Al-Qaeda praises the killing of US ambassador, calls for more attacks to expel American embassies from Muslim nations

CAIRO (AP) – Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen praised the killing of the U.S. ambassador in Libya in a Web statement Saturday and called for more attacks to expel American embassies from Muslim nations.

The statement suggests Al Qaeda was trying to co-opt the wave of angry protests in the Muslim world over a film produced in the United States denigrating the Prophet Muhammad.

In a move to try to end the unrest, the top religious authority in Saudi Arabia said Muslims should not be "dragged by anger" into violence, suggesting the film could not truly hurt Islam.

So far, there has been no evidence of a direct role by Al Qaeda in the protests, which brought a flurry of attacks on American and other Western diplomatic missions this week. The protests have been fueled mainly by ultraconservative Islamists. But U.S. and Libyan officials are investigating whether the protests were a cover for militants to target the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi and kill Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans on Tuesday.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the group in Yemen in known, said the killing of Stevens was "the best example" for those attacking embassies to follow.

"What has happened is a great event, and these efforts should come together in one goal, which is to expel the embassies of America from the lands of the Muslims," the group said. It called on protests to continue in Muslim nations "to set the fires blazing at these embassies."

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