Chris Stevens, US liaison to the Libyan rebels in Benghazi
US Ambassador to Libya pays his respects at graves of sailors from USS Intrepid, 1804
Chris Stevens, US Ambassador to Libya - September 11, 2012 - Benghazi
U.S.
ambassador's killers must not go unpunished
Even words like shocking and outrageous fall short in
characterizing the killings of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three
other American diplomats Tuesday in
Libya.
Stevens' killing, the first for a U.S.
ambassador on duty since 1979, was all the more painful coming on the day when
Americans marked the 9-11 anniversary.
Reports were emerging Wednesday that the attacks in
Libya
had been planned by terrorists, possibly linked to
al-Qaida, who took advantage of the disruption created by a
mob that stormed the U.S. Consulate in
Benghazi.
The mob was protesting an American-made video that ridiculed
and insulted Islam. It also sparked
protests in Egypt, where thugs
scaled
the U.S. Embassy walls in
Cairo
to tear down the American flag and put up a black banner associated with
radical Islamists.
The offensive video is amateurish, produced by a real-estate
developer in
California who calls
Islam "a
cancer." Reportedly he has slipped into hiding. How
valiant of him.
There's a
Florida
connection to this story: Terry Jones, the
Gainesville pastor notorious worldwide for preaching
hate against Muslims, has been promoting the video. Jones incited deadly riots
in
Afghanistan
in 2010 and 2011, first by threatening to burn copies of the Quran, then by incinerating
one in his church.
The film and Jones' efforts to promote it are reprehensible,
but they're no justification for murder. No expression of free speech is, no
matter how offensive.
Stevens could not have been a less deserving target for
hostility in the new
Libya.
At great personal risk, he served as the
U.S.
envoy to the rebels who rose up against and eventually toppled dictator
Moammar Gadhafi last year. Stevens had spent
much of his career building better relations between the
United
States and countries in the
Mideast
and
North Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said the attack in
Libya
was the work of "a small and savage group," not the Libyan
government. Now it's up to that fledgling regime to take the lead on pursuing
and punishing the cowards behind the crime, and to better protect diplomats on
its soil. It'll be a test of whether
Libya
can be a reliable
U.S.
ally and a respectable member of the international community.
Other new governments, including
Egypt's, also have a responsibility to ensure the safety of
envoys from the
United States
and other countries on their soil.
Stevens' killing must not stand. If Libya's
leaders cannot bring the culprits to justice, the U.S.
must. The safety of America's
diplomats, and the nation's continued resolve to fight terror, are at stake.
U.S.
vows to hunt down perpetrators of Benghazi
attack
By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 7:31 PM EDT,
Wed September 12, 2012
Washington (CNN) -- The United
States on Wednesday vowed to avenge the
killings of its ambassador to Libya
and three other Americans, moving warships toward the Libyan coast and
preparing to track the suspected perpetrators with surveillance drones,
officials said.
The slain ambassador,
Chris
Stevens, helped save
Libya's
eastern city of
Benghazi during
last year's revolution. He died there Tuesday night, along with another
diplomat and two State Department security officers, when a mob stormed the
U.S. Consulate and set it ablaze.
The Benghazi
consulate was one of several American diplomatic missions that faced protests
after the online release of a film that ridiculed Muslims and depicted the
Prophet Mohammed as a child molester, womanizer and ruthless killer.
But U.S.
sources said Wednesday the four-hour assault in Benghazi
had been planned, with the attackers using the protest as a diversion.
"We will not waver in our commitment to see that
justice is done for this terrible act," President Barack Obama said.
"And make no mistake, justice will be done."
A senior U.S.
official told CNN that American surveillance drones are expected to join the
hunt for jihadists who may be tied to the attack. The drones are expected to
gather intelligence that will be turned over to Libyan officials for strikes,
the official said.
But two American destroyers also are being moved toward the
Libyan coast, two U.S.
officials told CNN. Both the USS Laboon and USS McFaul are equipped with
satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be programmed to hit
specific targets.
The move "will give the administration
flexibility" in case the administration orders action against targets
inside Libya,
one senior official said. The McFaul was making a port call on Mediterranean island
of Crete, while the Laboon was
outside Gibraltar, a few days away from Libya.
Libya's
leaders apologized for the attack, with Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib
calling it a "cowardly, criminal act." And Obama said that despite
the inflammatory movie, the violence was unwarranted.
"Since our founding, the United
States has been a nation that respects all
faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of
others," he said. "But there is absolutely no justification for this
type of senseless violence -- none."
U.S.
and NATO warplanes helped the Benghazi-based rebellion drive on Libyan
strongman Moammar Gadhafi last August. The jihadists suspected in Tuesday
night's attack "are a very small minority" who are taking advantage
of a fledgling democracy, Ali Suleiman Aujali, the Libyan ambassador the United
States, told CNN's "Amanpour."
