US Special Forces Nab Primary Suspect in 2012 Terrorist Attack on US Consulate in Benghazi

More than 18 months after the deadly attack on the US consulate that killed American ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya's second largest city of Benghazi, US Special forces have reportedly nabbed the suspected mastermind of the attacks in a lightning raid on Sunday.

The mission to nab Benghazi terror suspect Ahmed Abu Khattala was months in the making. Once a Delta Force team at last launched into Libya on Sunday to carry out the plan, it was over in 32 minutes.

The details of the secret mission were confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday, and begin to shed light on how Khattala -- who lived in plain sight and brazenly gave media interviews over the course of nearly two years -- suddenly fell into U.S. custody.

Officials still face questions over why it took so long for the U.S. to go after Khattala. After all, U.S. teams had been following the suspect and knew his whereabouts since about five or six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2012 attack, when he started giving interviews.

But the mission itself, on Sunday, was described as clean and casualty-free.

U.S. military sources told Fox News that the Delta Force operators who carried out the mission did so "efficiently," completing it in 32 minutes.

The team captured him at his home south of Benghazi, though it's not clear whether he was inside or outside his home at the time.

According to reports, Khattala is now being held on the USS New York and is being questioned on board as the vessel sails back to the USA. The White House and Justice Department have said that Khattala will be tried in Federal court and not taken to the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.

After the attacks, Khattala didn't even bother going into hiding and conducted interviews with media outlets such as FOX New and the New York Times in person, daring the US or Libyan government to come after him. However, since earlier this month Khattala's Ansar al Sharia militia has been engaged in skirmishes with forces loyal to renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, who is accused by Libya's government of plotting a military coup.

In addition to Ambassador Stevens, US Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Dohety. During the attack Ambassador Stevens was reportedly pulled from the wreckage, taken to a medical facility controlled by Ansar Al Sharia where he later died from his injuries. The attack took place on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 and with the Presidential election still a few weeks away, the White House and State department spun the politically expedient narrative that the attack was the end result of a spontaneous demonstration that had spiraled out of control, despite reports that Ansar al Sharia fighters showed up with heavy weaponry such as mortars and antiaircraft guns.

House Speaker John Boehner Announces Select Committee on September 11, 2012 Benghazi Terrorist Attack

Speaker of the House John Boehner [R- OH 8] announced the formation of a special committee to probe the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi in eastern Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens as well as Ty Woods, Sean Smith and Glen Doherty.

Boehner said that he had held off on calling a special committee on Benghazi since he believed the House Oversight committee hearings were sufficient, even though many of the CIA and State Department documents they were given were heavily redacted. However, watchdog group Judicial Watch was able to obtain emails from White House and national security officials from the night of the attack that weren't redacted- emails that show a cabinet more concerned with protecting the President's image less than two months before the election than taking any action in response to the attack on the diplomatic compound on Benghazi.

Speaker Boehner said that in light of the emails released to Judicial Watch and the possibility of perjury by administration officials before previous hearings, he decided to form a select committee.

The Obama Administration wasn't helped any when former National Security Council aide Tommy Vietor appeared on FOX News' Special Report With Bret Baier on Thursday and flippantly dismissed questions about the attack and Obama Administration's response with a flippant "Dude, that was two years ago".



Besides coming off as a snide hipster douchebag, Vietor apparently let slip that President Obama never made it to the Situation Room that night- he left for a Las Vegas fundraiser the following day in Las Vegas.

The day before Vietor's less-than-inspiring Special Report appearance, White House press secretary Jay Carney was grilled by ABC News' Jon Karl after Carney alleged the White House emails that Judicial Watch had obtained weren't about Benghazi- Karl pointed out that they had 'Benghazi' in the subject line.

The attack came during the 2012 Presidential election, and for weeks President Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed a spontaneous demonstration over an internet video even when it became apparent the attacks on the US Diplomatic compound in Benghazi were carried out by terrorists from Ansar-Al-Shari'a using mortars and heavy machine guns mounted on trucks while blocking off the roads around the compound nearly two hours before the attack. The date of the attacks also coincided with the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and United Flight 93 that killed nearly 3000 Americans.

While there were similar protests attributed to a YouTube video called The Innocence of Muslims elsewhere in the Middle East that night, there were no US fatalities as a result of those protests. After the attack photos began circulating of men, some of them presumably from Ansar-Al-Shari'a, dragging a dead or dying Ambassador Stevens through the street- some accounts said he was rushed to a hospital under Ansar-Al-Shari'a's control.

Officially Ambassador Stevens died of asphyxiation from smoke inhalation during the attack, however, the US State Department has not released any postmortem information detailing the nature of Ambassador Stevens' death.

Within hours of the attack, it was apparent that Ambassador Stevens and the others were killed in a well-planned assault on a US Diplomatic compound by a heavily armed Islamist group. However, then-ambassador to the UN Susan Rice made the Sunday morning talk show circuit and continued to blame the 'Innocence of Muslims' video while Hillary Clinton was standing next to the caskets of the four murdered Americans at a memorial service at Andrews AFB as she also blamed the video.

In fact, the only person who has been imprisoned over the Benghazi terrorist attacks to this date was Nakoula Basseley, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian residing in California who made The Innocence of Muslims. Basseley had prior convictions for bank fraud and intent to manufacture methamphetamine, and was arrested less than two weeks after the Benghazi attacks by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies since posting videos online was apparently in violation of his probation.

US Special Operations Raids in Africa Target Terrorist Leaders

Members of the US Navy's SEAL Team 6 carried out a raid at a compound in southern Somalia that was believed to be housing senior members of the Al Shabaab islamist terrorist group over the weekend. Experts said the raid was aborted midway when the SEALs were spotted and a firefight broke out, negating the chances of taking their intended target alive.

As the mission progressed, the SEALs came out of the Indian Ocean in small boats before dawn, but they were spotted as they moved toward a seaside compound. A firefight broke out.

With the element of surprise gone, the SEALs lost their chance to take him alive. The SEAL commander decided not to call in air strikes because of women and children in the compound. Instead, he ordered his men to withdraw to a Navy ship offshore.

The raid comes less than two weeks after gunmen from Al Shabaab massacred at least 68 people in a shopping mall in the Kenyan capitol of Nairobi.

