Posted on 10/20/2012 6:15:15 PM PDT by Sleeping Freeper
The latest intelligence assessment of the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi indicates there was little if any pre-planning for it and that it was in part an opportunistic response to the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack, which has become a political hot potato in the presidential campaign with questions over when the Obama administration called the attack an act of terrorism.
“Right now, there isn’t any intelligence that the attackers pre-planned their assault days or weeks in advance,” said a U.S. intelligence official. ”The bulk of available information supports the early assessment that the attackers launched their assault opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.” But the official added that “no one is ruling out that some of the attackers may have aspired to attack the U.S. in Benghazi.”
Republican lawmakers have seized on U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s comments on Sunday talk shows days on September 16 attributing the deadly Benghazi attack to spontaneous protests against an anti-Muslim film made in the U.S. that had been posted on the Internet. As more information emerged they pointed to the use of mortars and RPG’s in the attack as indicating it was not a spontaneous protest as the Obama administration had claimed, but an act of terrorism.
Rice’s comments were based on talking points she had been provided by the intelligence community. The intelligence official said those talking points were written for members of Congress and senior U.S. officials so they “could say something preliminary about the attacks.”
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Stevens emails tell a different story
MI6 and the Israelis knew Al Quada was there and said so.
The random attackers had ... Mortars?
Mortar fire killed the two ex SEALs.
Sounds like a typical YouTube riot to me...
Reads like an Obama press release.
Also note these new “the situation is still under investigation so the source asked to remain anonymous.”
I. e.
the situation will be swept under the rug until post election.
This re ersal helps us and shows they’re in disarray. The QRT who were helicoptered in by emergency were ambushed and reported that it was done by professionals who behaved as if they KNEW they were coming.
The bigger US QRT in south Italy was only a 1hr flight away but just SAT on the tarmac.
A group had gathered. FALSE. Was all quiet and the Ambassador went to sleep. The attackers arrived suddenly and all together. They carried AK47s, RPGs, and mortars.
They really are trying to keep the spontaneous riot lie going this late into the game? Sad.
They just provided Hussein cover for Monday night - he can say he was right about the attack from the beginning, that present intelligence says he was right, so screw you Romney.
It WAS written by Cutter and Axelrod.
Just you wait and see, Obama will pitch his chin up and intone:
“Our intelligence officers still have not been able to determine what exactly happened ... I implore my opponent to refrain further politicization of this tragedy (sniff, sniff ...). By the way, bin Laden is dead, GM is alive, and al Qaeda is on its heels, so all is well in the world!”
Too thin, Axelrod, too thin.
“Al Qaeda Plants Its Flag in Libya
By Sherif Elhelwa
Posted by: photo2
It was here at the courthouse in Benghazi where the first spark of the Libyan revolution ignited. It’s the symbolic seat of the revolution; post-Gaddafi Libya’s equivalent of Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And it was here, in the tumultuous months of civil war, that the ragtag rebel forces established their provisional government and primitive, yet effective, media center from which to tell foreign journalists about their “fight for freedom.”
But according to multiple eyewitnesses—myself included—one can now see both the Libyan rebel flag and the flag of al Qaeda fluttering atop Benghazi’s courthouse.
According to one Benghazi resident, Islamists driving brand-new SUVs and waving the black al Qaeda flag drive the city’s streets at night shouting, “Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West,” a reference to previous worries that the country would be bifurcated between Gaddafi opponents in the east and the pro-Gaddafi elements in the west.
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Earlier this week, I went to the Benghazi courthouse and confirmed the rumors: an al Qaeda flag was clearly visible; its Arabic script declaring that “there is no God but Allah” and a full moon underneath. When I tried to take pictures, a Salafi-looking guard, wearing a green camouflage outfit, rushed towards me and demanded to know what I was doing. My response was straightforward: I was taking a picture of the flag. He gave me an intimidating look and hissed, “Whomever speaks ill of this flag, we will cut off his tongue. I recommend that you don’t publish these. You will bring trouble to yourself.”
photo6
He followed me inside the courthouse, but luckily my driver Khaled was close by, and interceded on my behalf. According to Khaled, the guard had angrily threatened to harm me. When I again engaged him in conversation, he told me “this flag is the true flag of Islam,” and was unresponsive when I argued with him that historically Islam has never been represented by a single flag. The guard claimed repeatedly that there is no al Qaeda in Libya, and that the flag flying atop the courthouse is “dark black,” while the al Qaeda flag is charcoal black. To many locals, it’s a distinction without a difference. One man approached me with a friendly warning: “I recommend that you leave now; [the Islamist fighters] could be watching you.”