"The good thing about this is the majority -- 95, 98%
of the Libyan people -- care not for this," he said.
Sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya
say a pro-al Qaeda group responsible for a previous armed assault on the Benghazi
consulate is the chief suspect. A senior defense official told CNN the drones
would be part of "a stepped-up, more focused search" for a particular
insurgent cell that may have been behind the killings.
The FBI also is investigating, the bureau said Wednesday.
In June, a senior Libyan official told CNN that U.S.
controllers were already flying the unmanned craft over suspected jihadist
training camps in eastern Libya
because of concerns about rising activity by al Qaeda and like-minded groups in
the region.
Tuesday's attack took place on the 11th anniversary of the
al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington.
But White House National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said assigning
any motive for the attack was "premature."
"As the president said, make no mistake, we will work
with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our
people." Vietor said.
Gunfire erupted outside the consulate about 10 p.m. (4 p.m.
ET), senior administration officials told reporters. The officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the attackers broke into the
consulate compound about 15 minutes later.
The main building was set ablaze by a rocket-propelled
grenade, a senior U.S.
official familiar with the details told CNN earlier. Three people -- Stevens,
Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith and a U.S.
security officer -- were inside at the time, according to the senior
administration officials who briefed reporters Wednesday afternoon.
The security officer managed to get out and brought others
back to retrieve Smith and Stevens, the officials said, but they found Smith
dead and Stevens missing. The ambassador's body was handed over to U.S.
personnel at the airport after dawn, the officials said.
"There are reports out there that I cannot confirm that
he was brought to the hospital by Libyans who found him," one of the
officials said. "Obviously, he had to get there somehow. No Americans were
responsible for that."
Two U.S.
security guards were killed and two more wounded in the next hour, as they
attempted to re-establish control of the consulate compound. Libyan security
forces helped retake the complex about 2:30 a.m.,
the officials said.
American sources could not say whether the attackers instigated
the protest or merely took advantage of it, and they say they don't believe
Stevens was specifically targeted.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dispatched Stevens to Libya
to be the American link to rebel forces battling to overthrow Gadhafi.
"He arrived on a cargo ship in the port
of Benghazi and began building our
relationships with Libya's
revolutionaries," Clinton said
Wednesday. "He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying
to build a better Libya."
At a Washington
news conference held by American religious leaders to condemn both the violence
and the anti-Muslim film, Aujali called Stevens "the right man for the
right position for the right time."
"He believed in the Libyan people," said Aujali,
who said Stevens was a personal friend. "He believed that America
should support the Libyan people to get their country back. We need to practice
democracy like other nations in the world."
Clinton said
Smith was a 10-year veteran of the State Department, a husband and a father of
two. The two other victims had not been named Wednesday evening as the
government worked to contact their families.
Clinton said
their deaths are "not easy." But she added, "We must be
clear-eyed even in our grief."
"This was an attack by a small and savage group, not
the people or government of Libya.
Everywhere Chris and his team went in Libya,
in a country scarred by war and tyranny, they were hailed as friends and
partners. And when the attack came yesterday, Libyans stood and fought to
defend our post."
Meanwhile, the protests over the video resumed Wednesday
night in Egypt,
where several men scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy and tore down its
American flag on Tuesday. Police used tear gas on protesters outside Cairo
embassy and in Tahrir Square,
the epicenter of the revolt that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in
2011.
Stevens spoke Arabic and French and was among the first U.S.
diplomats sent to Libya
in 2007, when Washington and Tripoli
resumed ties. He was the sixth U.S.
ambassador to be killed in the line of service, while two others have died in
plane crashes.
The last time an American ambassador was murdered was in
1979, when the envoy to Afghanistan,
Adolph Dubs, was kidnapped and killed during an attempt to rescue him,
according to State Department records.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
The Driving Force Behind Anti-Americanism
Humiliation and Rage in Libya
by VIJAY PRASHAD
Al-Nass (The People), and other television channels of
“Satellite Salafism,” broadcast news of a year old mediocre film trailer about
the life of the Prophet Mohammad, made by an Israeli-Californian and championed
by a Florida-based Christian pastor. Across the waters, radicals spurred each
other on. The reactions in Cairo
and Benghazi were swift. Crowds
formed in front of the US
embassy in Egypt
and the US
consulate in Libya,
storming them, and, in Benghazi, a
rocket-fired grenade – it seems – killed four US
officials, including the US
ambassador to Libya,
Christopher Stevens.
The crowds in both Cairo
and Benghazi included not only
radical Islamists, but also groups such as Egypt’s
Ultras, the soccer fan club that played an important role in the 2011
revolution. The media has concentrated on the presence of bearded men and black
flags to paint these protests as the work of Salafis, and to point the finger
at Ansar al-Shariah and other fringe groups. The black flag (the banner of the
eagle) does not, of course, belong solely to al-Qaeda or even to Islamic radicalism.