On Monday, the Kenyan military released the identities of the mall attackers who were killed when the portion of the mall they were in collapsed in an explosion. They include an American Somali known as Khattab al-Kene, who may have been living under a different name in Minnesota. Other assailants identified included a Sudanese national with purported Al Qaeda ties and couple of Kenyan muslims from Mombassa- including Omar Nabhan who is said to have a role in the 1998 twin bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi and the Tanzanian capitol of Dar Es Salaam as well as a 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa and a failed attempt to shoot down a chartered Israeli passenger plane.

The intended target of the Somali raid is reportedly an al Shabaab operative known as Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir or Ikrima. Kenya's intelligence agency has implicated Abdulkadir in a thwarted plot to attack Kenya's parliament and UN Offices in Nairobi.

The mall attacks represent a dramatic shift for al Shabaab, which got its start in the Horn of Africa a few years ago with the stated goal of implementing islamic shari'a law and overthrowing Somalia's provisional government.

Last month, the Toronto Star obtained documents from one of Abdulkadir's predecessors that highlighted detailed plans for an attack against civilian targets in London using tactics reminiscent of the 2008 Lashkar-e-Taliba terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India that targeted upscale hotels, cafes and Mumbai's Chabad House. The documents were discovered in a Toyota where al Shabaab commander Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was shot an killed by Somali troops while attempting to run a roadblock northwest of Mogadishu in 2011.

Also over the weekend, an Al Qaeda operative under indictment for the 1998 twin embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania was arrested in Tripoli, Libya

The Pentagon said senior al Qaeda figure Anas al Liby was seized in the raid in Libya [....]

Liby, believed to be 49, has been under U.S. indictment for his alleged role in the East Africa embassy bombings that killed 224 people. The U.S. government has also been offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, under the State Department's Rewards for Justice program. "As the result of a U.S. counterterrorism operation, Abu Anas al Liby is currently lawfully detained by the U.S. military in a secure location outside of Libya," Pentagon spokesman George Little said without elaborating. Liby, also known as Nazih al-Ragye, was arrested at dawn in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, as he was heading home after morning prayers, a neighbor and militia sources said. "As I was opening my house door, I saw a group of cars coming quickly from the direction of the house where al-Ragye lives. I was shocked by this movement in the early morning," said one of his neighbors, who did not give his name, "They kidnapped him. We do not know who are they." Two Islamist militia sources confirmed the incident. CNN reported in September last year that Liby had been seen Tripoli. It quoted Western intelligence sources as saying there was concern that he may have been tasked with establishing an al Qaeda network in Libya. That CNN report quoted counterterrorism analysts as saying that Liby may not have been apprehended then because of the delicate security situation in much of the country, where former jihadists hold sway. It quoted one intelligence source as saying that Liby appeared to have arrived in Libya in the spring of 2011, during the country's civil war.

Al Liby was spotted in the Libyan capitol shortly after Ghdaffi's downfall and is believed to be establishing a foothold for Al Qaeda in post-Ghdaffi Libya.

Two Years After Fall of Ghdaffi, Libya's Government Struggling With Militias, Lawlessness and Declining Oil Output

Ismail Zitouny- Reuters

Amid a wave of strikes, political assassinations and open insurrection from some of the Islamist groups that fought in Libya's 2011 Civil war Libya's nascent post-Ghdaffi government appears to be on the brink of losing any semblance of control on the country.

The murky security situation is threatening stability in a desert nation with North Africa’s largest oil reserves. And it is causing new jitters in a region already on edge over rising violence in neighboring Egypt and the looming prospect of U.S. military strikes in Syria.

As the postwar government struggles to rebuild after 42 years of dictatorship, it has left security primarily in the hands of hundreds of private militias, which are far larger and better armed than the country’s poorly trained and equipped police and army.

The militias, most of which were formed to oust Gaddafi in the 2011 revolution, range from ragtag outfits of a couple of dozen men to organized forces of thousands of fighters.

During the revolution, they sprang up in villages, towns and cities across this country of 6.4 million people. Mechanics, merchants and farmers formed militias based on family, tribal, neighborhood or religious ties. They took weapons from Gaddafi’s vast arsenals and became a wildly diverse network united only by the goal of removing Gaddafi.

After the dictator’s death in October 2011, many militia fighters — suddenly regarded as war heroes and liberators — never laid down their weapons.

Many still fight — with guns blazing — over long-standing rivalries. Some have morphed into criminal gangs, some are religious extremists. Many are a mix of everything — cops and robbers, patriots and jihadis — making it hard to identify which are helping Libya’s post-revolutionary transition and which are hindering it.

Human rights groups claim that more than 50 people- including judges and active members security forces- were killed in recent weeks and the new government's security forces are spread too thin and outgunned by most militia groups.

In many instances, including protecting the nation's oil facilities or policing the capital city of Tripoli, security duties are often contracted out to various militias by the central government. However, a number of these groups have been striking since July claiming that they're owed back pay by the central government.

In the latest disruption, security guards re-imposed a strike they called off over the weekend, forcing the closure of Libya’s two main crude oil export terminals. Operations had resumed on Sunday at the ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf after a two-week stoppage. The two ports have a combined export capacity of around 600,000 barrels per day.

The work stoppage came just hours after gunmen wounded a guard and ransacked an oil service center Sunday evening in the eastern oasis town of Awjila. Libyan officials said they believe the attack was linked to competition between militia groups over oilfield contracts and the placement of their members in the newly created national Petroleum Facilities Guard, a force under the direct authority of the Defense Ministry, but made up largely of former militia members who have often fought among themselves.

Last week, Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan warned of the economic consequences of the off-and-on disruption to oilfield, production and export terminals. He said oil exports had plunged by 70 percent – a devastating financial setback for Libya, which relies on oil exports for nearly all of its foreign revenues.

Oil industry officials said the export terminals at the Es Sider, Amna and Sirtica oilfields had already filled up their storage tanks to capacity and had to shut down production.

Libya's oil minister said Monday the government was working to end the disruptions by meeting with the protesters and appointing a new head of the Petroleum Facilities Guard -- but that appointment also appears to have enraged some of the strikers.

The crisis has caused Libya's oil output to fall to just 160,000 barrels a day- a figure that industry observers say is less than 15% of the nation's output prior to the 2011 civil war. Some striking workers reportedly attempted to sell quantities of stockpiled oil on the black market, but Libyan forces opened fire on a Liberian-flagged tanker as it approached the export terminal of Es Sider that was held by striking workers at the end of August.