But none of this should be surprising. In Tripoli, Abdelhakim Belhaj, a well-known al Qaeda fighter and founder of the notorious Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), is now leading the rebel “military counsel” in Tripoli. A few weeks ago, Belhaj ordered his fighters to take command of the Tripoli airport, then controlled by a group of Zintan fighters, a brigade of Berber Libyans who helped liberate the capital from Gaddafi loyalists. A few days later, Belhaj gave a speech emphasizing that his actions had the blessings of Libya’s National Transitional Counsel (NTC), who appointed him to the leadership of Tripoli’s military command.
According to a Libyan who didn’t want to be named, a special military group inside the NTC is calling on Salafi fighters with military backgrounds to join a special group fighting in the rebellion. “There will be special benefits if you join whether you die in battle, or when you return home,” including monthly salaries. (One NTC source told me that Belhaj’s fighters are the only rebel fighters who receive a monthly salary.)
photo31
In a recent speech heralding the new beginning of post-Gaddafi Libya, Moustafa Abdeljalil, the head of the NTC, declared the country an “Islamic state, and sharia law is the source of all our laws.” It was indeed an odd declaration for a leader celebrating his country’s liberation, leading many to wonder: Who are Abdeljalil and the NTC trying to appease?
It isn’t uncommon to discover rebels with radical backgrounds. In an off-the-record interview, one NTC member spoke casually of his past, explaining that the Gaddafi regime blacklisted him from the country for his ties to LIFG. He told me of his close association with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the infamous “blind cleric” jailed for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who he helped ferry across the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan during the mujahedeen fight against the Soviet Union.
The war to rid the country of the Gaddafi dictatorship might have ended, but the battle for control of post-revolutionary Libya has only just begun. And it will surprise few that assorted radicals, jihadists, Salafists, and LIFG veterans are attempting to fill the power vacuum and replace one dictatorship with another.
Meet the guys who kicked the Gaddafi regime out of the Benghazi courthouse in our Rebels of Libya documentary.”
By Sherif Elhelwa
http://www.vice.com/read/al-qaeda-plants-its-flag-in-libya
22tula says:
September 12, 2012 at 9:09 pm
Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri: “Rise against Global Order of Injustice”
MEMRI – TV – September 11, 2012
http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3569.htm
“Al_Zawahri personally ordered Al Qaeda to murder US Ambassador Stevens”
DEBKAfile – September 12, 2012
http://www.debka.com/article/22353/Al-Zawahri-personally-ordered-Al-Qaeda-to-murder-US-Ambassador-Stevens-
” ‘Arab Spring’ Explodes in Attacks Against America”
by Clare M. Lopez – September 12, 2012
http://chinaconfidential.blogspot.com/
The Frank Gaffney Show
Secure Freedom Radio – September 12, 2012
http://www.securefreedomradio.org/2012/09/12/who-knew-what-and-when/
Ok so....if a six hour firefight with billowing smoke and heavy and accurate use of MOTAR CREWS begins SPONTANEOUSLY then that is a sufficient reason for HUNDREDS of people at TWELVE ops centers to take NO military action...?
Am I reading you clearly, there...?
No planning, they just whipped those Mortars out of their Jeans and got funky.
Somebody thinks we are idiots.
Imagine how it’d turned out had they planned it! They even got the safe house (on a whim) and attacked vehicles all the way to the hospital w/Stevens. /s
What a relief.. For a minute there I thought Benghazi was a terrorist attack! /s
"Hey Dilbert-that Yankee just pinched your sister's behind. Go git the mortar."
This was Barry’s Blackhawk Down....errr....Hawk BACKDOWN..?
Imagine that we go back in time and after Mogadishu Bubba said, ah well the Aideed resistance that day built up pretty SPONTANEOUSLY...
Would anyone have taken him seriously...? Yet NOW that is precisely thereaction they expect —why...?
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