by Aaron Klein
Some have posited Iranian involvement in the Benghazi attack. While I have found no concrete evidence supporting this link, the theory is quite interesting and does make sense. Iranian involvement could help explain why the mission and nearby CIA annex had been targeted. If the mission were aiding Mid-East rebels in Syria, as we documented, what would al-Qaeda and its affiliates stand to gain from organizing an attack against the very headquarters that was their pipeline for more weapons to be sent to Syria? Al-Qaeda was looking to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
One detail that always stood out for me was the apparent lack of a centralized al-Qaeda involvement in the Benghazi attack. Instead, it seems we are talking about local al-Qaeda–linked militias. Some of the groups may have even parted ways from the central al-Qaeda franchise. Khattala, for example, was said to have been displeased with some rebel groups, accusing them of abandoning Islamic doctrine.26 Were these ragtag organizations operating under the patronage of a state sponsor like Iran that absolutely would stand to gain from assaulting the compound that was allegedly so central to the effort of toppling Iran’s main ally, Syrian’s Assad?
Iran’s use of scores of local militias from different countries would serve as a brilliant smoke screen to obscure its own criminal involvement. While we are busy tracing the various participating groups to Mali, Egypt, and beyond, it could be these organizations were subsets of larger al-Qaeda–linked groups acting, wittingly or not, as hired guns for Iran. The Iranians certainly have a long and sordid history of state sponsorship of Sunni Muslim terror organizations, including Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Resistance Committees.
In what may be a coincidence, it just so happens that former Hillary Clinton deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan reportedly “secretly jetted to the Middle Eastern nation of Oman” to meet with Iranian officials as part of backdoor talks to broker a nuclear agreement with Tehran.27 Sullivan was also Hillary’s point man in helping to craft the now-discredited White House talking points on Benghazi.28 Some on the Internet have been using that link to finger Iran in Benghazi.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA worker and former employee of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism, asked whether Iran was behind the Benghazi attack. He wrote: “Iran, who supports Syria’s Assad, has a very effective intelligence organization. Once they learned that Libya was supplying fighters in Syria, do you think there is any chance that they (the Iranians) would want to shutdown that operation?”29
Johnson further questioned:
1. Did Iran infiltrate the fighters being trained by the United States and, in the process, gather intel that they subsequently used to target both the “Consulate” and the CIA Annex?
2. Did Iran prepare a cover for action and plant information on Facebook and other social media sites claiming credit for the attack in the name of Ansar Al Sharia?”
Writing at Israel National News, Mark Langfan surmises “Benghazi leads to Iran, not al Qaeda.” Without citing evidence, Langfan says Obama is “doing everything in the universe to shut the Benghazi investigation” because “the truth of the Benghazi gun-running operation immediately leads to the likely conclusion that Iran, and only Iran, had the motive to attack our Benghazi consulate and murder Ambassador Stevens.”30
Freelance journalist Marinka Peschmann wrote that a “Benghazi whistleblower source” told her “the immediate concern for the Obama-Clinton regime after the attack in Benghazi was to cover up the connection with Iran and Syria to Ansar al Sharia and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”31
Was Iran indeed involved? We cannot dismiss that as a possibility. While I have not yet seen any credible evidence, the notion is certainly logical. At this point all we can do is continue to ask questions and analyze the new information as it becomes available. Perhaps some of that information will lead us to the mullahs in Tehran.
6
THE REAL REASON BENGHAZI SUSPECTS NOT CAPTURED
Not only has the White House obfuscated legislative investigations into the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attack. And not only have key officials been caught misinforming the public about the events of that night. In one of the most mind-blowing moves of all, Obama himself essentially sabotaged an operation in which Special Forces were just hours from capturing one of the most important terrorist figures charged with carrying out the Benghazi murders. Even CNN, the Washington Post, and top U.S. officials are asking uncomfortable questions in a case that has rendered it nearly impossible for our forces to capture the militant. The odd case requires a journey into a split-screen, real-life movie unfolding on two separate fronts in Libya.
Questions need to be raised about the timing and manner in which the United States in October 2013 seized wanted militant Abu Anas al-Libi, who was living openly in his home in Libya and likely could have been captured at a different time.
(Anas al-Libi is not to be confused with al-Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2012. I myself have been confused at times with similar terrorist names. Some may recall the time WABC Radio’s John Batchelor and I called the wrong terrorist during an on-air interview and proceeded to grill said terrorist for an attack that his group took no part in, mistaking him for another jihadist with a similar name, whose phone number had been stored in my cell phone the same way. Batchelor and I did not realize what happened until after our interview with one very confused terrorist had ended.)
It is now becoming increasingly clear the decision to capture al-Libi all but thwarted an ongoing operation in which covert U.S. operatives were tracking the every move of Ahmed Abu Khattala, a senior leader of the Ansar al-Sharia militia wanted for the Benghazi attack. The operatives were on standby, ready to seize Khattala, waiting for orders to carry out the most significant seizure of a suspect charged with the Benghazi attack. The Libyan government reportedly granted the United States permission to seize both al-Libi and Khattala. Due to al-Libi’s capture, the Libyan government has clamped down on any further U.S. raids, making it astronomically difficult to go after Benghazi suspects.