In June, rights groups claimed that at least 28 people were killed after militiamen from the Libyan Shield Brigade in the eastern city of Benghazi opened fire on a crowd of protestors. The eastern city of Benghazi is Libya's second largest city and is better known as the cradle of the 2011 uprising that ultimate overthrow and execution of Libyan dictator Mummar Ghdaffi thanks in part to NATO airstrikes targeting Ghdaffi's military assets. However, amid a deteriorating security situation US Ambassador Chris Stephens was murdered in a terrorist attack at the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 [despite the assailants using heavy weaponry and showing clear signs of prior coordination, the Obama Administration insisted for weeks that the Benghazi attack was a 'spontaneous demonstration' over an anti-Islamic You Tube video- NANESB!].

More Than 1000 Inmates Freed From Benghazi Prison in Massive Jailbreak As Anti-Muslim Bortherhood Protests

Another day, another jailbreak in a troubled Middle Eastern nation racked by widespread conflict and unrest in recent years.

More than 1,000 prisoners have escaped from a Libyan jail this afternoon, it has emerged.

Libyan security officials said the mass jailbreak occurred at Koyfiya prison, near the eastern city of Benghazi.

The jailbreak happened as protesters stormed the offices of Islamist-allied parties in Libya's main cities.

Protesters had massed across the country angry over the killing of an activist critical of the country's Muslim Brotherhood group.

It is not known if the jailbreak was part of the protests or if inmates received outside help.

A security official from the prison said most of the inmates were being held on serious charges.

There was confusion initially about how many prisoners broke out, with numbers of escapees ranging as high as 1,200.

Benghazi's security situation is among the most precarious in post-revolution Libya.

Although Libyan officials say about 100 escaped inmates were recaptured after the jailbreak, there was no immediate word on the nature of the charges the prisoners were convicted of or awaiting trial for or if any of the inmates were affiliated with Al Qaeda or Ansar Al-Shari'a.

The jailbreak coincides with protests in Benghazi that saw demonstrators attack the offices of the Muslim Brotherhood. Prior to the jailbreak and demonstrations, unidentified assailants shot and killed activist Abdelsalam al-Mismari as he left a mosque after Friday prayers. Al-Mismari was a key figure in the initial 2011 uprising that eventually led to Western intervention and the toppling of the Ghdaffi regime. Al-Mismari was also the leader of the Feb 17th Martyrs Brigade and a vocal critic of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Likely emboldened by the ongoing protests and overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the demonstrators broke down the doors to the Benghazi offices of the Muslim Brotherhood's Justice and Construction party, chanting that the Muslim Brotherhood's days in Benghazi were numbered before setting fires and throwing documents from office windows.

Benghazi has been considered off limits to foreigners ever since the deadly attack on the US Consulate on the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. Using mortars and RPGs in a well-coordinated assault, the attackers killed American ambassador Chris Stevens and three others while setting fire to buildings on the diplomatic compound. The Obama Administration blamed the attack on a 'spontaneous' protest over a You Tube video for several weeks before backtracking about the nature of the murder of Ambassador Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith and ex SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. Meanwhile, the assailants in the September 11, 2012 consulate attacks are still at large.

Standoff Between Algerian Army and Al Qaeda Terrorists At Natural Gas Facility Comes to Bloody Conclusion

Algerian Military truck seen on the road to Ain Aminas. Anis Belghoul- AP Photo

A standoff between the Algerian Army and Al Qaeda terrorists who took foreign hostages at a natural gas field in eastern Algeria came to a violent end when Algerian Special Operations Forces stormed the facility on Saturday.

Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end a standoff with an Al Qaeda-linked terror group that left at least 23 hostages dead and killed all 32 militants involved, the Algerian government said.

The siege at Ain Amenas transfixed the world after radical Islamists stormed the complex, which contained hundreds of plant workers from all over the world, then held them hostage surrounded by the Algerian military and its attack helicopters for four tense days that were punctuated with gun battles and dramatic tales of escape.

Algeria's response to the crisis was typical of its history in confronting terrorists, favoring military action over negotiation, which caused an international outcry from countries worried about their citizens. Algerian military forces twice assaulted the two areas where the hostages were being held with minimal apparent mediation -- first on Thursday, then on Saturday.

"To avoid a bloody turn of events in response to the extreme danger of the situation, the army's special forces launched an intervention with efficiency and professionalism to neutralize the terrorist groups that were first trying to flee with the hostages and then blow up the gas facilities," Algeria's Interior Ministry said in a statement about the standoff.

In the final assault, the remaining band of militants killed the hostages before 11 of them were in turn cut down by the special forces, Algeria's state news agency said. The military launched its Saturday assault to prevent a fire started by the extremists from engulfing the complex and blowing it up, the report added.

A total of 685 Algerian and 107 foreigner workers were freed over the course of the four-day standoff, the ministry statement said, adding that the group of militants that attacked the remote Saharan natural gas complex consisted of 32 men of various nationalities, including three Algerians and explosives experts.

The military also said it confiscated heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, missiles and grenades attached to suicide belts.

The facility at Ain Aminas is run by Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company- along with BP [NYSE: BP] and Norway's Statoil [NYSE: STO]. Sonatrach officials said the entire refinery had been mined with explosives, and that the process of clearing it out is currently under way.

Algerian officials believe the raid on the Ain Amenas facility and subsequent seige was done with inside help.

At least some of up to 70 Islamist guerrillas who stormed in before dawn on Wednesday launched their operation hours earlier, barreling over smugglers tracks across the Libyan border just after midnight, an Algerian security official told Reuters, citing evidence from mobile phones traced to the militants.

The ease with which they entered the fortified housing compound and nearby natural gas plant also left Algerians in little doubt the gunmen had allies among people at the site.

"They had local cooperation, I'm sure, maybe from drivers or security guards, who helped the terrorists get into the base," said Anis Rahmani, editor of Algeria's Ennahar newspaper and a writer on security issues who said he was briefed by officials.

Officials from Algeria's Interior Ministry said troops had moved in to prevent the terrorists from moving the captured hostages across the border to more lawless areas of Libya or Mali. An Algerian hostage said that some of the foreign hostages were forced to wear explosive vests or belts and that the Algerian hostages were more loosely guarded by the attackers. At least one American and one Briton were confirmed killed in the seige while another American and five Norweigans are unaccounted for.