It has become a commonplace symbol used by those who want a more robust Islamic
presence in the public sphere as well as by those who want to live under an
Islamic theocracy. Both claim the flag, so its presence is not conclusive about
the currents that took part in this, and other such events. It will take time
to fully understand the roots of such violent acts, after careful forensic
reporting on those who came to the protests. Nevertheless, some preliminary
observations can be made regarding the ongoing social convulsions, at least in
the Libyan case.
Benghazi’s Long
Resentment of the West
This is not the first such protest in Benghazi,
the eastern city of Libya.
Over the course of this year, tumult has been the order of the day. In January,
a crowd stormed the headquarters of the National Transitional Council. In
April, a bomb was thrown at a convoy that included the head of the UN Mission
to Libya, and
another bomb exploded at a courthouse. In May, a rocket was fired at the Red
Cross office. A convoy carrying the head of the British consulate was attacked
in June, and since then the consulate has been abandoned. In August, a pipe
bomb exploded in front of the US
consulate building.
Frustration with the West is commonplace amongst sections of
society, who are not Gaddafi loyalists, but on the contrary fought valiantly in
the 2011 civil war against Gaddafi. The NATO intervention did not mollify a
much more fundamental grievance they have against the US-UK, namely the sense
of humiliation of the Arab world against the arrogance of Western domination in
cultural and political terms.
An earlier incident helps to highlight this point. In late
2005, protests across the world took place in reaction to a Danish
newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, publishing cartoons that demeaned the Prophet
Mohammad. This upsurge came to eastern Libya
in early 2006. An Italian minister, Roberto Calderoli, wore a t-shirt that bore
that offensive cartoon. A demonstration of more than 1,000 people, mainly
political Islamists and pious Muslims, gathered in front of the Italian
consulate in Benghazi on 17 February 2006. The Gaddafi regime
sent in its armed police, who opened fire, killing 11. After the police firing,
a section of the middle-class that was not sympathetic to the Islamists turned
against the Gaddafi regime. Intellectuals such as Fathi Terbil, Terbil Salwa
and Idris al-Mesmari joined a platform to bring justice not only to the
families of the slain in 2006, but also for the families of those members of
the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and others who were massacred in Abu
Salim prison in 1996.
To commemorate the slain on the fifth anniversary of the
firing, on 17 February 2011,
Terbil and others organized a demonstration in Benghazi.
It was to block this protest that Terbil was arrested on February 15, and it
was to demand his release that the crowds came out in Benghazi
inaugurating the major upsurge against Gaddafi in 2011. Gaddafi lost control of
the entire eastern part of the country within a week. The social roots of
humiliation played an important part in the February Revolution in Libya.
Western Support for Gaddafi Not Forgotten
The protests were not just about the cartoons. They were
also about the 1996 massacre in Abu Salim prison and about the collaboration of
the Gaddafi regime with the War on Terror. From the late 1980s, Gaddafi’s
regime had harshly repressed any signs of political Islam. Prisons were filled
with bearded men, and there was no tolerance for any dissent amongst the
population along Islamic lines. This is the reason why LIFG members fled the
country for Saudi Arabia,
Sudan, and of
course Afghanistan
and Pakistan.
The Gaddafi regime was not able to reach the militants of the LIFG and
associated bodies because it had no capacity to reach them in those far off
locales.
After 9/11, when the West wanted to outsource torture to
prisons outside its direct control, Gaddafi (like Mubarak and Syria’s
Assad) offered his services. In March 2004, the US
opened a diplomatic mission in Tripoli,
and the CIA opened up an office there as
well. Later that month, Tony Blair came to Libya, the first British prime
minister to visit the country since 1943, and he spent considerable time
talking about commercial interests (to get Shell its oil concessions) and the
“common cause” in fighting terrorism. Blair was excited to meet Gaddafi (the
“Leader,” as the British faxes to Tripoli
put it) in his tent because “journalists would love it. If this is possible,
No. 10 would be grateful.” As quid pro quo, the British organized the
“rendition” of LIFG militants into the hands of the Gaddafi regime. “This was
the least we could do for you and for Libya
to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years,” wrote
Sir Mark Allen, head of Britain’s
MI6 to Gaddafi’s henchman Moussa Koussa on 18 March 2004. The specific matter here was the “safe
arrival of Abu Abdallah Sadiq,” the nom de plume of Abdul Hakim Belhadj, former
emir of LIFG and now leader of the al-Watan political party (and a crucial
leader of the military part of the 2011 Revolution).
