Under Fire
Page 6
The U.S. Special Mission Benghazi, as the ad hoc facility was known in the hallways of the seventh floor of Main State, also known as Foggy Bottom, was a temporary facility that bucked the Inman standards for security recommendations.
Benghazi was important to U.S. interests in Libya and, indeed, the entire Arab world. NATO nations had seized the risky yet necessary initiative in assisting the fledgling Libyan democracy and influencing its policies and its very future. Nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, followed close behind to assist in the humanitarian and nation-building needs of the Libyan people. Multinational corporations would follow as well. After all, there was a new political leadership to befriend, minds to win, and dollars to be made.
Special Mission Benghazi was temporary and ad hoc; the U.S. future permanent diplomatic presence was planned to be a fortress in a fluid city percolating with the molten fires of fundamentalist Islam. To quickly get a diplomatic location up and running for “the needs of the Foreign Service,” security exemptions and waivers were obtained, bypassing the physical security requirements established after Beirut and East Africa. Building a brand-new diplomatic facility inside a nation still at war with itself was a lengthy process that could take years to accomplish. In order to get Benghazi up and running, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security was saddled to do the best it could as quickly as possible.
The first post-revolution U.S. special mission in the city was set up inside the penthouse suites of the Tibesty Hotel in the Assabri section of the city overlooking the sea along the Al Madinah Ar Riyadiyya. According to its official brochures, “In the heart of the magnificent Benghazi city, with its wonderful weather, clear skies and friendly people, rises the fifteen-story Tibesty hotel. The hotel welcomes its guests and comfortable stay in its warm and friendly atmosphere through Tibesty hotel, 220 rooms, twenty-two luxury suites, nine presidential suites and several restaurant and coffee shops, as well as a number of shops and places of leisure.” And, as a wartime hotel, it was truly an oasis, even though it resembled a Soviet-era guesthouse more than a palatial center of diplomatic activity; its mauve hallways and seedy check-in area looked as if they needed a coating of superstrength deodorant. The Tibesty did boast a marvelous indoor swimming pool and buffet, however.
During Qaddafi’s time, the hotel lobby was always crowded with intelligence and counterintelligence operatives, all in civilian dress, chain-smoking cigarettes as they sipped supersweet tea and observed the comings and goings of Western businessmen and local military commanders, along with the female—or male—company they kept. Little changed in the post-Qaddafi era, though the volume of smugglers, weapons merchants, and prostitutes increased. The fifteen-story hotel had little setback, or the distance, separating it from the street. As a result, a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), like the ones used in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, deployed against the Tibesty Hotel would have had catastrophic results. The Tibesty Hotel did not meet even the most basic of the Inman mandates concerning physical security for the U.S. diplomatic presence in the city. On June 1, 2011, a powerful car bomb exploded outside the hotel—an attempt by terrorists to bring the building down.1 On December 20, 2011, Libyan protective security agents foiled a plot, a large-scale terrorist strike that was dubbed Operation Papa Noel. Qaddafi loyalists were behind the planned attacks that were to simultaneously strike American and Western embassies and consulates with RPGs and suicide squads of gunmen. Libya was rife with violent intent and fanatical resolve—a terrible combination when the country was awash in the weapons of war.
As one of the MSD operators pointed out, in reflecting on those early days of the State Department and the DS presence in Benghazi, “The crackle of gunfire in the dark is not the sound a Bureau of Diplomatic Security agent longs to hear, but during the past six months in Benghazi, Libya, it was all too common as exuberant fighters celebrated the day’s revolutionary successes with rounds dispatched randomly into the night’s sky.”2
But there needed to be a secure and reliable office where U.S. diplomats could carry out their assignments when in Benghazi. On June 21, 2011, the State Department located a place.
Special Mission Benghazi was a lavish sprawl of villa and manicured grounds. Trees and flowers bloomed on the compound, making it resemble a lord’s estate (or one belonging to a drug lord) more than just another palatial home inside a well-to-do neighborhood in Libya’s second city. Guava trees were heavy with fruits; purple grapes were swelling on rows of vines.
