By NBC News staff and wire reports
Updated at 10:50 a.m. ET:
Protesters in a number of countries across the Muslim world vented anger against the West on Friday as the controversy over an anti-Islamic film raged, with a KFC restaurant torched in Lebanon, violent attacks on U.S. embassies in Sudan and Tunis and fierce protests in Egypt, Jordan and Pakistan.
U.S. embassies and consulates are braced for trouble on the Muslim day of prayer, when demonstrations are often held, following the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Triggered by an obscure, anti-Islam video made in the U.S. and released on the internet, angry protests by Muslims have been directed primarily at a number of U.S. diplomatic missions this week.
NBC News has learned a team of 50 Marines was being sent to Yemen to deal with attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, where tear gas was fired to repel angry crowds on Friday.
In Egypt, people hurled stones at police near the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. "God is greatest" and "There is no god but God," one group chanted, as police in riot gear fired tear gas and threw stones back at them in a street leading to the fortified U.S. embassy.
In Sudan, a Reuters reporter heard gunfire within the U.S. Embassy compound in Khartoum after protesters attacked it along with the U.K. and German embassies. Fireballs and thick black smoke were seen on pictures show by regional news channel, Al Jazeera.
Sudan's Foreign Ministry has criticized Germany for allowing a protest last month by right-wing activists carrying caricatures of the prophet and for Chancellor Angela Merkel giving an award in 2010 to a Danish cartoonist whose depictions of the prophet in 2005 triggered protests across the Islamic world.
NBC's Richard Engel reports from Cairo, Egypt, where protesters, outraged over an anti-Islam video, continue to participate in violent demonstrations near the U.S. Embassy.
In Tunisia, protesters jumped over a wall into the compound of the U.S. Embassy in Tunis and black smoke billowed across the area.
In Lebanon, where Pope Benedict arrived Friday for a three-day visit, hundreds of people set alight a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the northern city of Tripoli on Friday, witnesses said. Locals watching the attack said some people were shouting, "We don't want the pope" and "No more insults (to Islam)."
At least one person was killed and 25 others were wounded in those protests, Lebanese officials said. The pope, who was in Beirut, said the Arab Spring movement that saw several Middle Est dictators ousted and elections held --including in Egypt -- was a positive "cry for freedom" as long as it included religious tolerance.
But he added that it had to include tolerance for other religions. Asked about Christians' fears about rising aggression from Islamist radicals, Benedict said: "Fundamentalism is always a falsification of religion."
Lebanon’s militant Shiite movement Hezbollah hung banners along the airport highway greeting Benedict with a picture of him and texts in Arabic and French saying: "Hezbollah welcomes the pope in the homeland of coexistence."
But nearby, the movement -- which Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group -- put up Arabic-only banners for local consumption with a different message: "Welcome to you in the homeland of resistance."
NBC's Richard Engel in Egypt and NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin in Libya report on what might have triggered recent attacks on American facilities and U.S. history in the Middle East.
President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist who is Egypt's first freely elected president, is having to strike a delicate balance, protecting the embassy of a major donor while also showing a robust response to a film that angered Islamists.
"What happened a few days ago was a pernicious attempt to insult the Prophet Muhammad. It is something we reject and Egypt stands against. We will not permit that these acts are carried out," said Morsi during a visit to Italy.
"We cannot accept the killing of innocent people nor attacks on embassies. We must defend diplomats and tourists who come to visit our country. Killing people is forbidden ... by our faith," he said.
The Muslim Brotherhood said on Twitter that it was canceling its call for nationwide protests about the film.
However, it said it would still be present in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square "for a symbolic protest against the movie." The Brotherhood had earlier called for a "million-man march" of protest in the capital.
At least 224 people were injured in protests outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo on Thursday, the BBC reported.
President Barack Obama, facing a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before seeking re-election, has vowed to bring to justice those responsible for the Libya attack.
Four people have so far been arrested over that incident, Libyan authorities said.
A security source told NBC News on Friday that a 48-hour no-fly zone had been imposed over Benghazi in the wake of the consulate attack. The restrictions were believed to be put in place late Thursday night or early Friday local time.
Security forces in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, where anti-U.S. protesters attacked the guard offices outside the main embassy building on Thursday, fired warning shots and used water cannons on Friday against hundreds of protesters near the U.S. embassy.
"Today is your last day, ambassador!", and "America is the devil," some placards read.
The embassy told U.S. citizens it expected more protests against the film. "The security situation remains fluid," it said in a statement posted on its website.
No U.S. embassy staff were hurt in Thursday's unrest. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi condemned the attack and said Yemen would be launching an investigation.
Man behind anti-Islam movie ID'd as Egypt-born ex-con
Yemen's Hadi and Libyan leader Mohammed Magarief both apologized to the United States over the attacks.
Embassies stormed, KFC torched as anger over anti-Islam film rages - World News