A comprehensive Human Rights Watch report,
Delivered
into Enemy Hands: US-Led Abuse and Rendition of Opponents to Gaddafi’s Libya,
released last week details the stories of a number of the leading figures who
were arrested around the world, tortured in US-run prisons in Afghanistan and
elsewhere, and then delivered back to Libya. They were handed over to the
Libyan authorities with full-awareness that they were going to be tortured or
even killed. Belhadj and his wife, Fatima Bouchar (four months pregnant at the
time), were picked up in
Malaysia
and allegedly tortured by the
CIA in
Bangkok,
Thailand. Bouchar told
Human Rights Watch, “They knew I was pregnant. It was obvious,” and yet, she,
who had no affiliations with any militant groups, was chained up and given no
food for five days. The couple were then taken to
Libya.
In one fax, the
CIA thanks the Libyan
security service for its “hospitality” and says that its visit was “very
productive.” When the couple arrived in
Libya,
Moussa Koussa chillingly greeted Belhadj, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
In April 2012, Belhadj told the European Parliament, “All we
seek is justice. We hope the new Libya,
freed from its dictator, will have positive relationships with the West. But
this relationship must be built on respect and justice. Only by admitting and
apologizing for past mistakes can we move forward together as friends.” People
like Belhadj stand for a social section that has had its dignity compromised by
Western actions. A longing for dignity drives revolts. It is what compelled the
rebellion against Gaddafi’s regime. It is what remains a major catalyst for
unrest in the region against Western interests, particularly since there will
be no apology for the rendition program or for the close, even servile,
collaboration with the Gaddafi regime from, at least, 2003 to 2011. Gaddafi’s
henchman, Moussa Koussa was spirited off on a British military plane in March
2011, payback for his services to MI6, and now lives in a comfortable bungalow
in Doha, Qatar.
Neither he, nor his friend Sir Mark Allen, nor the CIA’s
Steve Kappes, will ever have to admit to what they did, apologize for it, or be
charged with grave violations of international law.
The humiliations accumulate without outlet.
Libyan Rage Despite Elections
The elections in July heralded an opening for Libya.
The results were celebrated in the West, since it seemed that unlike Tunisia
and Egypt, the
Islamists had not garnered the fruits of the revolts. The neo-liberal sections,
led by Mahmoud Jibril’s National Forces Alliance won a majority. Jibril had
been the political face of the Libyan Diaspora. After a career in the Gulf, he
returned to Libya
in the 2000s at the urging of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who wanted to convert his
country into a “Kuwait
on the Mediterranean.” When things did not work out as
planned, Jibril got frustrated. He had no political base. When the rebellion
broke out, Jibril threw in his lot with it, and thanks to NATO intervention,
was able to use his affinity with the West to put himself into a position of
political power. His victory in the polls vindicated NATO, which now felt that
it had its man in charge – open to sweetheart deals for Western oil companies
and eager to push further the neo-liberal agenda that was constrained five
years ago.
The rules for the July elections provided Jibril’s Alliance
with a clear road to victory. Only 80 of the parliament’s 200 seats could be
contested by political parties, with the rest were to be filled with
independents. That was always going to be an advantage for Jibril’s Alliance
because it could attract these parliamentarians into its bloc. The whiff of
proximity to the West, and the fears of Islamism, helped cement that linkage.
Very strict rules against the Muslim Brotherhood’s use of its primary ideology
constrained Belhadj’s political force, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP),
from moving its own agenda. Furthermore, disagreements between two central
Islamist leaders, Ali al-Salabi and Belhadj, prevented the JCP
from fighting the election with robust unity.
Gaddafi’s anti-Islamist propaganda of the past two decades
certainly has not dissolved, and with only 18 days to run an election campaign,
it was clear that the JCP would not have
been able to make inroads into sections who remain suspicious of it, and are
yet sympathetic to its general orientation. That is to say, they might not
share its tendency toward theocracy, but it does share its frustrations at what
is perceived to be the Arab world’s enduring humiliation at the hands of the
West. Jibril does not know how to address this humiliation, comfortable as he
is with the Western agenda. The results of the July elections, therefore, are
not representative of the social character of the country, where political
Islam plays an important role. Talk of the “defeat” of the Islamists in the
ballot box further inflames a section that believes that it remains integral to
the future of Libya.
It is too early to make a full judgment about the attack on
the US
consulate. Details are slowly emerging about the nature of the protest and the
firing of the grenade at the consular building itself. But it is not too early
to assert that the protest emerged out of a long-standing sense of humiliation
and anger, at the sanctification of Islamophobia in the West and at the failure
of the political institutions in the new North Africa to
take into consideration the sacrifices and the programs of the Islamists.
This article originally appeared in
Al-Akhbar.