Its vast expanse provided setback, and its upper-scale surroundings would satisfy the need for anonymity. Security enhancements would be ad hoc and piecemeal.3 Security engineering officers, known as SEOs, inside DS were masters of LEGO-block building. Engineers by trade, with a laser-focus expertise on physical and technical security, the SEOs were true unsung heroes inside the service, nimble as a Leatherman multi-tool.
The compound was in the Western Fwayhat section of the city, north of the Fourth Ring Road, and sandwiched in between Shari al-Andalus and Shari al-Qayrawan Streets south of the Third Ring Road. The sprawling eight-acre estate included a main gate that had been reinforced by seven concrete inverted T-shaped Jersey barriers; the obstacles, which consisted of a flat base and a three-foot-high barrier, were primitive yet effective measures to impede the plans of a suicide car or truck bomber hoping to rev up his engines at full speed and crash into the compound. An orange metal swing gate completed the outer ring of vehicular hindrance.
There were two halves to the compound—the eastern half, which was the primary diplomatic office and residence, and the western half, where the DS personnel were housed; a wall and access points connected the two pieces of this puzzle.
At the entrance to the diplomatic section, a black metal gate secured the main entrance—past the Jersey barriers and orange-and-black metal swing crash beam gate. The agents had mounted a single surveillance camera with digital-video-recording capabilities that could pan only in and around the northern edge of the property at the main gate, providing some standoff visual capabilities to the DS contingent on the estate. A nine-foot-high concrete wall surrounded the compound; some portions of this wall, but not all, were augmented by thick and deterring rows of concertina razor wire. The wall was decorative, often entangled with the thick green bushes and trees that surrounded the compound, and could easily be compromised.
Security was tenuous even on the best of days, however, no matter how high the perimeter walls were. On March 22, 2012, at 0227 hours, seven heavily armed Ministry of Defense personnel driving armed Toyota Hilux trucks began kicking the rear Charlie-3 gate to the compound in an attempt to gain entry. The militiamen began screaming “God is great!” and firing their AK-47s into the air; the gunfire caused the local guard to flee in panic, though he alerted the contracted militiamen to respond and force the brigade members to apologize to DS personnel.
There were two “IED events” that targeted the main security wall. At 2300 hours on April 6, 2012, a crude IED was thrown over the wall. The device was a primitive yet effective “fish bomb” made of “gelateena.” Damage was not significant, but it would be a harbinger of worse to come.
Shortly after midnight on June 6, 2012, a terrorist placed an IED along the north gate. The blast, which many have considered a probing action, blew a large hole through the concrete wall—a hole high and wide enough to permit the entry of swarms of attackers. The suspect in both facility bombings was a disgruntled former guard force member who was fired by the RSO for gross misconduct. His white pickup truck was observed in proximity to both attacks by surveillance videotape, according to a source familiar with the case. DS agents in Benghazi were successful in persuading the Libyan government to arrest the suspect and hold him for two months. However, there was no judicial system in place to oversee his prosecution.4 Therefore, he was released by the Libyans shortly after the last bombing.
The section of the wall blown open in the June IED attack
was directly in front of the headquarters for the mercurial February 17 militia, the local and seemingly friendly armed force that had been contracted by the State Department to augment security at the facility. Cooperation with such a ragtag force was incredibly rare but deemed necessary to survive the absolute mayhem of Benghazi. The militiamen slung AK-47s over their shoulders and sported an odd mosaic of attire that combined camouflage fatigues, Adidas tracksuits, and North African gowns, robes, and headdresses; during the civil war, they played a significant role in the defeat of Qaddafi loyalists and showed little restraint in flashes of unforgiving brutality when in control of prisoners or suspected traitors. At the compound, the militiamen prayed a lot and chain-smoked smuggled Western cigarettes as they milled about their Toyota pickup trucks that sported 14.5 mm and 23 mm heavy machine guns and cannons. The militia’s small corner at the northwest section of the main gate boasted a meticulously cared-for grass lawn.