Algeria has taken a hard line against terrorists and Islamic militants since a prolonged civil war in the 1990s between the military and jihadists killed an estimated 100,000 people.

Report: CIA Operatives Denied Help During Attack on US Consulate in Benghazi

In the latest development regarding the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, reports are circulating that multiple requests for military aid during the consulate attack were rejected by the chain of command.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.

Particularly damning is a report that appeared on milblogger Blackfive's page indicating that CIA and Special Operations forces had a GLD (Ground Laser Designator) on site in Benghazi during the attack, a device used to 'paint' targets on the ground for air support. Only during the Benghazi attack, both the CIA and Special Operations operatives were given orders to stand down.

An unarmed surveillance drone over Benghazi had reportedly relayed real-time footage of the attack to the chain of command. The attack went on for hours, meaning there was more than enough time for commanders to dispatch AC130U Spectre gunships from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily- some 480 miles away from Benghazi. The AC130U was designed for ground support and is capable of saturating a fairly compact are with precision fire from a 25mm gatling gun as well as precision 40mm and 105mm cannons. Such weapons systems also can operate with even greater precision with a GLD like what was reportedly on site at the CIA annex in Benghazi.

If true, this basically means that the chain of command in the CIA, State Department and White House left Ambassador Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods to die while the US Consulate was under a well planned and coordinated attack with heavy weaponry from Islamist militants- reportedly including Ansar al Sharia.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has denied that any of the C-130s had even left Sigonella during the attack while a CIA spokeswoman denies that requests for military aid from Benghazi during the attack were turned down. However, since both the State Department and White House continued blaming a short anti-Islamic YouTube video for weeks after the September 11th attacks, the denials are significantly lacking in credibility.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities detained a Tunisian man identified on surveillance video of the attack but so far, US interrogators have been denied the opportunity to interview him.

UPDATE 11/1- Foreign Policy magazine and Dubai's Al Aan television reported the discovery of more sensetive documents in the wreckage of the Benghazi consulate after the September 11th attacks, including a travel itinterary for Information Officer Sean Smith and e-mails from Ambassador Stevens to Libya's foreign minstry requesting additional security and reporting 'troubling surveillance' from a local police officer who was reportedly taking pictures inside the compound. Stevens even identified the car number the Libyan policeman arrived and departed in.

The Ambassador's report of the policeman taking pictures is consistent with Information Officer Smith's online message just hours before the attack that read "Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures".

Belated Post-Debate Musings

Well, here it is a few days after the second (and second to last) of the 2012 Presidential Debates and lord knows most of the other places on my blogroll have already commented, but I figured I should weigh in before the third and final debate on Monday night.

I missed the first debate at Denver University earlier this month- partly because I typically work evenings and partly because I was becoming burned out on politics altogether [not because I think Mitt Romney is such a shoddy candidate, but because I find it hard to believe there are people out there willing to defend President Obama's record over these last 3 years- NANESB!].

Apparently I missed a doozy, though. Romney repeatedly hammered President Obama over his economic record while Obama looked disinterested and even asked the moderator Jim Lehrer to change the subject at one point. Since then, Romney has been surging in the polls and gaining ground or pulling away in a number of battleground states while Obama's high-profile supporters have been blaming everything from the high altitude in Denver to the notion that Obama was being 'nice' and pulling his punches.

There was also a debate last week between VP Joe Biden and Romeny's VP nominee Paul Ryan that seemed to de derailed by the Vice President's facial tics and wierd grinning at the most inappropriate times.

The second Presidential debate took place on Tuesday night at Hofstra University in Long Island. The town hall format for this debate was different from the first, with Obama and Romney taking questions from an audience in a Q and A session that was moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley. I missed the first part of the debate- and I was told after the fact I didn't miss much at the time- but I caught most of the second half on radio.

I caught the moment everybody [who was paying attention- NANESB!] was talking about after the fact. Fielding a question about last month's terrorist attacks in Libya. Almost as soon Romney pointed out that it took nearly 2 weeks for the White House to acknowledge the attacks were the result of a planned terrorist action, not a spontaneous demonstration over a YouTube video, Crowley jumped in and said that Romney was wrong and at the Presiden't urging, produced a transcript of a September 12th statement to the press in the Rose Garden of the White House before flying off to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. After the debate, Crowley later walked back her words and said the Romney's statement was in fact correct.

Ignoring the fact that either the President and his proxies were lying to the press about the first terrorist attack to have killed an American diplomat in more than 30 years or he was callous enough to jet off to a high-end Sin City fundraiser while our diplomatic mission in Benghazi was still burning, there was something else I noticed that seemed to be overlooked by others in light of Crowley's blatant attempt to run interference for Obama.

Referencing the theater shooting in Aurora, CO, a member of the audience asked both candidates about revisiting the assault-weapons ban, which had lapsed under George W Bush. Gov Romney gave a fairly lengthy answer that mentioned enforcing laws already already on the books, before bringing up the Department of Justice's Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking program. Romney basically took a minute or so to explain what exactly was Fast and Furious to the audience of undecided voters, but as soon as he started mentioning the Obama Administrations' role in the ATF's gunwalking program, Crowley interrupted the governor in an attempt to steer the discussion back towards domestic gun control policy [most likely the original intent of Fast & Furious, according to some- NANESB!].

Apparently taking a cue from Joe Biden, President Obama apparently decided to start smiling at REALLY inappropriate times before Crowley allowed him to speak. Obama's long and rambling answer sidestepped Fast and Furious altogether and instead talk about the need for more teachers and funding for community colleges.

This likely won't be the last we hear from Fast and Furious at the debates- the third and final debate is scheduled for Monday, October 22nd and is slated to revolve around foreign policy. While some feel that this may be a strong suit for the President, there is not only the matter of Fast and Furious, the Libya terrorist attacks as well as the proposed KeystoneXL pipeline from Canada, there's also President Obama's persistent refusal to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the continuing threat from Iran's nuclear program, an increasingly aggressive Russia and China and deteriorating situations in Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and Turkey

Benghazi Update- Secretary of State Clinton Accepts Responsibility For Lack of Security; Congressional Panel Interviews Witnesses; FBI Spends Only 12 Hours in Benghazi; British Weapons Unaccounted For

During an official visit to Peru on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that she accepted responsibility for the security lapses leading up to the deadly terrorist attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans last month.

