Protesters angered over an anti-Muslim movie burned down the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens grew up in San Jose and graduated from Piedmont High School in 1978 and went to college at the University of California Berkeley. 

VIDEO: Who was Christopher Stevens?

Stevens served for the Peace Corps in Morocco, became fluent in Arabic and French, and joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about the Arab world,” Stevens said in a State Department video. ”I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world.”

The attack that killed Stevens and three other American diplomats was planned by a pro-al Qaeda group of extremists, CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

Stevens’ longtime friend, Daniel Seidemann, said the ambassador knew Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.

“When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going,” Seidemann said. “He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him.”

He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

MORE: How the Benghazi attack unfolded

Article source: http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/san-francisco-bay-area/Many-questions-arise-about-anti-Islam-filmmaker/-/5739064/16580404/-/mwkr0qz/-/index.html

Protesters angered over an anti-Muslim movie burned down the U.S. Consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Tuesday and killed the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens grew up in San Jose and graduated from Piedmont High School in 1978 and went to college at the University of California Berkeley. 

VIDEO: Who was Christopher Stevens?

Stevens served for the Peace Corps in Morocco, became fluent in Arabic and French, and joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t know much about the Arab world,” Stevens said in a State Department video. ”I worked as an English teacher in a town in the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco for two years, and quickly grew to love this part of the world.”

The attack that killed Stevens and three other American diplomats was planned by a pro-al Qaeda group of extremists, CNN reported Wednesday afternoon.

Stevens’ longtime friend, Daniel Seidemann, said the ambassador knew Libya was a place of great promise, but also one of great peril.

“When he went to Libya, he had no illusions about where he was going,” Seidemann said. “He has probably done more than anybody on the planet to help the Libyan people, and he know going in that this was not going to protect him.”

He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi.

MORE: How the Benghazi attack unfolded

Article source: http://www.ksbw.com/news/central-california/san-francisco-bay-area/Many-questions-arise-about-anti-Islam-filmmaker/-/5739064/16580404/-/mwkr0qz/-/index.html