Reportedly, the February 17 militia was owned by the Gulf states and other commercial and religious interests that helped make it one of the largest militias operating in the city. The U.S. government considered them to be somewhat trustworthy—especially in comparison to some of the other armed groups that controlled patches of other vital interests of the city. “Benghazi,” a security head for a European government consortium operating inside Libya and a veteran of several Middle Eastern civil wars, commented, “is the kind of typical lawless latrine where everyone pisses into the hole in order to claim ownership and participation in possible positive outcomes, or claim that the stink was too bad and that they ultimately had to walk away.” Reportedly, members of the militia had traveled across the Mediterranean to fight alongside Syrian rebels in the bloody civil war to remove Bashar al-Assad and his Alawite regime from power.
The head of the February 17 militia was a mysterious figure named Fawzi Abu Kataf, a Libyan of Palestinian descent and someone whom intelligence sources on the ground in Benghazi referred to as opportunistic to the point of being suspicious. “He was known as someone with a long list of divergent business interests that he used for maximum opportunity often playing one against the other,” stated a Libyan security insider who for the security considerations of his family will remain anonymous, “and he also had close operational links to the Muslim Brotherhood.”5 It was assumed that he also had close links to Hamas as well as other groups designated by the U.S. government as terrorist.
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In a perfect world, the Libyan intelligence services and the Libyan police would have been responsible for the integrity and safety of America’s diplomats in country. But because of the absence of a strong centralized Libyan government to faithfully execute its responsibilities as a host nation, under the Vienna Convention,* the State Department had no choice but to rely on militias for protection. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Libya in October 2011, she was met at the airport by armed men from the Zintan militia. The military council of the Zintan area is best known for detaining Saif al-Islam Qaddafi after his capture in November 2011.
Great efforts were made to ensure that the February 17 Brigade was reliable and properly trained, however. The brigade’s loyalty—or competency—might have been suspect, but DS agents, especially those on Ambassador Stevens’s first detail, instituted a crash-course training program for this first layer of protection of America’s expeditionary diplomats in Benghazi. The agents procured surplus British Disruptive Pattern Material, or DPM, camouflage uniforms for the militiamen, as well as surplus body armor, load-bearing vests, and other staples of personal security detail, or PSD, work in an environment like the one that existed in Libya. The training program included internal defense planning, weapons safety, and basic marksmanship. Dry drills, conducted with loaded weapons, were held on the plush green grass of the Special Mission Compound. MSD medics provided combat casualty care training, to prepare them for stabilizing a wounded comrade with burns, lacerations, or sucking chest wounds.
The MSD detail, fulfilling a foreign internal defense mandate usually reserved for U.S. Army Special Forces, realized that the February 17 militia would eventually be tested in battle. To shore up their defensive and counterattack capabilities, should they lead the defense of the Special Mission Compound, MSD operators helped the militiamen set up sandbag fortifications in front of their barracks; the barracks also fielded high-power perimeter lights that faced toward the main structure on the compound—the ambassador’s residence and office.
To augment the DS contingent situated at the compound, the State Department had contracted a Wales-based security firm named Blue Mountain that fielded a local Libyan affiliate to provide unarmed uniformed guards at the perimeter entrances to the facility. On paper, and in the mind-numbing world of government contracts in war zones, Blue Mountain appeared impressive. David Nigel Thomas, the company’s director, was a former member of 22 SAS, the storied British commando and counterterrorist force legendary in special operations circles; the firm’s name, in fact, was derived from a poem inscribed on the clock tower at the headquarters of the regiment in Hereford: “We are the pilgrims, master; we shall go. Always a little further; it may be. Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow. Across that angry or that glimmering sea.” In reality, however, Blue Mountain was one of an endless list of have-gun-for-hire security firms that emerged overnight in the wake of the international coalition involvements in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other battlefields in the Global War on Terror. Blue Mountain, according to its corporate profile, provided clients with close protection services; penetration testing (veteran British military and law enforcement special operations personnel would probe existing security protocols in embassies and other high-threat locations to expose critical weaknesses); surveillance and investigations; maritime security; and high-risk static guard personnel. Blue Mountain claimed an esteemed list of past performance operations in countries around the world, including Afghanistan, Iraq, various locations in Europe, and even the Caribbean; some of its reported corporate clients included BAT, BG Group, Cadbury, Canon, Capgemini, DHL, Excel, Google, Jaguar Land Rover, Lufthansa, Orange, Sony, and Viacom.6
Blue Mountain promoted SAS-like professionalism and quality in its corporate ethos, but its business pedigree was, in fact, reportedly suspect. Like many other American and European security companies that employed special operations veterans, Blue Mountain sought business by bouncing around Arab capitals seeking projects—as either prime contractors, subs, or those working at bottom dollar for the subs. These executives stayed at mid-level hotels (or more luxurious digs if their businesses were fluid); they wore 5.11 tactical khaki trousers and Under Armour tight-fitting polo shirts to highlight gym-generated muscles and mosaics of martial tattoos. They were the proverbial blonds in a sea of brunets, and it was common to see these former operators turned salesmen promising top-tier services to governments—Western and other—with bottom-feeding budgets. Blue Mountain was one of the too-many-to-count companies employing special operations veterans in hopes of getting a piece, even a crumb, of one of the high-risk and high-reward government contracts being doled out without too much scrutiny.
