by Fred Burton
The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
To the four Americans killed by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
SPECIAL MISSION COMPOUND MAP
ANNEX MAP
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK
AUTHORS’ NOTE
CLARIFICATIONS
PROLOGUE The Oncoming Storm
PART ONE The Dawn Before Benghazi
1. The Libyan
2. The Global Protectors in a World at War
3. 9.11.12: A Fiery Morning in the Arab Spring
4. Libya
5. Special Mission Benghazi
6. The Special Agents
7. Life in Critical Threat
8. From Wheels Down to Lights-Out
PART TWO Attack
9. The Cool of Night
10. Attack! Attack!
11. The Annex
12. Overrun
13. Notifications
14. The Fires of the Martyrs
PART THREE Rescue
15. End of Siege
16. Diplomatic Pouch
17. Linkup
18. Departures
19. Contact
20. Breakout
21. The Cavalry
PART FOUR Fire Before Dawn
22. The Anonymous Target
23. The Looters
24. The Terminal
25. Benghazi Medical Center
26. Incoming
27. Aftermath
28. Home
EPILOGUE
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
INDEX
PHOTOS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
COPYRIGHT
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S DESK
To the Diplomatic Security Service special agents who read this book: the courageous efforts of our brethren on 9/11 in Benghazi have in large part gone unheralded and unknown to the public. This has been the case for countless heroic acts by DSS and SY agents throughout our history. Regardless, I know you will remain as dedicated and selfless as always. Please be reassured that there are many of us, your colleagues past and present, who recognize and applaud your continuing sacrifices.
—Greg Bujac, former director, Diplomatic Security Service, and special agent
Long before the attack the Benghazi victims knew their lives were at risk, yet they never wavered from their commitment to advancing the cause of liberty in a land overrun with extremist elements. Even when they were outnumbered, outgunned, and under attack, they stood strong and defended our mission. Their sacrifice must not go unrecognized.
—Congressman Michael T. McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
—Theodore Roosevelt
AUTHORS’ NOTE
The names, personal history, and backgrounds of the Diplomatic Security Service special agents who were in Benghazi on the night of September 11, 2012, are being concealed to protect them and their families from terrorist reprisals. As we have come to learn, some of the agents involved in the September 11, 2012, attack have already returned to duty in dangerous places overseas. Their involvement in such a high-profile incident can threaten their personal security while serving; it could threaten their wives and their children as well. One agent, severely injured in the Benghazi attack, has been publicly identified, but we don’t intend to print his name for privacy purposes.
The special agents who were in Benghazi that fateful night were very young: all of them had less than ten years on the job, with most of them having been on the job less than five. Their careers will be forever marked by the terrorist attack that night in Libya, just as those special agents who came before them had their careers defined by the violent terrorist attacks they survived in places like Saigon, Beirut, Islamabad, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Baghdad, Kabul, Karachi, Jeddah, Damascus, and Cairo. The world for a Diplomatic Security Service special agent is one marked by landmarks of terror and scar tissue. But of all the posts that these brave men and women travel to in order for American diplomats to be safeguarded and American interests secured, Washington, D.C., can ultimately be the cruelest and most vindictive place on the planet to live and work.
Benghazi will haunt the five forever. Their names will come up behind closed doors in onward assignments, whispered in the hallways as they walk by, and their actions will be game-boarded and second-guessed forever. Any hint of blame is, of course, unfounded, but second-guessing is an element of the job and something all five will mull over for the rest of their lives, just like the Secret Service agents at Dealey Plaza in Dallas who also lost a protectee. One agent we know was in Beirut when the embassy was blown up by Hezbollah. His career was marked by that event—an event that was clearly out of his control. Street agents would shake his hand, but the armchair generals along the Potomac would shake their heads. Things are always simpler from behind a desk. It would be unfair on our part to cause any more personal self-doubting and anguish to those who have already endured enough.
As a former agent of the service and an author who has covered the Diplomatic Security Service since 1995, we understand that the world that these five must now live and work in is a dangerous place—inside the Beltway as well as the far reaches of the globe. The murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens and IMO Sean Smith were not the fault of the five Diplomatic Security Service agents in Benghazi that violence-filled night. They did everything humanly possible, and repeatedly risked themselves, to save the lives of the men they protected. They encountered a tide of absolute and overwhelming violence in a location void of law and order. These men, unequivocally, are heroes.
If the five agents want to publicly identify themselves, it will be their decision. The five agents, without question, exemplify valor and selfless dedication. These five men personify the all-too-often-untold story of the Diplomatic Security Service and its courageous and often unheralded contribution to safeguarding this nation and its interests around the world.
This is the story of these very special agents—men and women thrown into the fires of expeditionary diplomacy in a world that is turbulent and forever dangerous—as illustrated by one night of hell, inside the crosshairs, in the city of Benghazi.