U.S.
sends marines, warships to Libya
after attack kills U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, 3 others
Originally published: September 12, 2012 7:46 AM
Updated: September 12, 2012
7:50 PM
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BENGHAZI, Libya - The U.S. dispatched an elite group of
Marines along with two warships to Tripoli on Wednesday following a mob attack
that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. U.S.
officials are investigating whether the violence — initially blamed on an
anti-Islamic video — was a terrorist attack planned to coincide with the
anniversary of 9/11.
Tuesday's stunning attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi
poses a daunting task for U.S.
and Libyan investigators: searching for the culprits in a city rife with heavy
weapons, multiple militias, armed Islamist groups and little police control.
The one-story villa that serves as the consulate was a
burned-out wreck after the crowd armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled
grenades rampaged through it. Slogans of "God is great" and
"Muhammad is God's Prophet" were scrawled across its scorched walls.
Libyan civilians strolled freely in charred rooms with furniture and papers
strewn everywhere.
President Barack Obama vowed in a Rose Garden address that
the U.S. would
"work with the Libyan government to bring to justice" those who
killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, information manager Sean Smith and two other
Americans who were not identified. Three other Americans were wounded.
Stevens was the first U.S.
ambassador killed in the line of duty in 30 years.
"We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious
beliefs of others, but there is absolutely no justification for this type of
senseless violence. None," said Obama, who also ordered increased security
at U.S.
diplomatic posts abroad.
Republican Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of
showing weakness in the consulate killings, but the president retorted that his
rival "seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later." Some
in the GOP called Romney's remarks hasty.
The mob attack was initially presumed to have been a
spontaneous act triggered by outrage over a movie mocking Islam's Prophet
Muhammad that was produced in the U.S.
and excerpted on YouTube. The video also drew protests in Cairo,
where angry ultraconservatives climbed the U.S. Embassy's walls, tore down an
American flag and replaced it with an Islamic banner.
But a U.S.
counterterrorism official said the Benghazi
violence was "too coordinated or professional" to be spontaneous. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
discuss the incident publicly.
The FBI was sending evidence teams to Libya,
a law enforcement official said.
Libya's new leadership — scrambling to preserve ties with
Washington after U.S. help to overthrow former dictator Moammar Gadhafi — vowed
to find those behind the attack. Interim President Mohammed el-Megarif
apologized to the United States
for what he called the "cowardly" assault, which also killed several
Libyan security guards at the consulate in the eastern city.
Parliament speaker Omar al-Houmidan suggested the attack
might have been planned, saying the mob "may have had foreign
loyalties" — an apparent reference to international terrorists. "We
are not sure. Everything is possible," he said.
A Libyan jihadist group, the Omar Abdel-Rahman Brigades,
claimed responsibility for a bomb that went off outside the Benghazi
consulate in June, causing no injuries. The group, which also carried out
several attacks on the International Red Cross in Libya,
said at the time that the bomb was revenge for the killing of al-Qaida's No. 2,
Abu Yahya al-Libi, in a U.S.
drone strike in Pakistan.
About 50 U.S. Marines were sent to Libya
to guard U.S.
diplomatic facilities. The Marines are members of an elite group known as a
Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, or FAST,
whose role is to respond on short notice to terrorism threats and to reinforce
security at embassies.
The Marines, sent from a base in Spain,
were headed initially to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli,
not to Benghazi, according to U.S.
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to talk to the press.
The consulate attack illustrated the breakdown in security
in Libya, where
the government is still trying to establish authority months after Gadhafi's
fall.
There also were indications that two distinct attacks took
place — one on the consulate, then a second hours later early Wednesday on a
nearby house to which the staff had been evacuated.
The crowd of several thousand that descended on the
consulate was armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, said Wanis
el-Sharef, the deputy interior minister of Libya's
eastern region.
A small contingent of Libyan security protecting the
facility fired in the air, trying to intimidate the mob. But faced with
superior size and firepower, the Libyan security withdrew, el-Sharef said.
Gunmen stormed the building, looted its contents and torched it, he said.
Details of how the Americans were killed were still unclear.
Stevens, 52, and a consulate staffer who had stayed behind
in the building died in the initial attack, el-Sharef said. The rest of the
staff successfully evacuated to a nearby building, preparing to move to Benghazi
Airport after daybreak to fly to
the capital of Tripoli, he said.
Hours after the storming of the consulate, a separate group
of gunmen attacked the other building, opening fire on the more than 30
Americans and Libyans inside. Two more Americans were killed, he said.
Dr. Ziad Abu Zeid, who treated Stevens, told The Associated
Press that he died of asphyxiation, apparently from smoke. In a sign of the
chaos, Stevens was brought by Libyans to the Benghazi
Medical Center
with no other Americans, and no one at the facility knew who he was, Abu Zeid
said.
He said he tried to revive Stevens for about 90 minutes
"with no success." The ambassador was bleeding in his stomach because
of the asphyxiation but had no other injuries, the doctor said.