"I'm responsible for the State Department, for the more than 60,000 people around the world," she said. "The decisions about security are made by security professionals. But we're going to review everything to be sure we're doing what needs to be done in an increasingly risky environment."

She also addressed the question of a June explosion at the consulate in Benghazi that some have argued should have raised a red flag about security.

"I can't speak to who knew what," she said. "We knew there were security breaches and problems throughout Libya. That's something that came about as the aftermath of the revolution to topple Qaddafi, with so many militias formed, so many weapons loose. ... It was taken into account by security professionals as they made their assessments."

Clinton also seemed to dismiss accusations that the State Department and White House intentionally pushed a false narrative about a spontaneously-forming protest over a YouTube video serving as a catalyst for the deadly September 11, 2012 attacks for nearly two weeks- in spite of the fact there were no protests in Benghazi that night and the assailants used heavy weaponry such as mortars and RPGs.

While some have viewed this as President Obama 'throwing Hillary under the bus', Da Tech Guy makes the case that this was a shrewdly calculated move by Secretary of State Clinton that undermines Obama while heading off a number of stories about security breaches leading up to last month's attacks from a normally compliant media that was starting to get curious on the issue. The decision can also be viewed through the prism of a possible 2016 Presidential run by Clinton.

Meanwhile, US security and military officials testified before the House Oversight Committee last week, claiming that requests for additional security in Libya were rebuffed by higher-ups at the State Department. Lt Col Andrew Wood of the Utah National Guard commanded a 16-member Special Forces security detail responsible for protecting American officials in Libya after the collapse of the Ghdaffi regime- the team departed the country about a month before the attacks in Benghazi.

Wood told CBS News that he met daily with Stevens to discuss security.

"He was constantly concerned about the threats to not just himself but the entire staff there," Wood said.

Over the six months leading up to the attack on Stevens, Wood says the security situation in Libya deteriorated.

There were 13 threats or attacks in Tripoli and Benghazi, including two attempted assassinations of the British ambassador to Libya.

Wood said Stevens and his staff made the case for tightened security in emails and diplomatic cables. One by one, they lost three State Department security teams, their only airplane and, eventually, his squad too.

Wood said some of the security teams would have been in Benghazi on Sept. 11 to if they had been allowed to remain in Libya, and the four deaths might have been avoided.

Earlier this month, an FBI forensic team arrived at the site of the attacks in Benghazi- nearly three weeks after the attacks took place- and examined the area for a grand total of 12 hours. The site of the attacks had been left unsecured for nearly three weeks and the trek out to Benghazi was expected to yield little in the way of actionable information.

Britain's Foreign Office also reported that British weapons and vehicles left at the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi were unaccounted for after the September 11 attacks. The UK's envoy to Libya, Sir Dominic Dominic Asquith, survived an RPG attack that wounded two of his bodyguards in June and the Foreign Office decided to withdraw all British diplomats from the area shortly thereafter. According to testimony from Lt. Col Wood, the UK Foreign Office made arrangements with the US Consulate in Benghazi for safekeeping of the weapons and vehicles and retrieve them incrementally through multiple low-profile trips back to the area.

UPDATE- 10/15- AP is reporting that the White House is inexplicably announcing preperations to send a strike team into Libya.....yes- basically announcing a 'covert' mission to the public via mass media, apparently.

Benghazi Update: As Obama Addresses UN, White House And State Department Change Stories on Benghazi Attacks; Brazilian Court Orders Anti-Islam Video Removed From You Tube

One day after President Obama delivered a harsh rebuke of those who would insult Islam while offering a tepid- if nonexistent- defense of free speech, The Daily Beast published an in-depth article detailing how within a day of the September 11th, 2012 attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that killed the Ambassador and three diplomatic and security staff, US intelligence officials knew that Al Qaeda affiliated operatives in Eastern Libya were behind the attacks.

The intelligence officials who spoke to The Daily Beast did so anonymously because they weren’t authorized to speak to the press. They said U.S. intelligence agencies developed leads on four of the participants of the attacks within 24 hours of the fire fight that took place mainly at an annex near the Benghazi consulate. For one of those individuals, the U.S. agencies were able to find his location after his use of social media. “We had two kinds of intelligence on one guy,” this official said. “We believe we had enough to target him.”

Another U.S. intelligence official said, “There was very good information on this in the first 24 hours. These guys have a return address. There are camps of people and a wide variety of things we could do.”

A spokesman for the National Security Council declined to comment for the story. But another U.S. intelligence official said, “I can’t get into specific numbers but soon after the attack we had a pretty good bead on some individuals involved in the attack.”

It’s unclear whether any of these suspected attackers have been targeted or arrested, and intelligence experts caution that these are still early days in a complex investigation.

The Daily Beast article was published days after an unnamed Libyan source claimed that there was no protest in front of the US Consulate just prior to the bloody assault.

An intelligence source on the ground in Libya told Fox News that there was no demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi prior to last week's attack -- challenging the Obama administration's claims that the assault grew out of a "spontaneous" protest against an anti-Islam film.

"There was no protest and the attacks were not spontaneous," the source said, adding the attack "was planned and had nothing to do with the movie."

The source said the assault came with no warning at about 9:35 p.m. local time, and included fire from more than two locations. The assault included RPG's and mortar fire, the source said, and consisted of two waves.

The account that the attack started suddenly backs up claims by a purported Libyan security guard who told McClatchy Newspapers late last week that the area was quiet before the attack.

"There wasn't a single ant outside," the unnamed guard, who was being treated in a hospital, said in the interview.

A spokesman for Libya's nascent post-Ghdaffi government said local eyewitnesses claimed that the attack came in two waves- RPG and machine gun fire directed at the consulate followed by mortar fire directed at one of the safehouses. The eyewitness accounts directly contradict statements from the Obama Administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the consulate was torched as a result of a spontaneous protest or heavily-armed Al Qaeda operatives blending in among a massive demonstration in front of the US consulate.

US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice had made the Sunday morning talk-show circuit repeating the White House claim that there was a spontaneous demonstration- directly contradicting a number of reports to the contrary.

Despite sending FBI agents and forensic teams to Libya to examine the crime scene and interview local witnesses, the FBI agents still hadn't reached the city of Benghazi more than 2 weeks after the consulate attacks took place- meaning that the scene of the assault has been compromised and even if forensic teams were arrived today, there would be little evidence of value remaining. In fact, a stringer for CNN reportedly discovered Ambassador Stevens' diary in a charred hallway in the Benghazi consulate- CNN subsequently came under harsh criticism for not mentioning their find earlier and using the journal as a source without notifying the ambassador's family or the State Department, although they eventually returned the diary to the Stevens family after transcribing information they thought was pertinent.