Let’s start with Khattala. In August 2013, almost one year after the assault, the United States filed the first criminal charges in the attack. Khattala, whom witnesses placed at the scene during the initial assault on the U.S. special mission, was reportedly charged under seal, meaning the details of the accusations are unknown. The FBI and Justice Department refused to comment to CNN, which first reported on the charges.1 Some witnesses and U.S. authorities called Khattala a ringleader of the attacks.2 We discussed in previous chapters that Khattala’s al-Qaeda–linked Ansar al-Sharia group advocates strict Sharia implementation and the creation of the Islamic caliphate. The group infamously first took credit for the attack in social media, while later claiming it “didn’t participate [in the attack] as a sole entity.”3 Witnesses told the media that not only did they see Ansar al-Sharia men laying siege to the compound; they also spotted vehicles brandishing Ansar al-Sharia’s logo at the scene.
Khattala went somewhat underground after charges were filed in the United States. Still, prior to and in the days following the filings, he gave several interviews to the international news media in which he praised the attacks but denied personal responsibility. Speaking to the New York Times, Khattala hailed his Ansar al-Sharia organization as “good people with good goals, which are trying to implement Islamic law,” and who are “bigger than a brigade […] It is a movement.”4
Now let’s take a closer look at Anas al-Libi. He was fingered for allegedly helping to plan the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in the East African cities of Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The indictment accuses al-Libi, a computer expert for al-Qaeda, of personally carrying out surveillance of potential U.S., British, French, and Israeli targets in Nairobi for possible attack by al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.5 Like Khattala, al-Libi gave scores of interviews to the international news media, including some from his home.
Al-Libi was seized in a very public ope
ration in Tripoli by U.S. Special Forces on October 5 in a daylight raid outside his home while his family looked on. Family members immediately and predictably told the news media about the raid. The Associated Press quoted al-Libi’s family saying that foreign-looking agents in a three-car convoy seized al-Libi while they watched. Al-Libi’s brother, Nabih, told the AP he was parking his car outside his house after dawn prayers when the gunmen in the convoy encircled his vehicle and seized his gun before grabbing al-Libi. Nabih also told the AP that al-Libi’s wife watched the raid unfold from her window.6 At the time of this very public raid, Special Forces were only hours from also nabbing Benghazi ringleader Khattala, whom they’d been tracking for months, U.S. officials told CNN.7
It’s bad enough al-Libi’s capture was almost immediately leaked to the news media. Four days later, on October 9, the Obama administration strangely told the news media that the Libyan government had approved the al-Libi raid and also granted permission to seize Khattala. The details were splashed on the front page of the New York Times in a story titled “U.S. Officials Say Libya Approved Commando Raids.” The article quotes “more than half a dozen American diplomatic, military, law enforcement, intelligence and other administration officials.” Regarding the Libyan government’s approval, the Times reports, “The Libyans’ consent marks a significant step forward for the Obama administration, which has been criticized by Congressional Republicans for moving too slowly to apprehend the Benghazi suspects.”8
In its reporting, the Times notes what is patently obvious: the leak of the al-Libi raid may have given Khattala a heads-up that his own capture was impending. Reported the Times, “While American officials expected that the Libyan government would claim that it had known nothing about the operation, news of the raid has raised concerns that the suspect in the Benghazi attacks, Ahmed Abu Khattala, has now been tipped off that the United States has the ability to conduct an operation in Libya.” Even the Times was puzzled, writing, “It is not clear why American military commanders did not conduct both operations simultaneously to avoid this problem.”9
Indeed, U.S. Forces may have been ready to act to capture Khattala as soon as the day after al-Libi’s arrest, according to some officials speaking to CNN. The news network revealed a top-level White House meeting was scheduled for around October 7 to get Obama’s final approval to capture Khattala.10 However, al-Libi’s capture and its subsequent leak to news media sent Khattala underground and further caused a major rift with the Libyan government, which demanded an end to any future U.S. raids.
CNN reported the Khattala raid never materialized “partly because there was so much publicity inside Libya and in the Western press about the al-Libi capture.”11 The publicity about al-Libi’s capture was nearly unavoidable since U.S. forces for some reason seized the wanted terrorist in broad daylight instead of capturing him in a more secretive manner.
CNN related that the aborted Khattala capture is leading “to sensitive questions inside the administration about the tradeoff between getting al-Libi and going after the perpetrators of the politically charged Benghazi attack.” Obama had previously vowed to make it a “priority” to bring the Benghazi suspects “to justice.”
In its October 9 front-page piece, the New York Times disclosed that the efforts to track Khattala had been in place for months. The newspaper further reported the Pentagon “has been preparing contingency plans for months in the event Mr. Obama orders a military operation” to seize Khattala and other terrorists for the Benghazi attack.12
Unfortunately for Libyan prime minister Ali Zeidan, the publicity surrounding al-Libi’s capture created such a backlash for him that he was reportedly briefly kidnapped in retaliation for allowing the United States to act on Libyan soil.