Widely regarded as one of the most effective American envoys
to the Arab world, Stevens brokered tribal disputes and conducted U.S.
outreach efforts in Jerusalem, Cairo,
Damascus and Riyadh.
As a rising star in U.S.
foreign policy, he retuned to Libya
four months ago, determined to see a democracy rise where Gadhafi's
dictatorship flourished for four decades.
Smith, 34, was an Air Force veteran who had worked as an
information management officer for 10 years in posts such as Brussels,
Baghdad and Pretoria.
Smith was also well-known in the video game community.
The bloodshed stunned many Libyans, especially since Stevens
was a popular envoy among different factions and politicians, including
Islamists, and was seen as a supporter of their uprising against Gadhafi.
The leader of Ansar al-Shariah, an armed ultraconservative
Islamist group, denied any involvement in the attack.
"We never approve of killing civilians, especially
those who helped us," Youssef Jihani said in a reference to Stevens.
"We are well-educated and religious."
The violence in Libya
raised worries that further protests could break out around the Muslim world,
but the reaction was limited.
The two-hour movie that sparked the Cairo
protests, titled "Innocence of Muslims," came to attention in Egypt
after its trailer was dubbed into Arabic and posted on YouTube. The
video-sharing website blocked access to it Wednesday. The trailer depicts
Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way,
showing him having sex and calling for massacres.
In Cairo, some
200 Islamists staged a second day of protest outside the U.S. Embassy on
Wednesday, but there were no more attempts to scale the embassy walls. After
nightfall, the group dwindled and some protesters scuffled with police, who fired
tear gas and dispersed them, emptying the streets.
In a statement on his official Facebook page, Egypt's
Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, condemned the movie, saying the government
was responsible for protecting diplomatic missions as well as the freedom of
speech and peaceful protest.
But, he added, authorities "will confront with full
determination any irresponsible attempt to break the law."
Romney's criticism of Obama didn't mesh completely with
events in Cairo.
A U.S. Embassy statement that Romney referred to as akin to
apology was issued by the Cairo
embassy at midday on Tuesday at a
time the staff was aware of still-peaceful demonstrations nearby. It was four
or five hours later when the mob breached the compound's walls and tried to
burn a U.S.
flag, and later still when the Libya
attack happened.
The embassy statement condemned "the continuing efforts
by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we
condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions," and noted that
religious freedom is a cornerstone of American democracy.
About 50 protesters burned American flags outside the U.S.
Embassy in Tunisia's
capital Wednesday but were kept away from the building by reinforced security.
And in Gaza City,
dozens of protesters carrying swords, axes and black flags chanted "Shame
on everyone who insults the prophet." The rally was organized by
supporters of a militant group aligned with the ruling Hamas movement.
Afghanistan's
government sought to avert any protests. President Hamid Karzai condemned the
movie, and authorities also temporarily shut down access to YouTube, said Aimal
Marjan, general director of Information Technology at the Ministry of
Communications.
A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile, a 56-year-old California
real estate developer, said he wrote, produced and directed the movie.
He told the AP he was an Israeli Jew and an American
citizen. But Israeli officials said they had not heard of Bacile and there was
no record of him being a citizen. They spoke on condition of anonymity because
they are not permitted to share personal information with the media.
Separately, the film was being promoted by an extreme
anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United
States.
Broken pots and rubble lie at the burned-out entrance to the
U.S. consulate
in Benghazi, Libya,
Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012,
following an attack the night before by protesters angry over a film that
ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The U.S.
ambassador to Libya
and three other Americans were killed in the attack. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri)
US sends Marines to Libya
after deadly attack
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
Associated Press / September 12, 2012
BENGHAZI, Libya
(AP) — The U.S. dispatched an elite group of Marines to Tripoli
on Wednesday following a mob attack that killed the U.S.
ambassador to Libya
and three other Americans. U.S.
officials are investigating whether the violence was a backlash to an
anti-Islamic video with ties to Coptic Christians, or a plot to coincide with
the anniversary of 9/11.
Tuesday’s stunning attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi
poses a daunting task for U.S.
and Libyan investigators: searching for the culprits in a city rife with heavy
weapons, multiple militias, armed Islamist groups and little police control.
The one-story villa that serves as the consulate was a
burned-out wreck after the crowd armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled
grenades rampaged through it. Slogans of ‘‘God is great’’ and ‘‘Muhammad is
God’s Prophet’’ were scrawled across its scorched walls. Libyan civilians
strolled freely in charred rooms with furniture and papers strewn everywhere.
President Barack Obama vowed in a Rose Garden address that
the U.S. would
‘‘work with the Libyan government to bring to justice’’ those who killed
Ambassador Chris Stevens, information manager Sean Smith and two other
Americans who were not identified. Three other Americans were wounded.