CLARIFICATIONS
The Bureau of Diplomatic Security, sometimes known by the acronym DS, oversees all security-related matters for the U.S. Department of State, including but not restricted to security at embassies and consulates. Other responsibilities include dignitary protection of the secretary of state; dignitary protection for visiting non-head-of-state VIPs to the United States (ranging from foreign ministers to members of international royalty); international antiterrorism assistance training; protective intelligence and counterterrorism investigations, threats analysis; the Rewards for Justice program; and the criminal investigation of passport and visa fraud. The Diplomatic Security Service, sometimes referred to by the acronym DSS, is the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Although DS and DSS are separate entities, they are often confused with each other.
In order to clarify matters, the authors have chosen to refer to the men and women who serve in the Diplomatic Security Service simply as DS agents. “DS” is the common term used for the service, and at a working level—domestically and internationally—the term “DS
agents” is used throughout bureau materials and mailings.
Additionally, because of the sensitive nature of the events described, the dialogue, radio transmissions, and identifying details have been re-created to protect the DS agents, the CIA staff, and contract personnel attacked by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya, on the night of September 11–12, 2012. The authors have reconstructed the sequence of events at the Benghazi Special Mission Compound and Annex, based upon our subject matter expertise, countless interviews, discussions, analysis, and independent research of publicly available open source materials. As part of the final review process, a sincere and good faith effort has been made, to “black-out” and/or omit materials for operational security reasons. The analysis, views, opinions expressed in the narrative are solely those of the authors and not of any official government agency or department.
PROLOGUE
The Oncoming Storm
Libya was the place where you needed to worry about the young men who ogled a woman in the street, and you had to worry about those who didn’t!
—Dan Meehan, U.S. Diplomatic Security Service special agent stationed to Libya1
The wine should have flowed freely at lunch, but this was Benghazi after all. A bottle of red or white was supposed to have been one of the trappings of civility handed to a city that had been colonized by Mussolini, but post-Qaddafi Libya would have none of the alcoholic pleasures of the West. There was very little law and order in the new Libya, bullets were still flying all over the country, and indeed much of the Arab world, but a glass of wine was forbidden by the clerics—pure and unadulterated haram—even though it would have been splendid with the meal.
The Venezia Café was one of the ritziest eateries in the western suburbs of Benghazi—a relic of those bygone days when a Qaddafi-crony elite class had disposable cash and an insatiable appetite. Establishments like the Venezia never disappeared in the smoldering debris of a revolution; they thrived. Once the smoke cleared, Venezia’s tables, where despots—or their cousins—once sat and intimidated the Egyptian and Sudanese waitstaff, were cleared and set up with china and polished silverware for Benghazi’s new movers and shakers. Diplomats, spies, businessmen, gunrunners, and oil industry magnates all competed for the best table. The Venezia was also a favorite of militia commanders, especially business-minded lieutenants who could combine the zealous passion of faith with the hard green cash of selling weapons, drugs, or women.
Located behind the sprawling estate of the unofficial U.S. diplomatic compound, the Venezia was blessed with a most convenient location. Most of the restaurant was nestled inside a plush green garden, with an impressive display of local cacti and flora. The Venezia provided pure serenity, and as a result it served as a safe haven—a no-man’s-land—for all sides who had a stake or hand in determining Libya’s future. Many considered it a Switzerland of sorts—completely neutral. Politics were left at the door, though the bodyguards never relinquished their sidearms. This was Libya after all.
The Venezia was, for Sir Dominic Asquith anyway, one of those cherished human reminders of what a world without the need for bodyguards was like, even though he was required to travel in a fully armored and fully armed cocoon of security. Her Majesty’s special representative to the newly transitional democratic Libya, Asquith was a veteran Arab hand at the Foreign Office who, despite service in such pressure-cooker posts as Syria, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, and now Libya, sported a youthful appearance that never betrayed his fifty-five years. As the great-grandson of a British prime minister, the ambassador was of noble stock and was considered a most capable diplomat who understood the complexities and realities of the Arab world and still reveled in its charm and wonder despite its bullet-strewn landscape. And Benghazi was indeed bullet strewn. The bodies were still being counted and scores still being settled as the port city recovered from the revolution that ended the forty-two-year reign of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi, but on this June noon, with an ever-so-wonderful ocean breeze bouncing off the palm trees nearby, the madness of the city and the sometimes drowning paperwork of top secret cables and e-mails made way for a meal outside the bunker of the British consulate. There were always eateries, even in war zones, that were known as safe havens. These restaurants were immaculately maintained bastions of fine food, generous bars, and discreet waitstaffs; they were neutral hangouts in locations where spies, soldiers, and those ever-present men in dark suits who played for both sides of any conflict felt at home. These establishments made sure that a favorite meal was always purely heartwarming and that there were always enough Cuban cigars at the ready.