Washington Post opinion writer Mark Thiessen took issue with the Obama administration’s leak to the New York Times about the Libyan government’s approval of al-Libi’s capture. “With the leak that the Libyans approved both raids, and the kidnapping of the Libyan prime minister, [Khattala’s] government probably will not authorize more such operations for the foreseeable future,” he wrote.13
Indeed, in December 2013, the Washington Post featured an update on Khattala, making it crystal clear the decision to capture al-Libi may leave Khattala free to live in jihadist paradise in Libya for quite some time to come. It is increasingly unlikely the United States will have another opportunity to capture him anytime soon, the paper said. One official told the Post that Khattala is operating in eastern Libya with impunity. “He’s as free as a bird,” the official complained.14
The Post recalled the mission to capture Khattala was scrapped after al-Libi’s seizure, and any plans to remove him from Libya were put on the back burner. American officials claimed that another raid to seize Khattala could “lead to the toppling of Zeidan’s government and increase the chaos in a country that the United States would like to see stabilize.”
But Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, isn’t buying it. “I don’t subscribe to that theory, and that is a theory,” Rogers told the Post.15
It makes little sense that the Obama administration decided to expose details of the Libyan government’s approval of the raids. The leak was sure to inflame Zeidan. The method of capturing al-Libi in broad daylight while his family watched seemed almost designed to attract attention from both the news media and the terrorist community in Libya. It doesn’t take a tactical genius to understand that as soon as al-Libi’s very public capture was inevitably made known, jihadists throughout Libya would go dark. And once it was announced that Zeidan’s administration had rubber-stamped the raids, the resulting pressure against him to not allow future capture operations was almost sure to come.
Too much just doesn’t add up.
7
GAME CHANGER: HILLARY’S CENTRAL, UNREPORTED ROLE IN BENGHAZI
Observers of the Benghazi scandal are quite familiar with the generalities of Hillary Clinton’s infamous testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Clinton’s reaction to the murderous September 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks will forever be remembered by eight insulting words: “What difference at this point does it make?!”1 This infuriated response was fired at a lawmaker who dared to press her on why four Americans, including a sitting U.S. ambassador, were murdered. Clinton’s testimony that day, and specifically her shocking “what difference” jibe, has become so associated with the attacks that the image of her testimony is one of the most frequently returned pictures in Google whenever a user types in the word “Benghazi.”
However, despite Clinton’s very public display of what many see as arrogance in the face of a legitimate line of inquisition, few are aware of the central role she played in the real Benghazi scandal, from her direct involvement in approving lawful occupancy of the disgracefully unsecured U.S. special mission, to the weapons-to-rebels scheme, to the very reason Ambassador Chris Stevens was in the compound on the dangerous day of 9/11 in the first place. We are herein going to document Clinton’s undeniably fundamental role in virtually the entire Benghazi story, replete with information indicating she may have perjured herself during sworn testimony.
PULLED CRITICAL SECURITY
Let’s start with Clinton’s personal approval of security conditions at the compound. By this point you are familiar with the stunning backwardness of the U.S. special mission’s so-called security posture. Guard towers were denied; a special reaction team was pulled from Libya’s hot zone; an aircraft was recalled. External protection of the compound was provided entirely by poorly trained, unarmed local Libyans who had virtually no capabilities to fend off armed attackers. Internal security was incomprehensibly left to the devices of armed members of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade militia, a ragtag group affiliated with the al-Qaeda–linked, Islamic extremist Ansar al-Sharia terrorist organization that was later implicated in the Benghazi assault. Despite numerous previous strikes against both the U.S. special mission and other Western co
mpounds in Benghazi, and in spite of a large number of requests from U.S. diplomats on the ground, there was little change in the dismal state of “security” at the mission.
Yet it can now be said that Clinton personally provided the legal waivers for U.S. personnel to occupy that death trap of a mission. This largely unreported detail was confirmed in the Senate’s January 2014 report on Benghazi. Senate investigators found the Benghazi facility required a special waiver since it did not meet the minimum official security standards set by the State Department.
Some of the necessary waivers, the Senate affirmed, could have been issued at lower levels within the State Department. However “other departures, such as the co-location requirement, could only be approved by the Secretary of State.”2 The “co-location” requirement refers to an unusual housing setup in Benghazi where intelligence and State Department personnel were kept in two separate locations. Traditionally, intelligence personnel operate from official State buildings, such as embassies and consulates. This means Clinton herself approved some aspects of the U.S. special mission, including separating the mission from the seemingly more protected CIA annex. In doing so, did Clinton know she was approving a woefully unprotected compound? If not, then at the very least she is guilty of dereliction of duty and the diplomatic equivalent of criminal negligence.
It has emerged that top deputies working directly under Clinton, including officials known to be close to the ambitious politicians, were single-handedly responsible for some of the most shocking security decisions made regarding the Benghazi compound. It is difficult to imagine, indeed it is entirely nonsensical to argue that these Clinton deputies were acting without her direct knowledge and permission, especially in the central theater of Libya, the linchpin of the so-called Arab Spring.