Obama Administration Still Not Ready to Call Benghazi a Terror Attack
September 13, 2012
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Glass, debris and overturned
furniture are strewn
inside a room in the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after an attack
that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, Wednesday,
Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – Asked directly on Wednesday evening if Tuesday's deadly
violence in Libya was "linked to a terror attack" – possibly al-Qaeda
– a State Department official demurred:
"Frankly, we are not in a position to speak any further to the
perpetrators of this attack. It was clearly a complex attack. We’re going to
have to do a full investigation," the unnamed "senior administration
official" told a background teleconference briefing.
“We are committed to working with the Libyans both on the investigation
and to ensure that we bring the perpetrators to justice. The FBI is already
committed to assisting in that, but I just – we’re – it’s just too early to
speak to who they were and if they might have been otherwise affiliated beyond
Libya."
The State Department also said it was still "operating within the
confusion of first reports" from Libya. "Many details of what
happened in Benghazi are still unknown or unclear," the official said.
"These are first reports, and so the facts could very well change as we get
a better understanding."
As the hours passed, however, it became increasingly evident that the
worst of Tuesday’s violence in Benghazi had nothing to do with an obscure film insulting
Mohammed.
According to briefing administration officials, fighting between
“unidentified Libyan extremists” and U.S. and Libyan security personnel lasted
for more than four hours – from 10 PM-2.30 AM (4-8.30 PM eastern U.S. time).
“This was a well-armed, well-coordinated event, it had both indirect and
direct fire, and it had military maneuvers that were all part of this very
organized attack,” House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers
(R-Mich.) told MSNBC. “That’s concerning, so we are going to have to make sure,
working with the Libyans hopefully, that these people are brought to justice
very swiftly.”
Reports in the independent Libya Herald cited
eyewitnesses in Benghazi as saying the attackers were Islamist Salafists,
including members of one of the jihadists groups that have emerged in Libya in
the aftermath of the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, Ansar al-Sharia.
A Libyan diplomat in London, Ahmad Jibril, also named Ansar al-Sharia as
the perpetrators of the attack, the BBC reported.
The Quilliam Foundation, a British think tank set up by Muslims in 2008
with the declared aim of countering extreme Islamist ideology, also pointed to
the sophistication of the assault in Benghazi and the use of weaponry including
rocket-propelled grenades.
“The military assault against the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi should not
be seen as part of a protest against a low budget film which was insulting
Islam – there were just a few peaceful protesters present at the event,” it
said Wednesday.
Quilliam said it believed the assault “was a well-planned terrorist
attack that would have occurred regardless of the demonstration, to serve
another purpose. According to information obtained
by Quilliam – from foreign sources and from within Benghazi – we have reason to
believe that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi came to avenge the
death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, al-Qaeda’s second in command killed a few months
ago.”
Just one day before the Benghazi attack, al-Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahiriissued a statement marking the 9/11
anniversary, and urging Libyans to avenge the killing in a U.S. drone strike last June
of his Libyan-born deputy.
Zawahiri encouraged Libyans to attack Americans,
saying al-Libi’s “blood is calling, urging and inciting you to fight and kill
the Crusaders.”
Rahman rallying cry
In his message,
Zawahiri also demanded the release of Omar Abd al-Rahman, the Egyptian cleric
serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison for his involvement in the
al-Qaeda-linked 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City.
Among the myriad shadowy jihadist groups that have emerged in Libya in
recent months is one invoking Rahman’s name and demanding his release.
Over the summer, after a bomb exploded outside the U.S. Consulate
compound in Benghazi and a convoy carrying the British ambassador to Libya came
under fire, a statement from the “Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abd
al-Rahman” took responsibility for the attacks.
As CNSNews reported earlier, jihadist groups in Egypt
threatened early this week to burn down the U.S. Embassy in Cairo if Rahman was
not freed. The threat appeared in Egyptian media one day before the embassy was
attacked, during a protest over the Mohammed movie.
Calls for freedom for Rahman, a long-time associate of slain al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden and a man revered in jihadist circles, have stepped up
since President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood came to power in Egypt,
pledging to work for the septuagenarian cleric’s release.