Since June of this year, there had been at least four previous attacks targeting foreign diplomats or NGOs in Benghzai, including an IED targetting the US Consulate and an RPG fired at a British diplomatic convoy. Ambassador Stevens reportedly expressed a growing concern in his journal about the deteriorating security situation in the eastern part of Libya.

Another indicator that the attack in Libya required a considerable amount of advanced planning was the fact that CIA documents regarding post-Ghdaffi contacts in Libya and detailed dossiers on Islamist militias were missing from the consulate after the attack. As one analyst put it "We got our eyes poked out".

The missing intelligence along with the timing of the attack and use of heavy weapons- as well as reports from local eyewitnesses that there were no massive protests leading up to the attack- would give even the most casual observer every indication that the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were the result of a calculated, well planned raid- not a random gaggle of Muslims irate over a YouTube clip who just happened to have heavy weapons on them when they decided to lash out at the USA.

ELSEWHERE- The Obama Administration's insistence that a YouTube trailer somehow provoked the violence that led to Ambassador Steven's has spread to Brazil, apparently. Not only that, it reportedly has the weight of a Brazilian court ruling behind it.

Sao Paulo-based judge Gilson Delgado Miranda gave the site 10 days to remove video clips from "Innocence of Muslims," which has angered many Muslims around the world by its depiction of the Prophet Mohammed and his followers as thugs. After the 10-day window, Google will face fines of $5,000 a day for every day the clips remain accessible in Brazil, according to the statement on the court's website.

The company did not respond to requests Wednesday for comment about the case.

The "Innocence of Muslims" ruling resulted from a lawsuit by a group representing Brazil's Muslim community, the National Union of Islamic Entities, which claimed the film violates the country's constitutional guarantee of religious freedom for all faiths.

In a statement on the group's website, Mohamad al Bukai, the head of religious matters for the Sao Paulo-based organization, hailed the ruling.

"Freedom of expression must not be confused with giving disproportionate and irresponsible offence, which can provoke serious consequences for society," al Bukai said.

Attempts by courts and officials in several countries to remove the clips have revived the debate over freedom of expression.

The judge in the Brazilian case acknowledged that banning content from sites like YouTube is a thorny issue, according to excerpts of the ruling cited in the National Union of Islamic Entities' statement.

"This type of jurisprudence cannot be confused with censorship," Miranda is quoted as writing. In the excerpts, the judge defines censorship as "the undue restriction of the civic consciousness."

YouTube routinely blocks video in specific countries if it violates laws there. It also removes video deemed to infringe copyrights, show pornography, contain hate speech or violate other guidelines. However, none of those restrictions had been applied in Brazil to the "Innocence of Muslims."

Google is now selectively blocking the video clips in countries that include Libya and Egypt. Google has said it made the decision to block the video in such places due to "the sensitive situations" there.

Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation questioned whether a ban was really necessary in Brazil, which has seen no protests or rioting that have swept the Muslim world in recent weeks.

"The notion that there's a need to take it down to prevent violence is ludicrous," she said.

Miranda's ruling came on the same day that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff addressed the United Nations and urged an end to prejudice against Muslims.

In a separate ruling, a top official for Google Brazil was ordered detained and fined due to a breach of Brazilian electoral law. The arrest of Fabio Jose Silva Coehlo by federal police in Brazil was initially reported as stemming from the Innocence of Muslims short film.

Earlier this month, the White House had requested Google remove the movie.

Post Benghazi Update- State Department Insists Deadly Consulate Attack was 'Spontaneous' Demonstration; Filmmaker Identified, Questioned by Authorities

Violent protests and attacks on American embassies throughout the Middle East continued on Friday and over the weekend. Demonstrators in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen had stormed the grounds of US diplomatic missions, set fires and tore down the stars and stripes while hoisting a black islamist flag with arabic script.

The continued unrest comes as the White House and State Department repeatedly denied that the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate was premeditated in any way. The attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Diplomatic Security officers and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty and information officer Sean Smith took place on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

While President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton maintain that the mob that had stormed the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi had formed 'spontaneously' in response to a short anti-Islam film that appeared on YouTube, Libyan officials have claimed otherwise. In an interview with NPR, Libyan president President Mohammed el-Megarif said the Benghazi assault was a military-style attack that used heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars to assault the consulate and safehouses as well as keep reinforcements at bay. Such an attack, el-Megarif points out, would require comprehensive advanced planning. Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil said that at least some of the rioters in Cairo who were arrested after clashes with police in front of the US Embassy there had confessed to being paid to show up. In the face of all that, White House Press spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the protests, arson, looting and murders directed at American diplomats throughout the Middle East and arab world somehow aren't directed at the USA, but rather a visceral reaction to the anti-Muslim video circulating online.

Curiously, a few days prior to the American consulate in Benghazi being overrun, Canada had announced they were closing down their embassy in Tehran and expelling all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada. The Canadian government cited their official designation of Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring state, their continued support of the Syrian regime's military crackdown on its citizens and an attack against the British Embassy in Tehran that the UK insists was orchestrated by Iran's ruling mullahs. I thought Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry was newsworthy in and of itself at the time, but it's taken on greater significance since the murder of American diplomats on September 11.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, State Department and US Media's response to the slaughter in Benghazi has been disheartening at best.

While insisting that an attack utilizing heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars WASN'T pre-planned, the Obama Administration and American media outlets quickly went on the counterattack- not against the people who murdered our ambassadors and torched our diplomatic posts, but rather Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the purported filmmaker.

A number of press outlets immediately jumped on Romney shortly after he issued a statement criticizing a message from the State Department that the Administration themselves had backed away from. So as Obama flew out to a Las Vegas campaign fundraiser as American embassies throughout the middle East were burning, there was the matter of a compliant media coordinating questions shortly before a press conference former governor Romney's non-existent gaffe and 'jumping the gun' to the point while President Obama briefly issued a statement and took no questions before leaving to continue his re-election campaign in Nevada.

