US to send Marines to beef up security of missions in Mid-East

As the fury over an anti-Islam video mounted in the Muslim world, the US today told the nations across the globe that it was their responsibility to ensure security of its diplomatic personnel and facilities as it repositioned military forces to respond to the unrest.

Blaming the tide of anti-American and anti-Western protests sweeping the Middle East, North Africa and South and East Asia on the inflammatory video, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the Obama administration anticipates that the protests "would continue for some time".

Concerned over protesters having breached security perimetre around some of its missions, Carney said the US has asked the governments of the region to deploy enough resources to protect the diplomatic personnel and facilities.

Washington is now asking some of the countries where widespread riots have been witnessed in last three days to ensure that buffer zones, fences, walls, access control, screening doors and other security measures are not breached, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said.

She said that the governments maintain at all cost the "hard line" of security that we have erected and inside we will protect our missions in a variety of ways.

Nuland said: "under the Vienna Convention, the primary responsibility for the protection of US diplomatic personnel and facilities abroad rests with the government of those countries."

The comments on maintaining security rings around its missions by top US officials came as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said US is repositioning military forces in as many as 17 to 18 places in the Muslim world to better respond to the unrest.

"We have to be prepared in the event that these demonstrations get out of control," Panetta told the Foreign Policy magazine.

Though Panetta did not elaborate, officials said Washington was considering sending more specially-trained Marines to the worst affected US embassy in Sudan.

If approved, this deployment would follow the ramped Marine deployment in Libya and Yemen.

Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama vowed to bring to justice those who were responsible for the killing of four Americans including the US Ambassador to Libya in a violent attack on its mission in Benghazi this week.

"Their sacrifice will never be forgotten. We will bring to justice those who took them from us. We will stand fast against the violence on our diplomatic missions," he said at the Transfer of Remains Ceremony at Joint Base Andrews, where the bodies of the four Americans were brought from Libya.

"We will continue to do everything in our power to protect Americans serving overseas, whether that means increasing security at our diplomatic posts, working with host countries, which have an obligation to provide security, and making it clear that justice will come to those who harm Americans," Obama said in his remarks at the ceremony where he was joined by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta.

"I know that this awful loss, the terrible images of recent days, the pictures we're seeing again today, have caused some to question this work. And there is no doubt these are difficult days. In moments such as this -- so much anger and violence -- even the most hopeful among us must wonder.

"But amid all of the images of this week, I also think of the Libyans who took to the streets with homemade signs expressing their gratitude to an American who believed in what we could achieve together. I think of the man in Benghazi with his sign in English, a message he wanted all of us to hear that said, 'Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans. Chris Stevens was a friend'.    That's the message these four patriots sent," he added.

"America is a friend and we care not just about our own country, not just about our own interests, but about theirs; that even as voices of suspicion and mistrust seek to divide countries and cultures from one another, the United States of America will never retreat from the world," Obama said.

In her remarks, Clinton said such a senseless act of violence is totally unacceptable.

"The people of Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Tunisia did not trade the tyranny of a dictator for the tyranny of a mob. Reasonable people and responsible leaders in these countries need to do everything they can to restore security and hold accountable those behind these violent acts. And we will, under the President’s leadership, keep taking steps to protect our personnel around the world," she said.

"We've seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable," Clinton said, noting that there would be more difficult days ahead.