The REAL Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don't Want You to Know (10 page)

In contrast to the State Department’s designation, the Senate’s eighty-five-page report on the Benghazi attack states there is information Jamal’s Network participated in the assault.
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Questions need to be immediately asked as to why in its indictment of the Jamal Network, the State Department does not mention that the group may have participated in the Benghazi assault, an act of war against the United States.

Even the United Nations fingers Jamal for Benghazi. A UN Security Council resolution from October 2013 added Jamal’s Network to its list of sanctioned al-Qaeda groups. Unlike the State Department description, the UN resolution details Jamal’s alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. special mission and nearby CIA annex. A UN narrative summary of the sanctions resolution reads: “Muhammad Jamal set up a training camp in Libya where Libyan and foreign violent extremists were trained. Some of the attackers of the U.S. Mission in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 have been identified as associates of Muhammad Jamal, and some of the Benghazi attackers reportedly trained at MJN camps in Libya.”
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Those are pretty damning charges against the Jamal Network, yet the information somehow didn’t make it to the State Department.

The
Daily Beast
confirmed an October 2012
Wall Street Journal
report that fighters affiliated with Jamal’s group participated in the Benghazi attack. The
Daily Beast
’s Eli Lake further quoted Seth Jones, associate director for the international security and defense policy center at the RAND Corporation, about Jamal’s involvement. “There was at least one member and may have been more members from the Mohammed Jamal network on the compound for the attack on Benghazi along with members of Ansar al-Sharia and members of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” Jones stated.
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Guess who sprang Jamal Network leader Muhammad Jamal from Egyptian prison following the downfall of abandoned U.S. ally Mubarak? None other than militants from Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Also freed from prison during the Brotherhood-led revolution of 2011 was Mohammed al-Zawahiri, the brother of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Mohammed al-Zawahiri was one of the backers of a protest at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, the same day as the Benghazi attack.
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Lost in the news media coverage about the Benghazi attack was that one day before the assaults, on September 10, 2012, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video on a jihadi online forum, calling for jihadists, and particularly those in Libya, to mount attacks against Americans in Libya, to avenge the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi. As noted earlier in this chapter, al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda operative, was killed
by a U.S. drone strike. “His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders,” al-Zawahiri said. The forty-two-minute video was released fewer than eighteen hours before the Benghazi attack.
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In May, CNN quoted sources disclosing several Yemeni men belonging to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, took part in the Benghazi attacks.
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AQAP, primarily active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, is considered one of the deadliest members of the al-Qaeda franchise.

One senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that “three or four members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” took part in the attack. Another source quoted by CNN as being briefed on the Benghazi investigation said Western intelligence services “suspect the men may have been sent by the group specifically to carry out the attack.

“But it’s not been ruled out that they were already in the city and participated as the opportunity arose,” continued the CNN report. In
chapter 10
, we will trace those AQAP members to Algeria, Mali, and beyond and probe the involvement of various groups tied to other recent anti-Western attacks.

Now that we see the most likely scenario involves a panoply of jihadist groups participating in the attack, the obvious question becomes why they were acting in unison. What common thread runs through all these groups? Certainly each one is friendly toward the cause of al-Qaeda and creating
an Islamic caliphate. But why attack the obscure U.S. mission? Of course, there is the strong possibility, explored at length in this book, that these organizations were acting to thwart the alleged weapons collection effort headquartered inside the U.S. Benghazi mission. (We allegedly provided weapons to the Mid-East rebels and now were purportedly collecting those weapons, plus missiles looted from Gaddafi. Some of the weapons may have been passed to rebels in Syria.) This would certainly be a major motivator. Jihadist groups throughout Libya and beyond were directly threatened by the U.S. weapons collection campaign.

Some have posited Iranian involvement in the Benghazi attack. While I have found no concrete evidence supporting this link, the theory is quite interesting and does make sense. Iranian involvement could help explain why the mission and nearby CIA annex had been targeted. If the mission were aiding Mid-East rebels in Syria, as we documented, what would al-Qaeda and its affiliates stand to gain from organizing an attack against the very headquarters that was their pipeline for more weapons to be sent to Syria? Al-Qaeda was looking to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

One detail that always stood out for me was the apparent lack of a centralized al-Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack. Instead, it seems we are talking about local al-Qaeda–linked militias. Some of the groups may have even parted ways from the central al-Qaeda franchise. Khattala, for example, was said to have been displeased with some rebel groups, accusing them of abandoning Islamic
doctrine.
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Were these ragtag organizations operating under the patronage of a state sponsor like Iran that absolutely would stand to gain from assaulting the compound that was allegedly so central to the effort of toppling Iran’s main ally, Syrian’s Assad?

Iran’s use of scores of local militias from different countries would serve as a brilliant smoke screen to obscure its own criminal involvement. While we are busy tracing the various participating groups to Mali, Egypt, and beyond, it could be these organizations were subsets of larger al-Qaeda–linked groups acting, wittingly or not, as hired guns for Iran. The Iranians certainly have a long and sordid history of state sponsorship of Sunni Muslim terror organizations, including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committees.