However, that paled in comparison to what took place in Southern California on Friday night when Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the house of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to take him into custody. Nakoula, who made The Innocence of Muslims film under the pseudonym Sam Basile, was identified as a Coptic Christian who emigrated here from Egypt and was sentenced to 20 month in prison after being arrested in a 2009 check-kiting scam. Nakoula had also reportedly agreed to become a government informant after his 2009 arrest in exchange for a sentence reduction. Reportedly the deputies were there to escort him to an interview with federal probation officials. However, the late night visit by deputies only came after calls from Islamist groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to prosecute the filmmaker for insulting the prophet Muhammed.

Over the weekend, images of Nakoula with his face hidden and flanked by deputies had circulated throughout the web. Curiously, some of Obama's more prominent supporters [in the entertainment industry of all places- NANESB!] had come out in favor of prosecuting Nakoula on ambiguous 'hate crimes' charges.

Meanwhile, the press had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to reveal Nakoula's face and home address to the world. Unsurprisingly, Nakoula and his family have fled their Cerritos, CA home to an undisclosed location. Google- which is the parent company of YouTube- has since rejected a White House request to take down the offending video.

US Ambassador to Libya, 3 Other Americans Murdered in Attack on Consulate in Benghazi

Charred vehicle on the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The diplomatic compound was overrun by a mob of roughly 1,000 people before gunmen in the crowd opened fire on the consulate and vehicles with on Tuesday, September 11th

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was among four Americans murdered on Tuesday night after a rampaging crowd managed to break in to the grounds of the US Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. Heavily armed terrorists moving within the crowd then opened fire on the consulate and diplomatic staff with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

The crowd had reportedly paraded around Ambassador Stevens' corpse while taking photos. A local media report quoted a Libyan official in Benghazi said that the ambassador had died of suffocation. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, an avid online gamer, had reportedly left a message a few hours prior to the attack on the Benghazi facility that read ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”. Smith was also fatally injured in the attack.

A report from CBS earlier on Wednesday quoted an official from Libya's Interior Ministry who claimed that after the consulate's Libyan security detail evacuated the Ambassador and diplomatic staff, some of the security staff had reportedly tipped the crowd off to the Ambassador's new and supposedly secure location.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Although the short film had been blamed for inciting angry mobs in both who breached US Diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, intelligence agencies say the fact that the murders took place on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks it's increasingly likely that the attack was planned well in advance by an Al Qaeda offshoot. Intelligence and media reports indicate that a Libyan jihadist group operating under the name of Ansar Al Sharia is behind the attacks. Stevens was the first US Ambassador to be killed while on assignment since Adolph Dubs- the US Ambassador to Afghanistan- was killed in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in 1979.

Benghazi is the eastern city that's considered the cradle of the uprising that ultimately toppled Mummar Ghdaffi's 42-year reign in Libya. Ghdaffi's Army was on the cusp of crushing the uprising and seizing Benghazi before the international community intervened in the form of NATO air strikes in February 2011. After months of fighting, Ghdaffi was captured and killed in a pitched battle near his hometown of Sitre. Ambassador Steven's had reportedly worked closely with Libya's transitional council after the Ghdaffi regime fled the capitol at Tripoli. The property was reportedly a temporary location that wasn't as secure as a number of permanent facilities.

The Benghazi assault came just hours after protestors in Egypt breached the walls of the American embassy there and tore down the American flag, replacing it with a black flag with white arabic script used by Al Qaeda.

However, instead of immediately condemning the provocation from the Egyptian crowd, the US Embassy released multiple statements criticising the producers of the movie the protestors were supposedly upset with and a series of tweets that bordered on apologetic. The official US Embassy in Cairo statement reads as follows [empasis mine].

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The White House distanced themselves from the Cairo Embassy's statements while Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized the statements coming from the Cairo Embassy as 'an apology for American values' and the Obama Administration's repudiation of the statements as an example of mixed signals the President has been sending to the international community. In Cairo, police and protestors clashed for a second straight night.

A team of about 50 Marines has been dispatched to Tripoli to secure the US Embassy in the Libyan capital while two guided missile destroyers have been deployed off of the coast of Libya.

One Year After Uprising That Ousted Ghdaffi, Libyans Imprison Blacks in Zoo & Desecrate WWII British Cemetary, Missiles Recovered Near Algerian Border

Libyan rebels rounding up black prisoners suspected of working as mercenaries during last year's uprising against the Ghdaffi regime. Florent Marcie/AFP Photo

LIBYA-Footage showing several black detainees locked in a zoo-like enclosure with their hands bound and green flags stuffed in their mouths was circulating via youtube and a number of news outlets last week. As a crowd surrounding the enclosure jeers at the men inside, the photographer is heard shouting in Arabic to the captives "Eat the flag, you dog! God is great!".

While it's still difficult if not impossible to verify the authenticity of the video, it's widely believed it originated from Libya and that the black men in the video are accused of fighting for the fallen Ghdaffi regime as hired mercenaries.

Although Ghdaffi reportedly hired a number of African mercenaries to try and crush last year's uprising that ultimately toppled his regime, shopkeepers, migrant workers and construction laborers from sub-Saharan Africa have resided in Libya decades before the uprising.

With no formal court or police system in place throughout much of Libya after the fall of the Ghdaffi regime, it's thought that the revolutionary brigades still have nearly ¾ of their captives from the civil war still in custody. So far, the fledgling Libyan Ministry of Justice has taken charge of eight detention facilities thought to contain around 2400 inmates.



BENGHAZI- A British military cemetary housing the remains of some 1200 soliders and airmen outside the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi was vandalized last week. The spree was caught on video by one of the offenders as a crowd of men systematically knocked over about 150 headstones and smashed a large sandstone cross with sledgehammers.

The cemetery outside the Libyan second city, the headquarters of anti-Gaddafi forces during last year’s revolution, is the final resting place of more than 1,200 soldiers and airmen who died serving under Montgomery in the war in the desert.

Many of them were members of the 7th Armoured Division, the Desert Rats, who helped turn the tide of the war in their struggle for control of north Africa against Rommel’s forces between 1941 and 1943.

The vandalism, last week, is thought to be part of a wave of attacks on western targets across the Islamic world in apparent retaliation for the burning of Korans at an American military base in Afghanistan.

It is suspected that members of a Salifist militia, followers of an ultra-purist interpretation of Islam already responsible for destroying several tombs to Muslim holy men in Libya, were behind it. The transitional Libyan government has apologised and pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

The footage shows a crowd of young men wearing scarves, many of them in military-style fatigues with rifles slung over their shoulders, making their way along the rows at the cemetery kicking and wrenching headstones from their footings.