The new Libyan government was very sensitive to the notion of mercenaries operating on its soil, and it severely curtailed the freedom of private military companies to operate inside the country. Libya had a long history of armed foreigners inside its boundaries—Italians, Germans, British, and Russians—and the fear was that the country would soon be awash in Blackwater-like personnel with Blackwater-like collateral damage, such as the incident that occurred on September 16, 2007, at Nisour Square in Baghdad, when seventeen civilians were killed and over twenty wounded by Blackwater personnel operating in a personal security detail, or PSD, convoy as part of a U.S. State Department contract. In order to bid for the State Department contract in Benghazi, Blue Mountain had to set up a local office in Libya, known as Blue Mountain Libya. Blue Mountain Libya eventually won a $387,000 contract to provide unarmed guards
at the Special Mission Compound. According to records, many were shocked over the award. Blue Mountain faced serious questions concerning its practices and its integrity. Although its pedigree was 22 SAS, its personnel were minimum-wage and subpar. A security professional was quoted as saying that the level of service Blue Mountain provided did not appear adequate to the risks presented by a lawless city; another insider claimed that the Libyan Ministry of Interior was not happy with Blue Mountain and had the company on its close observation/target list.7
Blue Mountain’s guards were paid 5.21 Libyan dinars per hour (roughly $4.15) and they were guaranteed eight-hour shifts. Their training and their capabilities appeared to matter little. What was imperative, as per the outlines of the employment contract, was that the guard force did not show up to work high or drunk; they did not fight or perpetrate physical abuse on one another; they didn’t lie, steal, bully, sabotage, and defy basic personal hygiene requirements. The guards couldn’t, of course, download pornography on facility computers, and accepting bribes was not allowed. Reportedly, Blue Mountain’s program manager traveled to Benghazi only once to review the status of his guard force. The guards’ loyalties—and indeed capabilities—were highly suspect.
Armed with the most minimal of training and equipped with an identifying blue vest, a Taser, and a pair of handcuffs, the guard force and a handful of members from the February 17 Brigade presided around the perimeter at the Special Mission Compound.
The residence was a palatial mansion that, on the exterior, was painted in a typical, though ornately opulent, desert-yellow scheme. The mansion consisted of a main entrance, a master bedroom, two rooms—reportedly, a study and a communications room—a bathroom, and a common area large enough to amply entertain a sultan’s harem. A yellowish marble floor was shiny and polished. A square chestnut table held two ornate candles on it; a gaudy vase, the kind often found in southern mansions or Donald Trump casinos, was positioned squarely on the table. A short climb of stairs led to the living room. It, too, was decorated for a wealthy noble, complete with a chandelier, a ruby-red sofa, and a plasma TV; an air conditioner hung over the TV and controlled the climate in the room by a remote control console. Several other sitting corners were adorned with upholstered armchairs and love seats and small oak tables covered in glass. The dining room was spartan. Eight cushioned chairs spanned a rectangular table; there were no paintings on the dining room walls, just a neatly painted yellow that blended with the Persian-style rug and the dark marble floor. The kitchen was modern and magnificent—black wood cabinets and all the appliances that would make a new homeowner envious. Fresh fruits from a nearby Benghazi market filled a large glass fishbowl.