In what may be a coincidence, it just so happens that former Hillary Clinton deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan reportedly “secretly jetted to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman” to meet with Iranian officials as part of backdoor talks to broker a nuclear agreement with Tehran.
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Sullivan was also Hillary’s point man in helping to craft the now-discredited White House talking points on Benghazi.
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Some on the Internet have been using that link to finger Iran in Benghazi.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA worker and former employee of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, asked whether Iran was behind the Benghazi attack. He wrote: “Iran, who supports Syria’s Assad, has a very effective intelligence organization. Once they learned
that Libya was supplying fighters in Syria, do you think there is any chance that they (the Iranians) would want to shutdown that operation?”
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Johnson further questioned:

1. Did Iran infiltrate the fighters being trained by the United States and, in the process, gather intel that they subsequently used to target both the “Consulate” and the CIA Annex?
2. Did Iran prepare a cover for action and plant information on Facebook and other social media sites claiming credit for the attack in the name of Ansar Al Sharia?”

Writing at
Israel National News
, Mark Langfan surmises “Benghazi leads to Iran, not al Qaeda.” Without citing evidence, Langfan says Obama is “doing everything in the universe to shut the Benghazi investigation” because “the truth of the Benghazi gun-running operation immediately leads to the likely conclusion that Iran, and only Iran, had the motive to attack our Benghazi consulate and murder Ambassador Stevens.”
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Freelance journalist Marinka Peschmann wrote that a “Benghazi whistleblower source” told her “the immediate concern for the Obama-Clinton regime after the attack in Benghazi was to cover up the connection with Iran and Syria to Ansar al Sharia and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”
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Was Iran indeed involved? We cannot dismiss that as a possibility. While I have not yet seen any credible evidence, the notion is certainly logical. At this point all we can do is
continue to ask questions and analyze the new information as it becomes available. Perhaps some of that information will lead us to the mullahs in Tehran.

N
ot only has the White House obfuscated legislative investigations into the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attack. And not only have key officials been caught misinforming the public about the events of that night. In one of the most mind-blowing moves of all, Obama himself essentially sabotaged an operation in which Special Forces were just hours from capturing one of the most important terrorist figures charged with carrying out the Benghazi murders. Even CNN, the
Washington Post
, and top U.S. officials are asking uncomfortable questions in a case that has rendered it nearly impossible for our forces to capture the militant. The odd case requires a journey into a split-screen, real-life movie unfolding on two separate fronts in Libya.

Questions need to be raised about the timing and manner in which the United States in October 2013 seized wanted militant Abu Anas al-Libi, who was living openly
in his home in Libya and likely could have been captured at a different time.

(Anas al-Libi is not to be confused with al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2012. I myself have been confused at times with similar terrorist names. Some may recall the time WABC Radio’s John Batchelor and I called the wrong terrorist during an on-air interview and proceeded to grill said terrorist for an attack that his group took no part in, mistaking him for another jihadist with a similar name, whose phone number had been stored in my cell phone the same way. Batchelor and I did not realize what happened until after our interview with one very confused terrorist had ended.)

It is now becoming increasingly clear the decision to capture al-Libi all but thwarted an ongoing operation in which covert U.S. operatives were tracking the every move of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a senior leader of the Ansar al-Sharia militia wanted for the Benghazi attack. The operatives were on standby, ready to seize Khattala, waiting for orders to carry out the most significant seizure of a suspect charged with the Benghazi attack. The Libyan government reportedly granted the United States permission to seize both al-Libi and Khattala. Due to al-Libi’s capture, the Libyan government has clamped down on any further U.S. raids, making it astronomically difficult to go after Benghazi suspects.

Let’s start with Khattala. In August 2013, almost one year after the assault, the United States filed the first criminal charges in the attack. Khattala, whom witnesses placed at the
scene during the initial assault on the U.S. special mission, was reportedly charged under seal, meaning the details of the accusations are unknown. The FBI and Justice Department refused to comment to CNN, which first reported on the charges.
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Some witnesses and U.S. authorities called Khattala a ringleader of the attacks.
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We discussed in previous chapters that Khattala’s al-Qaeda–linked Ansar al-Sharia group advocates strict Sharia implementation and the creation of the Islamic caliphate. The group infamously first took credit for the attack in social media, while later claiming it “didn’t participate [in the attack] as a sole entity.”
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Witnesses told the media that not only did they see Ansar al-Sharia men laying siege to the compound; they also spotted vehicles brandishing Ansar al-Sharia’s logo at the scene.

Khattala went somewhat underground after charges were filed in the United States. Still, prior to and in the days following the filings, he gave several interviews to the international news media in which he praised the attacks but denied personal responsibility. Speaking to the
New York Times
, Khattala hailed his Ansar al-Sharia organization as “good people with good goals, which are trying to implement Islamic law,” and who are “bigger than a brigade […] It is a movement.”
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Now let’s take a closer look at Anas al-Libi. He was fingered for allegedly helping to plan the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The indictment accuses al-Libi, a computer expert for al-Qaeda, of personally carrying out surveillance of
potential U.S., British, French, and Israeli targets in Nairobi for possible attack by al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
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Like Khattala, al-Libi gave scores of interviews to the international news media, including some from his home.

Al-Libi was seized in a very public operation in Tripoli by U.S. Special Forces on October 5 in a daylight raid outside his home while his family looked on. Family members immediately and predictably told the news media about the raid. The Associated Press quoted al-Libi’s family saying that foreign-looking agents in a three-car convoy seized al-Libi while they watched. Al-Libi’s brother, Nabih, told the AP he was parking his car outside his house after dawn prayers when the gunmen in the convoy encircled his vehicle and seized his gun before grabbing al-Libi. Nabih also told the AP that al-Libi’s wife watched the raid unfold from her window.
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At the time of this very public raid, Special Forces were only hours from also nabbing Benghazi ringleader Khattala, whom they’d been tracking for months, U.S. officials told CNN.
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