Deadly Violence Hits Egypt In Clashes Over Morsi's Leadership

Opponents of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi burn the contents of an office of the Freedom and Justice Party, an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, in Alexandria Friday. Two people were reportedly killed in clashes in the city.

Two people have died in Alexandria, Egypt, where protests against President Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have been building all week. Egyptian security officials say one of the dead is an American citizen. Dozens of people were wounded in the violence.

Update at 8 p.m. ET: Death Of U.S. Citizen Confirmed

"We can confirm that a U.S. citizen was killed in Alexandria, Egypt," State Department Press Office Director Patrick Ventrell said in a news release Friday evening.

Ventrell says the State Department is "providing appropriate consular assistance" in the matter. He adds, "We do not have further information to provide at this time."

Update at 6:40 p.m. ET: U.S. Warns Citizens On Travel; Moves To Cut Staffing

In a travel warning issued Friday afternoon, the U.S. Department of State says it has approved the "the departure of a limited number of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members from Egypt due to the ongoing political and social unrest."

The agency also warned Americans who are considering traveling to Egypt to put those plans off and to stay away from demonstrations.

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From Cairo, NPR's Merrit Kennedy filed this report for our Newscast desk:

"At this point, the identity of the American killed in Alexandria is unclear, nor what he was doing there, but some local media report he was taking photographs. Egyptian security officials say he was stabbed to death at clashes between pro- and anti-government demonstrators.
"The U.S. Embassy said they have heard the reports and are seeking confirmation.
"More than 400 people were injured and four killed since Wednesday in a separate series of clashes in the Nile Delta region."

Reuters reports that in the Alexandria violence, one person after being shot and that the American died after being stabbed in the chest.

Unrest has spread around Egypt this week, as Morsi's opponents are preparing for what they promise will be massive protests on Sunday, the anniversary of his presidency. Supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood have staged their own rallies this week, further fueling tensions.

Egypt violence builds, American among dead

Protesters gather as they chant anti-President Mohamed Mursi slogans during a protest in Tahrir square in Cairo June 28, 2013.

ALEXANDRIA/CAIRO - Two people, one an American, were killed when protesters stormed an office of Egypt's ruling Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria, adding to growing tension ahead of mass rallies aimed at unseating the Islamist president.

A third man was killed and 10 injured in an explosion during a protest in Port Said, at the mouth of the Suez Canal. Police on Saturday said the cause was unclear but protesters, believing it was a bomb, attacked an Islamist party office in the city.

Egypt's leading religious authority warned of "civil war" after violence in the past week that had already left several dead and hundreds injured. They backed President Mohamed Mursi's offer to talk to opposition groups ahead of Sunday's protests.

The United Nations, European Union and United States have appealed for restraint and urged Egypt's deadlocked political leaders to step back from a confrontation threatening the new democracy that emerged from the Arab Spring revolution of 2011.

The U.S. embassy said in a statement it was evacuating non-essential staff and family members and renewed a warning to Americans not to travel to Egypt unless they had to.

The Muslim Brotherhood said eight of its offices had been attacked on Friday, including the one in Alexandria. Officials said more than 70 people had been injured in the clashes in the city. One was shot dead and a young American man who was using a small camera died after being stabbed in the chest.

A Brotherhood member was also killed overnight in an attack on a party office at Zagazig, in the heavily populated Nile Delta, where much of the recent violence has been concentrated. Mursi's movement said five supporters in all had died this week.

"Vigilance is required to ensure we do not slide into civil war," said clerics at Cairo's ancient Al-Azhar institute, one of the most influential centers of scholarship in the Muslim world.

In a statement broadly supportive of Mursi, they backed his offer of dialogue and blamed "criminal gangs" who besieged mosques for the violence. The Brotherhood warned of "dire consequences" and "a violent spiral of anarchy".

It accused liberal leaders, including former U.N. diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, of personally inciting violence by hired "thugs" once loyal to ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak.

Opposition leaders condemned the violence. The army, which has warned it could intervene if political leaders lose control, issued a statement saying it had deployed across the country to protect citizens and installations of national importance.

In the capital, Cairo, tens of thousands turned out for rival events some miles apart and there was little trouble. An Islamist rally included calls to reconciliation. On Tahrir Square, cradle of the uprising against Mubarak, there was a festive atmosphere and a determination to shake Mursi on Sunday.

In Alexandria, as several thousand anti-Mursi protesters marched along the seafront, a Reuters reporter saw about a dozen men throw rocks at guards outside the Brotherhood office. They responded. Bricks and bottles flew. Guns were fired.

Officials said dozens were wounded by birdshot. The party office was ransacked and documents were burned, watched by jubilant youths chanting against Egypt's Islamist leaders.

In Port Said, a bastion of anti-Islamist sentiment, police had suspected an accident but later said a device exploded among protesters. Canal traffic has not been affected by violence.

CAIRO CALM

Islamists gathered round a Cairo mosque after weekly prayers to show support for Mursi. His opponents hope millions will turn out on Sunday to demand he step down, a year to the day after he was sworn in as Egypt's first freely chosen leader.

