Free Republic

Despite President Obama's promise to stay focused on hunting down those responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attack -- and despite a recent arrest touted as a major takedown -- sources say little has been done to nab the other suspects. According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala -- now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive...

The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it will not seek the death penalty against Ahmed Abu Khattala, 54, a U.S.-designated terrorist whom prosecutors accuse of leading the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. The announcement, contained in a notice to the federal trial court in Washington, clears the way for a major terrorism trial in the nation’s capital, the first in the United States since 2015, barring a plea agreement by Abu Khattala.

The freshly appointed chairman of a federal investigation into the Benghazi massacre is an apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. And to add insult to injury, at press time Tuesday evening the chairman of this new State Department panel, former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, was poised to participate in a panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia.” The news comes on the heels of a new report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism that found...

U.S. officials and experts do acknowledge [1] an Egyptian connection to the Benghazi attacks. They’ll point to what they call a ragtag group of jihadists, led by Muhammad Jamal Abdo Al-Kashif (aka Abu Ahmad), known as the “Jamal network.” However, the U.S. administration downplays this Egyptian connection, whereas several Arabic-language sources reveal a much larger connection. It is significant to point out that the first attack against the U.S. embassies on September 11, 2012, happened in Cairo. Egypt was the spark and Egyptians were the agents of both attacks. Al-Kashif had been locked up in one of Egypt’s most secure...

CAIRO — A militia in Benghazi, Libya, tied to the killing of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens fled its headquarters on Monday after an hourslong gun battle with a local military unit, a potential turning point in a continuing struggle between Islamists and their foes for control of the city. Libyan army troops during clashes with Ansar al-Shariah, a local hard-line Islamist group, on Monday in Benghazi. At least nine people were killed and more than 50 were wounded, health officials said, as the battle flared out across Benghazi, beginning before dawn. Stores and schools were closed. The local authorities advised...

On Wednesday, Deputy CIA Director Mike Morrell—along with CIA officers who were at the Agency’s Benghazi base on the night of the attack—testified at a classified hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In the closed hearing, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the proceedings, Morrell was asked by Republican members about how the second wave of attackers knew to go to the CIA annex, which was a mile away from the diplomatic mission. Morrell responded that at this point the CIA did not know whether the attackers had known the location of the annex or learned...

FBI agents aren’t allowed to treat individuals associated with terrorist groups as potential threats to the nation, according to a startling, newly discovered FBI directive. The fact that a terrorism suspect is associated with a terrorist group means nothing, according to the FBI document, “Guiding Principles: Touchstone Document on Training.” The “touchstone” document, dated March of this year, is available online but hasn’t been reported on by major media outlets. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents are to be instructed that “mere association with organizations that demonstrate both legitimate (advocacy) and illicit (violent extremism) objectives should not automatically result in a...

A top State Department appointee told Libya´s president one day after the military-style assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that the terror group Ansar al-Shariah was responsible. But four days later, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said on television that it was the product of a spontaneous protest. During a fiery and emotional congressional hearing on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy read aloud from an email dated Sept. 12, 2012 to senior State Department officers, from Elizabeth Jones, the acting Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

BENGHAZI: Libyan protesters ousted a jihadist militia (Ansar Al-Shariah) from its headquarters and seized a raft of other paramilitary bases in second city Benghazi... tens of thousands took to the streets on Friday to protest the power of the militias. The group’s members took flight as hundreds of protesters stormed and then torched its compound... to the alarm of senior officials, the demonstrators also stormed a raft of other paramilitary bases in the city controlled by former rebel units that had declared their loyalty to the central government. Demonstrators paid tribute to Ambassador Stevens and the other Americans killed in...

Ed Klein: Bill Clinton ‘Urging’ Hillary to Release Benghazi Documents That Would ‘Exonerate’ Her, Destroy Obama’s Re-Election Hopes Posted on October 24, 2012 at 10:48pm by Jason Howerton Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya,...

U.S. intelligence believes that assailants connected to al Qaeda in Iraq were among the core group that attacked the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, a U.S. government official told CNN. That would represent the second al Qaeda affiliate associated with the deadly September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Previously, intelligence officials said there were signs of connections to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African wing of the terror group. The revelation that members of al Qaeda in Iraq are suspected of involvement in the Libya attack comes at a time when...

....Even before the attack on the U.S. compound, according to an Oct. 2, 2012 report in The Washington Post, the White House held a series of secret meetings that came out of a growing concern that "al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM) was gaining strength after it took control of the northern parts of the African state of Mali, where it created a new Afghan-like sanctuary. In the last year it has begun to spread its influence across the Sahara. AQIM's weaponry came from post-Gadhafi Libya, whose arsenal was boosting the arms trade from Morocco to Sinai. Israeli sources have...

Officials at the White House and State Department were advised two hours after attackers assaulted the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 that an Islamic militant group had claimed credit for the attack, official emails show. The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials have told The Associated Press. It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador...

Just when the situation in Libya couldn’t get much more embarrassing for the Obama administration, now comes the news that Ahmed Abu Khattala, a leader of the jihadist group Ansar al Shariah who was seen by witnesses directing the attack on the American consulate, is living openly and defiantly in Benghazi. He is lounging around a seaside hotel and breathing defiance in an interview with a New York Times reporter, bragging that Libya’s nascent army is too “chicken” to come after him. He says he has no plans to go into hiding. Although he denied being part of the attack,...

The leader of the Libyan extremist group believed to be behind the deadly assault last month on a U.S. diplomatic complex in Benghazi has yet to be arrested, after being spotted at the scene during the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. Two high-ranking Libyan security officials said Ansar al-Shariah founder Ahmed Abu Khattalah remains at large; he is reported to espouse an ideology similar to that of al-Qaeda's terrorist network. The Sept. 11 attack left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The U.S. government is weighing options for retaliating against the attackers. However, one...

By Scott Wilson and Al Kamen Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor. In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' " The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration...

Fierce fighting broke out on Friday night after crowds trying to storm the Benghazi base of a militia blamed for the death of US ambassador Chris Stevens came under fire. Earlier in the evening protesters calling for an end to militia rule had stormed the headquarters of the Islamic Ansar al-Sharia brigade in the city, setting fire to buildings after pushing past guards who fired in the air. But the protesters ran into a hail of fire when they moved south to storm a much larger secondary base of the militia, whose members are accused of the attack on the...

...Residents of another main eastern city, Darna, have also begun to stand up against Ansar al-Shariah and other militias. The anti-militia fervor in Darna is notable because the city, in the mountains along the Mediterranean coast north of Benghazi, has long had a reputation as a stronghold for Islamic extremists. During the Gadhafi era, it was the hotbed of a deadly Islamist insurgency against his regime. A significant number of the Libyan jihadists who travelled to Afghanistan and Iraq during recent wars came from Darna. During the revolt against him last year, Gadhafi's regime warned that Darna would declare itself...

In a newly disclosed file by WikiLeaks that was written in 2005, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda Bin Qumu was identified as a “probable member of Al Qaida and a member of the African Extremist Network”. The revelation will raise concerns about the range of factions fighting Gadaffi in Libya, some of whom have been associated with Al Qaeda. Qumu was previously a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, but allegedly left the proscribed group in 1998 to join the Taliban. In the report, US investigators classified Qumu as a “medium to high” risk because he was “likely to...