Four Americans died in the 2012 Benghazi attack: Ambassador Chris Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, [1] and two CIA operatives, [2] Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, [3] [4] both former Navy SEALs. The laws passed by the General National Congress (GNC), the first elected parliament, served to inflame a tense political environment: Instead of reforming a host of Qaddafi-era laws that violate Libyans' basic freedoms, the GNC simply pushed through a political isolation law, which fostered further divisions through its vague criteria excluding Qaddafi-era officials and government employees from public office. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. And at the same time, we expect the world to cooperate with us to confront to what is meant out of this kind of act of cowardice. However, families of many victims, as well as media outlets and commentators, often point the finger at Islamist militias -- particularly when the victims are members of state security forces and the judiciary. The 2012 Benghazi attack was a coordinated attack against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia. [55] The Brigades claimed that the attack was in response to the killing of Abu Yahya al Libi, a Libyan al-Qaeda leader who had just died in an American drone attack, and was also timed to coincide with the imminent arrival of a United States Diplomat. The conservative foundation Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request to the Department of State on December 19, 2012. The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals were killed during the attack. A burnt house and a car are seen inside the United States Embassy compound in Benghazi, Libya, following an attack on the building on Sept. 11, 2012. According to al-Bakoush, the Libyans saw he was alive and breathing, his eyelids flickering. The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University described the conclusions of an unpublished study on November 2, 2012. The interview was cut short and Ricks and the interview was not mentioned or covered by Fox News again. Henry said, "We've had the proper emphasis, but I would not be so deluded to say that some of our shows, some of our commentators, have covered it more than it needed to be covered. "[239] However, immediately upon release of the committee's report on November 21, 2014, the Associated Press reported that the Committee did not conclude that any "government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people. The GNC also failed to reverse a 2012 law that grants immunity from prosecution for acts "promoting or protecting the [2011] revolution," which in practice propagated a culture of impunity and selective justice. Around 300 American, British, Polish & Ukrainian high-rank officers, inc. many NATO generals & colonels were killed 1/9. The Board released their final report on December 19, 2012. It's approximately 120 square miles and has a population of about 632,000 people. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice for her appearances on Sunday news shows two days later, and it "sets out the Administration's view of the cause of the Benghazi attacks". An American school teacher, seven Egyptian Copts, a couple from New Zealand and Britain, and a French engineer have all been killed in Benghazi during the last six months. In February on 1942, the deportation of the Jews of Cyrenaica/Benghazi to the Giado concentration camp as part of the Final Solution for the Jews of Libya began, setting off "dealing", first . [159], On September 16, Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf said that the attack on the United States consulate was planned months in advance,[160] and further stated that "[t]he idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous. Hanan Salah is the Libya researcher at Human Rights Watch. I want people around the world to hear me: To all those who would do us harm, no act of terror will go unpunished. "What are they [the government] waiting for?" The wreckage of a car sits inside the US Embassy compound on September 12, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya,. [180] The destroyers are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles. The State Department said that some time between 10:15 p.m. and 11:20 p.m . They will need a broader vision than what has so far been on display: The current crisis can't be fixed with only the usual post-conflict capacity-building and training workshops. Haftar's forces renewed their air strikes on Islamist militia bases on June 1, triggering clashes that injured dozens and resulted in the deaths of at least eight people. [221], In March 2013, Representative Duncan D. Hunter introduced legislation into the 113th Congress to authorize awarding of Congressional Gold Medals to Doherty and Woods for their actions that led to their deaths. [105] From Germany, the four bodies arrived at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., where President Barack Obama and members of his cabinet held a ceremony in honor of those killed. Share this via Facebook Please give now to support our work. Ambassador Chris Stevens, 52, died as he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff as a crowd of hundreds attacked the consulate Tuesday evening, many of them firing machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades. ", "Ed Henry: Some Fox News Shows Covered Benghazi 'More Than It Needed To Be', "House Republicans repudiate Kevin McCarthy comments - CNNPolitics", "Rep. Kevin McCarthy how he would differ from John Boehner", Accountability Review Board (ARB) Report [Benghazi Report of December 19, 2012], "Secretary Clinton's Response to the Accountability Review Board Report", "House Benghazi committee files final report and shuts down", "The 5 most serious accusations from Republicans' Benghazi report", "Judicial Watch Obtains First Photos from State Department Depicting Aftermath of Benghazi Attack", "RNC Files FOIA Request for Benghazi Emails Between State Dept. [191][243] None of the ten investigations into Benghazi found that any senior Obama administration officials had acted improperly. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. Ricks accused the network of covering the story more than it needed to be. Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, September 18, 2013, Reviews of the Benghazi Attacks and Unanswered Questions: Hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, September 19, 2013, Report of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Review of the Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya, September 1112, 2012 Together with Additional Views, January 15, 2014, Hearing 1: Hearing before the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi, Libya, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, held in Washington, DC, September 17, 2014, Hearing 2: Hearing before the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi, Libya, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, Second Session, held in Washington, DC, December 10, 2014, Hearing 3: Hearing before the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, First Session, held in Washington, DC, January 27, 2015, Hearing 4: Hearing before the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourteenth Congress, First Session, held in Washington, DC, October 22, 2015, September 2012 southern Israel cross-border attack, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2012_Benghazi_attack&oldid=1149756452, Attacks on diplomatic missions of the United States, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from August 2016, Wikipedia articles needing factual verification from September 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, United States diplomatic post and CIA annex, This page was last edited on 14 April 2023, at 07:17. Former UN Ambassador John Bolton called the concussion a "diplomatic illness".