Stevens was the first U.S.
ambassador killed in the line of duty in 30 years.
‘‘We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs
of others, but there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless
violence. None,’’ said Obama, who also ordered increased security at U.S.
diplomatic posts abroad.
Republican Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of
showing weakness in the consulate killings, but the president retorted that his
rival ‘‘seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.’’ Some in the
GOP called Romney’s remarks hasty.
The mob attack on Tuesday — the 11th anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strike in the U.S. — was initially presumed to have
been a spontaneous act triggered by outrage over a movie called ‘‘Innocence of
Muslims’’ that mocked Islam’s Prophet Muhammad that was produced in the U.S.
and excerpted on YouTube. The amateurish video also drew protests in Cairo,
where angry ultraconservatives climbed the U.S. Embassy’s walls, tore down an
American flag and replaced it with an Islamic banner.
But a U.S.
counterterrorism official said the Benghazi
violence was ‘‘too coordinated or professional’’ to be spontaneous. The
official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
discuss the incident publicly.
The FBI was sending evidence teams to Libya,
a law enforcement official said.
Libya’s new leadership — scrambling to preserve ties with
Washington after U.S. help to overthrow former dictator Moammar Gadhafi — vowed
to find those behind the attack. Interim President Mohammed el-Megarif
apologized to the United States
for what he called the ‘‘cowardly’’ assault, which also killed several Libyan
security guards at the consulate in the eastern city.
Parliament speaker Omar al-Houmidan suggested the attack
might have been planned, saying the mob ‘‘may have had foreign loyalties’’ — an
apparent reference to international terrorists. ‘‘We are not sure. Everything
is possible,’’ he said.
A Libyan jihadist group, the Omar Abdel-Rahman Brigades,
claimed responsibility for a bomb that went off outside the Benghazi
consulate in June, causing no injuries. The group, which also carried out
several attacks on the International Red Cross in Libya,
said at the time that the bomb was revenge for the killing of al-Qaida’s No. 2,
Abu Yahya al-Libi, in a U.S.
drone strike in Pakistan.
About 50 U.S. Marines were sent to Libya
to guard U.S.
diplomatic facilities. The Marines are members of an elite group known as a
Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team, or FAST,
whose role is to respond on short notice to terrorism threats and to reinforce
security at embassies.
The Marines, sent from a base in Spain,
were headed initially to the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli,
not to Benghazi, according to U.S.
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to talk to the press.
The consulate attack illustrated the breakdown in security
in Libya, where
the government is still trying to establish authority months after Gadhafi’s
fall.
There also were indications that two distinct attacks took
place — one on the consulate, then a second hours later early Wednesday on a
nearby house to which the staff had been evacuated.
The crowd of several thousand that descended on the
consulate was armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, said Wanis
el-Sharef, the deputy interior minister of Libya’s
eastern region
A small contingent of Libyan security protecting the
facility fired in the air, trying to intimidate the mob. But faced with
superior size and firepower, the Libyan security withdrew, el-Sharef said.
Gunmen stormed the building, looted its contents and torched it, he said.
Details of how the Americans were killed were still unclear.
Stevens, 52, and a consulate staffer who had stayed behind
in the building died in the initial attack, el-Sharef said. The rest of the
staff successfully evacuated to a nearby building, preparing to move to Benghazi
Airport after daybreak to fly to
the capital of Tripoli, he said.
Hours after the storming of the consulate, a separate group
of gunmen attacked the other building, opening fire on the more than 30 Americans
and Libyans inside. Two more Americans were killed, he said.
Dr. Ziad Abu Zeid, who treated Stevens, told The Associated
Press that he died of asphyxiation, apparently from smoke. In a sign of the
chaos, Stevens was brought by Libyans to the Benghazi
Medical Center
with no other Americans, and no one at the facility knew who he was, Abu Zeid
said.
He said he tried to revive Stevens for about 90 minutes
‘‘with no success.’’ The ambassador was bleeding in his stomach because of the
asphyxiation but had no other injuries, the doctor said.
Widely regarded as one of the most effective American envoys
to the Arab world, Stevens brokered tribal disputes and conducted U.S.
outreach efforts in Jerusalem, Cairo,
Damascus and Riyadh.
As a rising star in U.S.
foreign policy, he retuned to Libya
four months ago, determined to see a democracy rise where Gadhafi’s
dictatorship flourished for four decades.
Smith, 34, was an Air Force veteran who had worked as an
information management officer for 10 years in posts such as Brussels,
Baghdad and Pretoria.
Smith was also well-known in the video game community.
The bloodshed stunned many Libyans, especially since Stevens
was a popular envoy among different factions and politicians, including
Islamists, and was seen as a supporter of their uprising against Gadhafi.
