Middle East, Muslim | featured news

An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world.

Protests emerged onto the streets across Syria on Friday as a temporary cease-fire marking the most important Muslim holiday of the year largely held at the start of its first day.

Lakhdar Brahimi’s plan calls for guns to be silent on the main Muslim holiday of the year, but numerous do-it-yourself aspects of the plan immediately called into question whether it would quiet any fighting.

Protests by tens of thousands of Pakistanis infuriated by an anti-Islam film descended into deadly violence on Friday, with police firing tear gas and live ammunition in an attempt to subdue rioters who hurled rocks and set fire to buildings in some cities.

An actress who appears in a clip of an anti-Muslim film blamed for causing deadly violence in the Middle East says she will continue to press to get YouTube to pull the trailer. A judge denied Cindy Lee Garcia's request Thursday that he order the clip removed. Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin says he rejected the request in part because Garcia hadn't served the film's producer with a copy of a lawsuit demanding its removal.

While the man behind an anti-Islam movie that ignited violence across the Middle East would likely face swift punishment in his native Egypt for making the film, in America the government is in the thorny position of protecting his free speech rights and looking out for his safety even while condemning his message.

The California man believed to be the maker of an anti-Islam film that ignited a firestorm in the Muslim world was cooperative when authorities escorted him to a voluntary interview, officials said Saturday. "It was all choreographed," said Steve Whitmore of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. "He was ready and willing and very cooperative."

Chanting "death to America," hundreds of protesters angered by an anti-Islam film stormed the U.S. Embassy compound in Yemen's capital and burned the American flag on Thursday, the latest in a series of attacks on American diplomatic missions in the Middle East.

Syrians in the restive region of Homs performed special prayers for a major Muslim holiday to the sound of explosions and gunfire as government troops pushed forward their assault on the area, killing at least 11 people Sunday, residents and activists said.

Al Qaeda has acknowledged that Osama bin Laden is dead, dispelling the doubts of some Muslims over whether the militant group's leader had really been killed by U.S. forces, and vowed to mount more attacks on the West.