Nightly News   |  September 11, 2012

Egypt protesters scale US embassy wall

Protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and pulled down the American flag during a protest over what they said was a film produced in the United States that insulted the Prophet Muhammad. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>> halfway around the world in cairo today, an explosion of violence aimed at the united states . muslim protesters stormed the u.s. embassy , they're angry over a film they consider insulting to the profit mohammed. richard engel is in the region tonight from istanbul. what was this about? and was the embassy ever in any real danger?

>> it was never in any real danger, but this could escalate and the situation remains tense. it all began this afternoon when several hundred demonstrators gathered in front of the u.s. embassy . then a few dozen of the demonstrators managed to scale the perimeter walls, get inside the embassy, hold down the u.s. flag , replace it with a black islamic flag , then egyptian security forces moved in to secure the perimeter. under the former president, this would have been very difficult. protesters wouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the u.s. embassy . today they were able to skrim bell graffiti on the empasscy wall. this was all triggered by a movie, a fringe radical movie made in the united states that is insulting to islam, and the danger is in this internet age , even an obscure film like this, could be seen all around the world. and already tonight there's been another attack. that one in benghazi, the u.s. consulate demonstrators angried by the film, tried to burn it down. the u.s. state department says all staff have been accounted for.

>> richard engel on this explosion of violence just today. thanks.