The leader of Ansar al-Shariah, an armed ultraconservative
Islamist group, denied any involvement in the attack.
‘‘We never approve of killing civilians, especially those
who helped us,’’ Youssef Jihani said in a reference to Stevens. ‘‘We are
well-educated and religious.’’
The violence in Libya
raised worries that further protests could break out around the Muslim world,
but the reaction was limited.
The movie, ‘‘Innocence of Muslims,’’ came to attention in Egypt
after its trailer was dubbed into Arabic and posted on YouTube. The
video-sharing website blocked access to it Wednesday. The trailer depicts
Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way,
showing him having sex and calling for massacres.
In Cairo, some
200 Islamists staged a second day of protest outside the U.S. Embassy on
Wednesday, but there were no more attempts to scale the embassy walls. After
nightfall, the group dwindled and some protesters scuffled with police, who
fired tear gas and dispersed them, emptying the streets.
In a statement on his official Facebook page, Egypt’s
Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, condemned the movie, saying the government
was responsible for protecting diplomatic missions as well as the freedom of
speech and peaceful protest.
But, he added, authorities ‘‘will confront with full
determination any irresponsible attempt to break the law.’’
Romney’s criticism of Obama didn’t mesh completely with
events in Cairo.
A U.S. Embassy statement that Romney referred to as akin to
apology was issued by the Cairo
embassy at midday on Tuesday at a
time the staff was aware of still-peaceful demonstrations nearby. It was four
or five hours later when the mob breached the compound’s walls and tried to burn
a U.S. flag,
and later still when the Libya
attack happened.
The embassy statement condemned ‘‘the continuing efforts by
misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn
efforts to offend believers of all religions,’’ and noted that religious
freedom is a cornerstone of American democracy.
About 50 protesters burned American flags outside the U.S.
Embassy in Tunisia’s
capital Wednesday but were kept away from the building by reinforced security.
And in Gaza City,
dozens of protesters carrying swords, axes and black flags chanted ‘‘Shame on
everyone who insults the prophet.’’ The rally was organized by supporters of a
militant group aligned with the ruling Hamas movement.
Afghanistan’s
government sought to avert any protests. President Hamid Karzai condemned the
movie, and authorities also temporarily shut down access to YouTube, said Aimal
Marjan, general director of Information Technology at the Ministry of
Communications.
The search for those behind ‘‘Innocence of Muslims’’ led to
a California Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes who acknowledged
his role in managing and providing logistics for the production.
A man identifying himself as Sam Bacile told the AP on
Tuesday that he wrote, produced and directed the film.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, told the AP in an interview
outside Los Angeles that he was
manager for the company that produced ‘‘Innocence of Muslims.’’
Nakoula denied directing the film and said he knew Bacile.
But the cellphone number that the AP used Tuesday to reach the man who
identified himself as Bacile was traced to the same address near Los
Angeles where the AP found Nakoula. Federal court
papers said Nakoula’s aliases included Nicola Bacily, Erwin Salameh and others.
Nakoula told the AP that he was a Coptic Christian and said
the film’s director supported the concerns of Christian Copts about their
treatment by Muslims.
Nakoula pleaded no contest in 2010 to federal bank fraud
charges in California and was
ordered to pay more than $790,000 in restitution. He was also sentenced to 21
months in federal prison and ordered not to use computers or the Internet for
five years without approval from his probation officer.
Nakoula denied posing as Bacile. During a conversation
outside his home, he offered his driver’s license to show his identity but kept
his thumb over his middle name, Basseley. Records checks by the AP subsequently
found the name ‘‘Basseley’’ and other connections to the Bacile persona.
Bacile told the AP he was an Israeli-born, 56-year-old,
Jewish writer and director. But a Christian activist involved in the film
project, Steve Klein, said Wednesday that ‘‘Bacile’’ was a pseudonym, that he
was not Jewish or Israeli, and a group of Americans of Mideast origin
collaborated on the film. Officials in Israel
also said there was no record of Bacile as an Israeli citizen.
And even though Bacile told AP he was 56, he identified
himself on his YouTube profile as 74. Bacile also said he is a real estate
developer, but his name does not appear in searches of California
state licenses, including the Department of Real Estate.
Film industry groups and permit agencies said they had no
records of ‘‘Innocence of Muslims.’’ A man who answered a phone listed for the
Vine Theater, a faded Hollywood movie house, confirmed
the movie had run for a least a day, and possibly longer, several months ago,
arranged by a customer known as ‘‘Sam.’’
Michael reported from Cairo.
Associated Press writer Esam Mohamed in Tripoli,
Matthew Lee and Stephen Braun in Washington,
Gillian Flaccus in Los Angeles,
Joseph Federman in Jerusalem and
Sarah El Deeb in Cairo contributed
to this report.