Mursi, backed by the Brotherhood, has dismissed such demands as an assault on democracy, setting up an angry confrontation.

"I came to support the legitimate order," said Ahmed al-Maghrabi, 37, a shopkeeper from the Nile Delta city of Mansoura whose hand bore grazes from street fighting there this week. "I am with the elected president. He needs to see out his term."

Some speakers reflected fear and anger among Islamists that opponents aim to suppress them as Mubarak did. But there was also talk from the podium of the need for dialogue - a concern also of international powers worried by the bitter polarization.

A few hundred opposition protesters gathered outside the presidential palace, a focus for Sunday's rally. Mursi has moved elsewhere. Thousands turned out after dark in Tahrir Square, waving national flags and sampling street food.

Abdelhamid Nada, a 32-year-old accountant, had come from the provinces with eight friends to camp out "until Mursi goes". "The Muslim Brotherhood has no plan at all," he said, standing by his white tent. "They don't have any economic plan, they don't have any social plan, they don't have any political plan."

STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

The army, which heeded mass protests in early 2011 to push Mubarak aside, has warned it will intervene again if there is violence, and to defend the "will of the people". Both sides believe that means the military may support their positions.

The United States, which funds Egypt's army as it did under Mubarak, has urged compromise and respect for election results. Egypt's 84 million people, control of Suez and its peace treaty with Israel all contribute to its global strategic importance.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged Egyptians to respect "universal principles of peaceful dialogue". European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton called for peaceful protests, building trust and a "spirit of dialogue and tolerance".

In Alexandria, opposition marchers said they feared the Brotherhood was usurping the revolution to entrench its power and Islamic law. Others had economic grievances, among them huge lines for fuel caused by supply problems and panic buying.

"I've nothing to do with politics, but with the state we're in now, even a stone would cry out," said 42-year-old accountant Mohamed Abdel Latif. "There are no services, we can't find diesel or gasoline. We elected Mursi, but this is enough.

"Let him make way for someone else who can fix it."

It is hard to gauge how many may turn out on Sunday, but even those sympathetic to Islamic ideas are frustrated by the economic slump and many blame the government.

Previous protest movements since the fall of Mubarak have failed to gather momentum, however, among a population anxious for stability and fearful of further economic hardship.

Jim Carrey Condemns His Movie Kick-Ass 2 for Violence in Wake of Newtown Shooting

Jim Carrey is speaking out against his upcoming film Kick-Ass 2 because of its depiction of gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. Credit: Michael Buckner/Getty Images

Jim Carrey is having a crisis of conscience about his upcoming movie Kick-Ass 2. The 51-year-old actor spoke out against the satirical superhero sequel on Sunday, June 23, telling his 10.8 million Twitter followers that he wanted to distance himself from the film due to its depiction of violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings in Newtown, Conn.

"I did Kickass a month b4 Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence," he tweeted of the flick, set to be released in August. "I meant to say my apologies to others involved with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."

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Carrey stars in the comic-book adaptation as Colonel Stars & Stripes, a born-again Christian vigilante who teams up with the titular hero (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz) to take out lowlife criminals. Speaking about the movie with MTV News in March, he described his character as "a guy that came from a violent background who is trying to turn it around, and he uses a gun with no bullets in it."

At the time, he said he was "becoming more conscious" of violence in films and was "being careful" with his choices going forward. He also said Kick-Ass 2 was going to be "a great movie."

PHOTOS: Stars as superheroes

Alas, he no longer stands behind that opinion. But others -- like Mark Millar, who created the comics on which Kick-Ass and Kick-Ass 2 are based -- do. In a response to Carrey's tweets on Sunday, Millar took to his website with a long, personal message in which he called the actor "magnificent" and defended the movie's depiction of violence.

"As you may know, Jim is a passionate advocate of gun-control, and I respect both his politics and his opinion, but I'm baffled by this sudden announcement as nothing seen in this picture wasn't in the screenplay eighteen months ago," he wrote. "Yes, the body count is very high, but a movie called Kick-Ass 2 really has to do what it says on the tin."

PHOTOS: Jim Carrey and other rags-to-riches stars

"Like Jim, I'm horrified by real-life violence (even though I'm Scottish), but Kick-Ass 2 isn't a documentary," he continued. "No actors were harmed in the making of this production! This is fiction and like [directors] [Quentin] Tarantino and [Sam] Peckinpah, [Martin] Scorcese and [Clint] Eastwood, John Boorman, Oliver Stone and Chan-Wook Park, Kick-Ass avoids the usual bloodless body count of most big summer pictures and focuses instead of the CONSEQUENCES of violence."

"Ultimately, this is [Jim's] decision, but I've never quite bought the notion that violence in fiction leads to violence in real life any more than Harry Potter casting a spell creates more Boy Wizards in real life," Millar concluded. "Our job as storytellers is to entertain, and our toolbox can't be sabotaged by curtailing the use of guns in an action movie...Kick-Ass 2 is fictional fun, so let's focus our ire instead on the real-life violence going on in the world."