http://www.juancole.com/2012/12/benghazis-criticizes-consular.html
Benghazi’s Deep Throat fingers Islamist Leaders for Attacks as State Dept Criticized on Consular Security
Posted on 12/19/2012 by Juan
The report saying that security was inadequate at the compound that the US had adopted as its ad hoc consulate in Benghazi, Libya, dominates today’s headlines. That conclusion is obvious. The “consulate” was just a private residence taken over for this purpose by the US in the city. It was not constructed to be a US government building in a potentially hostile city.
I met a person who worked there when I was in Benghazi in June, and she told me that it wasn’t even clear if the consulate would be retained after the first of this year. It was possibly temporary, depending on Congressional funding. (The Tea Party House hasn’t been good on meeting requests for embassy security funds).
The more interesting question than why ad hoc arrangements should have been made for a consulate during and after the Libyan revolution (the answer to which seems fairly obvious) is, who is responsible for the string of assassinations and acts of violence in the city, of which the RPG attack on the consulate on September 11 was only one? Benghazi, with a population of over one million in a country of 6.5 million, is Libya’s second largest city and was the epicenter of the revolution against the government of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
On November 22, Benghazi police chief Farej Darssi was assassinated. In October a police colonel barely avoided death– his car was wired to explode. A Libyan intelligence officer was killed in September. A general was assassinated in August. Some of these figures had worked for Qaddafi but had defected to the revolution. Qaddafi’s security forces were responsible for the 1996 massacre of hardline fundamentalists at Abu Salim prison, and for making others just disappear. Likely the same shadowy cells that attacked the US consulate are behind the attacks on Benghazi police and army officers.
There may have been a break in the case. Last Saturday, Benghazi security forces loyal to the elected government in Tripoli, captured a man they suspected of being involved with the groups behind the violence. And, he appears to have been willing to spill the beans. So let’s call him the Libyan Deep Throat.
Deep Throat is so knowledgeable about the conspiracies facing the city and so dangerous to those hatching them that the latter immediately attempted to spring him from jail.
On Sunday morning, militants attacked the police facility next to the holding cell where the man is being detained. A policeman at that station died in a hail of bullets from the attackers, and they called for back-up. The police car that sped to the scene was ambushed and three policemen in it were killed.
Still, the police stood their ground and fought off the assault, and they kept their valuable suspect in custody, with all his valuable testimony.
Shortly after midnight, on Monday morning, small explosives were set off at the Garyounis police station in Benghazi, damaging a couple of automobiles but otherwise doing little damage. Then explosives were set off at al-Uruba police station, which also took sniper fire, but neither resulted in casualties.
The police became vigilant, and they apprehended a shady-looking man skulking around near the al-Hadaeq police station, finding him to have two rocket propelled grenades in his possession, which he was apparently intending to fire at the station.
In other words, the capture of Libyan Deep Throat has set off a gang war on the police, who are being informed by bombings and shootings that they must let their informant go or risk their
So what is Deep Throat saying? According to local journalist Mohamed Bujenah of the Libyan Herald, a senior figure in the Benghazi police told him that the informant had fingered as many as 7 prominent Muslim fundamentalist leaders in connection with these attacks, of whom the police named 6 explicitly:
1 Sufyan Ben Qumu, from the notoriously radical town of Derna, and a former prisoner at Guantanamo
2. Ahmad Bukatela, leader of the Ubaida Militia
3. Muhammad al-Zahawi, head of the Ansar al-Sharia militia
4. Muhammad al-Gharabi, a leader of the Rafallah al-Sahati Militia
5. Ismail Sallabi, another leader of Rafallah al-Sahati
6. Salim Nabous, head of the Zawiya Martyrs’ Brigade
It is just a newspaper article. We don’t know if the informant actually named these individuals or if he did so to escape torture, in which case we can’t trust what he said. But if the allegations are true, there is collusion among several hardline militias in the city to create instability in hopes of taking it over.
The new, elected, prime minister Ali Zeidan, has started asserting himself militarily. He closed the country’s southern borders against instability in the Sahel. He may well have some risky house cleaning to do in Benghazi.
and.......
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/19/us-state-department-accused-of-systematic-failures-that-led-to-fatal-benghazi-consulate-attack/
US State Department accused of “systematic failures” that led to fatal Benghazi consulate attack
By George Grant.
The independent report accused the US State Department of “systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” regarding its posture in Libya that led to the fatal consulate attack.
Tripoli, 19 December:
The US State Department has been sharply criticised for the way it handled its operation in Libya prior to the fatal consulate attack in Benghazi that led to the death of four Americans, including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
In an independent report made public on Tuesday evening, investigators say they found “systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” within two bureaus of the State Department, resulting in a “security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.”
