An armed mob protesting over a film they said offended Islam, attacked the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and set fire to the building, witnesses reported. The attack happened on the same day as a similar group of hardliners waving black banners attacked the US embassy in Cairo and tore down the US flag, but it was not immediately clear if the two incidents were coordinated. The protests came on the eleventh anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, when US cities were targeted by hijacked planes. "Demonstrators attacked the US consulate in Benghazi. They fired shots in the air before entering the building," Libya's deputy interior minister, Wanis al-Sharif Sharif, who is in charge of the country's eastern region, told AFP. "Dozens of demonstrators attacked the consulate and set fire to it," said a Benghazi resident, who only gave his name as Omar, adding that he had seen the flames and heard shots in the vicinity.

Meet on the level, leave on the square. Great words to live by

Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread. - Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821.