The Italian restaurant was only a short ride from the ad hoc British consulate, located in the affluent Western Fwayhat neighborhood. The section of the city was a vast expanse of villas and estates, warehouses and buildings abandoned by war. Towering palm trees, as well as some slightly smaller, spread generous shade to the wide avenues and the gravel-strewn side streets. The neighborhood served as Benghazi’s diplomatic enclave, home to missions and consulates, ambassadorial residences, and the city’s much-envied International School. The food, the sun, and the sea breeze made it possible, even if for a brief moment, to forget that this luxurious oasis was inside the semi-lawless grasp of the Benghazi landscape, inside the epicenter of the Arab Spring and a just-relocated battlefield in the Global War on Terror. Ambassadors could dream, of course; close protection agents were paid to worry. Ambassador Asquith was always shadowed by a team of heavily armed security agents working for Her Majesty’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office; the United Kingdom did not field a specialized security arm within its law enforcement and intelligence services and, as a result, relied on special operations units, or companies fielding retired special operations unit personnel. The contracting firm responsible for protecting British interests in Libya was GardaWorld.2 GardaWorld, a global risk management and security services company, is the international division of Garda World Security Corporation, the largest privately owned security company in the world. Much of its corporate leadership was former British Special Forces; a member of its international advisory board was the retired U.S. Navy admiral Eric T. Olson, former head of U.S. Special Operations Command, who had been awarded a Silver Star for valor in the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia, and who had played a critical role in planning the 2011 DevGru raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, targeting Osama bin Laden.
Some members of Sir Dominic Asquith’s security detail were undoubtedly veterans of 22 Special Air Service, or SAS, Great Britain’s legendary commandos, whose motto is “Who Dares Wins.” Others were members of the Royal Marines Special Boat Service, or SBS; a few were even experienced bobbies with a history of firearms use in units such as SO1, the London Metropolitan Police’s Dignitary Protection Squad; SO6, the Diplomatic Protection Group; SO14, the Royal Family Protective Unit; and SCO19, the Specialist Firearms Command. Anyone accepted for such hazardous duty was considered top tier. All were veterans of Britain’s terrorist wars—either overseas or at home, in London and beyond. The old-timers who had served in Northern Ireland, as well as those who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially those from the SAS, never left home without their Browning Hi Power 9 mm automatic—the regiment’s favorite and most reliable sidearm.
Ambassador Asquith’s security detail moved out of the restaurant, some walking in front of and others walking behind the diplomat, toward the awaiting vehicles; the driver from each vehicle in the ambassador’s package remained behind at the wheel in order to prevent any malicious elements from sabotaging the armored SUVs or in case the detail had to escape with no time to spare. When the ambassador finished his meal, the vehicles were summoned and pulled up in front of the main entrance.
The warm and soothing June sun had already baked everyone’s face a shiny glow of reddish brown. With the sun and coastal breeze and the palms swaying ever so gently as they spread shade along the boulevard, Benghazi could have been a Club Med. It was even plausible, if just for a second, to forget that only f
ive days earlier Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Libyan-born deputy commander of al-Qaeda, had been blown to bits by a CIA drone strike in Mir Ali, a rugged patch of hell in the northern part of Waziristan, Pakistan.
Ambassador Asquith could never enjoy the breeze of driving in a Benghazi June, because he rode in an armored SUV whose bullet-resistant windows were closed at all times. There were several cars to his motorcade—a lead, a follow, the principal’s vehicle, and that of the armed specialists who escorted the ambassador everywhere. Traffic was frenetic that beautiful afternoon, Sunday, June 10, but maneuvering through any Arab city was always an exercise of honk, brake, curse, brake, honk. Protection specialists were always taught to never become a statistic in traffic, and Ambassador Asquith’s motorcade swerved in and out of lanes as it moved along its short path toward the consulate. Two months earlier, on April 2, a U.K. consulate car found itself in between three warring militias—one of which was the local traffic police—and barely managed to escape from the melee. The warring militias weren’t thugs or gangster groups, however; well, not officially at least. They were actually uniformed members of the local law enforcement community—the men sworn to protect and serve rather than rape and pillage—who were flexing their muscles and settling some scores.
The two assailants, masked persons unknown behind their camouflage fatigues and dishdashas, were waiting behind the neatly manicured trees and brush. The attack site was chosen very carefully. The terrorists had conducted advance surveillance of the area in order to pinpoint a specific choke point, known as the “X”, where the motorcade would be at its most vulnerable and where the escape avenues would be easiest to access and they could disappear into the Benghazi landscape. Surveillance would have been intense, as the terrorists would have needed to know the travel patterns of the motorcade, as well as nearby traffic patterns; there could have been several RPG teams pre-positioned throughout the area, all connected by disposable mobile phones. The terrorists picked the X based on an extensive review of predictable patterns and, possibly, with the assistance of someone on their payroll who knew details of the ambassador’s movements that day.