Tunisia's governing moderate Islamist party condemned the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Tunis and the neighboring American school, saying Saturday that such violence threatens the country's progress toward democracy after decades of dictatorship. The embassy compound and school were surrounded by Tunisian police and army vehicles and personnel on Saturday, a day after several thousand demonstrators angry over a film that insults the Prophet Muhammad stormed the compound in Tunis. They tore down the American flag and raised an Islamic one, while looting and burning buildings. Four demonstrators died, including two following operations in the hospital, and 49 people were injured, according to Brahim Labassi, spokesman for the Ministry of Health. The attack was part of a wave of demonstrations across the Muslim world on Friday — the Muslim day of prayer — to protest the film, which was made in the United States. The embassy building itself — a fort-like structure — was untouched, but a gym and parking lot within the compound were ransacked and set alight as was the American school. The windows of the small building at the complex's entrance used to screen visitors were smashed.