[220]. "[149], There were demonstrations in Benghazi[150] and Tripoli[151] on September 12, condemning the violence and holding signs such as "Chris Stevens was a friend to all Libyans", "Benghazi is against terrorism", and other signs apologizing to Americans for the actions in their name and in the name of Muslims. The team, which included two active-duty JSOC operators and five CIA personnel, had commandeered a small jet in Tripoli by paying the pilots $30,000 and forcing them to fly to Benghazi. I think it's clear that there were extremist elements that joined in and escalated the violence. We provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists. Libyan officials should make every effort to support the justice sector and keep the prosecutions ongoing -- and the international community should help them. He blamed the police and interior ministry's lack of authority to conduct arrests for the stalled justice process, but assured us the investigations were "ongoing.". [75] Stevens retired to his room at about 9:00p.m.[76], About 9:40p.m. local time, large numbers of armed men shouting "Allhu Akbar" (God is great) approached the compound from multiple directions. [166][167] The government also mandated that bearing arms in public was now illegal, as were armed checkpoints. By Neil Vigdor. [131] And the day after the attack, Ansar al-Sharia appeared to confirm both assessments when it issued a statement saying The [Ansar al-Shariah] Brigade didn't participate as a sole entity; rather, it was a spontaneous popular uprising in response to what happened by the West," which was an apparent reference to the Innocence of Muslims video. [83][84] The Regional Security Office sounded the alarm and called to the Benghazi CIA annex and the embassy in Tripoli. [5] [6] Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed in an attack since Adolph Dubs was killed in 1979. [67] In her January 2013 testimony before Congress, Secretary Clinton claimed security decisions at the Benghazi compound had been made by others, stating, "The specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi were handled by the security professionals in the [State] Department. Photograph: Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters On July 30, 2013, Rep. Ed Royce (R, CA-39) introduced the Department of State Operations and Embassy Security Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 2014 (H.R. On September 12, U.S. President Barack Obama condemned "this outrageous attack" on U.S. diplomatic facilities[173] and stated that "since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths. [191], In a White House press briefing on September 18, press secretary Jay Carney explained the attack to reporters: "I'm saying that based on information that weour initial information, and that includes all informationwe saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack; that we saw evidence that it was sparked by the reaction to this video. Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result was four deaths of American officials. He stated that he would have responded with equal caution given the risks and the lack of intelligence on the ground, and that American forces require planning and preparation, which the circumstances did not allow for. [226] Supporters argued, Critics including Republican Party members accused the Obama White House and State Department of overemphasizing or fabricating the role of Islamic anger over the anti-Islamic movie Innocence of Muslims and alleged that the administration was reluctant to label the attack as "terrorist". [8], The Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, a pro-al-Qaeda militia calling for the release of The Blind Sheikh, was implicated in the attack by Noman Benotman of the Quilliam Foundation. [242] However, the 2014 final report by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee found that during the days immediately following the attack there was confusion among intelligence analysts as to the origin of the attack, leading to an initial assessment that it was the spontaneous outcome from a protest. After several days of fighting, and hundreds of people killed, anti-Gaddafi fighters seized control of Libya's second city.. Cities further east, including . A mortar fire attack on a CIA annex 1.2 miles (1.9km) away (coordinates .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}320326N 200516E / 32.0572N 20.0877E / 32.0572; 20.0877 (CIA annex)) began at about 4:00a.m. the following morning[70] and lasted for 11 minutes.[71]. Many have fled as a result. This investigation also failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing by senior Obama administration officials. [267] John Dickerson of Slate says the e-mail refers to the worldwide protests against Innocence of Muslims and not the Benghazi attack.[268]. However, the negotiations, such as they were, have not slowed the killing. No attack aircraft had been placed on high alert on September 11, the anniversary of the September 11 attacks in 2001, and the closest fighter planes to trouble spots in North Africa were based in Aviano, Italy. WASHINGTON The death toll in Libya after more than two months of violence could reach as high as 30,000, an Obama administration official said Wednesday . An error occurred while subscribing your email address. A taxi driver in Tripoli told me recently he "hated Qaddafi," but wished for a Qaddafi to bring back some order. No casualties were reported. to which McCain replied that "it interferes with the depiction that the administration is trying to convey that al Qaeda is on the wane how else could you trot out our U.N. ambassador to say this was a spontaneous demonstration? Our Sources. [153][154] The ambassador further praised Stevens as a "dear friend" and a "real hero". After some discussion, the CIA's Global Response Staff (GRS) at the CIA annex, which included Tyrone S. Woods, decided to attempt a rescue. Federal Bureau of Investigation. It had no real political role." "[208], On October 4, 22 days after the attack, FBI investigators were finally allowed access to the scene of the attack. "[156] Another poll in Eastern Libya, taken in 2011, reported that the population was at the same time both deeply religious conservative Muslims and very pro-American, with 90% of respondents reporting favorable views of the United States. [ 166 ] [ 154 ] the destroyers are equipped with Tomahawk cruise.... To Libya, Christopher Stevens, and the international community should help them accused network. '' ( God is great ) approached the compound from multiple directions [ 5 [. '' and a `` dear friend '' and a `` dear friend '' and a `` diplomatic ''! 632,000 people and escalated the violence ambassador John Bolton called the concussion a `` dear ''... 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