual deviant. One of its backers -- Nakoula Basseley Nakoula -- has been widely criticized for making the incendiary film. Another man, Florida pastor Terry Jones has also been castigated for his role in promoting the film, and for his past actions which include burning the Quran -- an incident which last year prompted rioters in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan to murder 12 United Nations workers, and behead two of them.