Amongst the report’s specific criticisms were an over-reliance on inexperienced local guards, including armed members of the 17 February Brigade and unarmed Libyan personnel employed by the British security firm Blue Mountain Libya (BML).
“Although the February 17 militia had proven effective in responding to improvised explosive device (IED) attacks on the Special Mission in April and June 2012, there were some troubling indicators of its reliability in the months and weeks preceding the September attacks”, the report said.
“At the time of Ambassador Stevens’ visit, February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying Special Mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours…
“The Board found the responses by both the BML guards and February 17 to be inadequate. The Board’s inquiry found little evidence that the armed February 17 guards offered any meaningful defense of the SMC, or succeeded in summoning a February 17 militia presence to assist expeditiously.”
The report also criticised what it called “the short-term, transitory nature of Special Mission Benghazi’s staffing”, which resulted in “diminished institutional knowledge, continuity, and mission capacity.”
Also contributing to the lack of preparedness for the attack was an overreliance on specific warnings of imminent attacks by American intelligence officials – which they did not have in the case of Benghazi – rather than basing assessments more broadly on a deteriorating security environment.
“Terrorist networks are difficult to monitor” the report continues, “and the Board emphasizes the conclusion of previous accountability review boards that vulnerable missions cannot rely on receiving specific warning intelligence. Similarly, the lack of specific threat intelligence does not imply a lessening of probability of a terrorist attack.”
A lack of institutional knowledge and a failure to appreciate the bigger picture also led officials to rely too heavily on the judgements of Ambassador Stevens himself, the report said, with “his status as the leading U.S. government advocate on Libya policy, and his expertise on Benghazi in particular, [causing] Washington to give unusual deference to his judgments.”
Though Stevens was making his first visit to Benghazi in 10 months, his plans for taking only two American security agents “were not shared thoroughly with the embassy’s country team, who were not fully aware of the planned movements off the compound,” the report determined.
The fallout from the 11 September consulate attack generated lasting repercussions in both Benghazi and Washington.
It was the catalyst for the Save Benghazi Friday march on 21 September which saw more than 30,000 people demanding an end to militia rule in the city. The compounds of several leading Islamist militias were subsequently stormed, including that of Ansar Al-Sharia, Rafallah Al-Sahati and the 17 February Brigade.
Although neither of the two regular army colonels subsequently placed in charge of Rafallah Al-Sahati or the 17 February Brigade had any meaningful impact in practice, the attacks did lead to the deposition of Fawzi Bukatef, hitherto one of the most powerful Islamists in Benghazi who led the 17 February brigade and exercised considerable influence over Rafallah Al-Sahati and other groups.
Meanwhile Ansar Al-Sharia, the group primarily accused of responsibility for the attacks, was officially disbanded and forced to go to ground, although its presence in Benghazi still remains.
In Washington, meanwhile, the Obama administration’s initially confused response to the attacks formed one of the centerpieces of the recent presidential campaign, whilst US Ambassador Susan Rice’s opening testimony on the matter may have been what killed her chances to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.
“Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy – sparked by this hateful video”, Rice said on 16 September, in reference to the anti-Muslim film Innocence of Muslims, which denigrates the Prophet Mohammed.
In fact, as National Congress President Mohamed Magarief and others quickly asserted, the assault was almost certainly a pre-meditated terrorist attack, and one for which no individual has yet been brought to justice.
The panel, called an accountability review board, is led by Thomas Pickering, a retired diplomat. Its four other members include Mike Mullen, the retired admiral who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and is authorised by a 1986 law intended to strengthen security at United States diplomatic missions.
and........
http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/12/19/libyan-jets-continue-border-sweeps-over-the-south/
Libyan jets continue border sweeps over the south
Tripoli, 19 December:
Libyan warplanes are currently sweeping the areas along Libya’s southern borders, the military commander in Kufra Colonel Miftah Al-Abdali told the Libyan news agency today.
Al-Abdali said that the planes are carrying out sweeps from Libya’s border with Chad to Al-Uwaynat and Jabal Al-Malik, on the Egyptian border.
He added that the army is in control of these areas and that the purpose of the air operations was to secure the borders and to stop people crossing the borders into Libya illegally.
The colonel confirmed that the operations he is directing are a part of the resolution passed by the General National Congress on Sunday declaring the south a closed military zone and temporarily closing border crossings with Sudan, Algeria, Chad and Niger.
Jet fighters from the Libyan air force struck a camp being used by suspected smugglers yesterday, the Libya Herald reported, although it is not clear if there were any casualties in the attack.
Last week, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan said that did not use official border posts to cross into Libya from neighbouring states would be “dealt with” by the armed forces.
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