A voice behind the camera can be heard casually muttering “Allahu akbar” – meaning God is Great – as each headstone is dislodged.

At one point a man can be heard saying: "This is a grave of a Christian" as he uproots a headstone with a cross on it. The camera focuses on a Jewish serviceman’s gravestone, bearing a star of David and a Hebrew inscription, as it is attacked.

The desecration comes less than a year after Libyan rebel fighters had begged the outside world- including NATO and the United Kingdom- for military intervention as Ghdaffi's forces were preparing to crush the remaining rebel forces in Benghazi.

ALGERIA- Algerian security forces have reportedly discovered 43 anti-aircraft weapons that went missing after the fall of Ghdaffi's regime last year.

The weapons cache was said to have been buried in the sand near the Algerian-Libyan border and consists of SA-24 anti-aircraft missiles as well as the shoulder-fired SAM-7.

According to the U.S., Libya amassed some 20,000 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, the largest such stockpile in a non-producing country.

In October, the U.N. Security Council urged Libyan authorities to do all they could from keeping their enormous stockpile of shoulder-fired missiles from falling into terrorist hands.

It is feared that terrorist groups might use the missiles to attack civil aviation.

Thousands of the weapons are believed to have gone missing when militias overthrew the Gadhafi and helped themselves to government stockpiles.

Algerian authorities have long warned that weapons from Libya’s civil war could call into terrorist hands, including the local branch of al-Qaida, which is active in northern Algeria as well as in the desert wastes straddling the borders to the south.

According to a French language Algerian newspaper, authorities acted on a tip from smugglers who operate in the region.

CYRENAICA- Tribal leaders in Eastern Libya have declared semi-autonomy from Tripoli at a meeting in Benghazi this week.

They say the move is necessary as the region, once known as Cyrenaica, has been neglected for decades.

But the move has caused tension with the governing National Transitional Council (NTC) in the capital Tripoli.

[T]he declaration has significant popular support among people in Benghazi, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Libya's second city reports.

The document has no force in law but is a declaration of intent by the local leaders, our correspondent adds.

Hundreds of people attended the Congress of the People of Cyrenaica, held in a hangar on the outskirts of Benghazi.

The conference announced that it wanted to have its own parliament, police force, courts and capital - in Benghazi. Foreign policy would be left to the federal government in Tripoli, it said.

Under the Ghdaffi regime, residents of eastern Libya were resentful that Tripoli spent most of the money for develoment and infrastructure on the western part of the country while Benghazi was neglected. The Emirate of Cyrenaica was an independent nation recognized by the UK in 1949 before becoming part of what constitutes present-day Libya. Ahmed al-Senussi- the great-nephew of King Idris, Libya's only monarch- was announced as the head of Cyrenaica. Al-Senussi was arrested by the Ghdaffi regime in 1970 and not released until 2001.

Libya's Interim Prime Minister: Ghdaffi is Dead

The Prime minister for Libya's interim government announced today that Libyan strongman Mummar Ghdaffi has been killed by rebel fighters in his hometown of Sirte on Thursday.

Qaddafi died of wounds suffered during his capture near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday, according to a spokesman for Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC).

"Qaddafi is dead. He is absolutely dead ... he was shot in both legs and in the head. The body will be arriving in Misrata soon," media spokesman Abdullah Berrassali told Sky News.

Earlier, a man who claimed to have witnessed the attack told the Associated Press Television News that he struck Qaddafi with his shoes after he was shot.

Footage aired on Arabian TV showed a captured and wounded Ghdaffi bleeding as he was pinned against a truck's hood before being jostled and shoved by rebel fighters who were firing into the air and shouting "Allahu Akhbar! [God is Great]".

Now, before we get all warm and fuzzy [dare I say hopey-changey? NANESB!] lets not forget that an exiled Libyan Jew who was working to restore a Tripoli synagogue was threatened by masked men brandishing rifles earlier this month. There is also the matter of Libyan rebels arbitrarily rounding up and detaining black men and as many as 20,000 Russian-made shoulder-launched missiles in Ghdaffi's military arsenal that are now unaccounted for.

Still, the Libyan dictator's demise comes as not only good news to a number of Libyans, but also the family members of those killed in Lockerbie, Scotland when Libyan agents blew up Pan Am Flight 103 in December 1988. Five Bulgarian nurses who were working in Libya before being detained by the Ghdaffy regime in 1999 and accused of deliberately infecting children with HIV in a show trial also welcomed the news of Ghdaffi's demise. In 2007 Mummar Ghdaffi's son admitted that the nurses were tortured in order to obtain a confession.


Exit question- what exactly is the status of Ghdaffi's all 'Grrrl' bodyguard squad? Were they captured or die with their leader in Sirte? I get the feeling the smarter of the Ghdaffi 'Grrl Power' squad are currently referred to as 'Rebel/Interim Government spokeswoman'.

UPDATE: This slideshow from Al-Bawaba offers some insight into the women of Ghdaffi's inner circle- both Arab and European- leading up to the civil war, including the bodyguard squad.

Libya Update- Rebel Fighters Rounding Up, Detaining Black Migrants; China Circumvents Arms Embargo on Ghdaffi Regime?

Migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa found themselves unable to leave Libya during the 6 month old uprising are now finding themselves in dire straits as the rebel-led interim government takes over.

Rebels who took up arms against Libya's Mummar Ghdaffi have begun arbitrarily rounding up and detaining black migrants from sub-Saharan Africa after taking control of Tripoli from the fugitive dictator. As cities like Benghazi and Ras Lanuf fell to rebels, armed civilians began rounding up black residents- in some cases, beating and robbing then before turning them over as rebel fighters began taking over local government offices.

At the start of the uprising, rumors were circulating that the Ghdaffi regime was hiring mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa to aid the regime's security forces in dealing with protesters and rebels. However, many more Africans from countries like Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and neighboring Niger have also worked in civilian jobs throughout much of the Ghdafi regime.

Aladdin Mabrouk, a spokesman for Tripoli's military council, said no one knows how many people have been detained in the city, but he guessed more than 5,000. While no central registry exists, he said neighborhood councils he knows have between 200 and 300 prisoners each.

In February, witnesses reported African fighters shooting at protesters or being captured by anti-Gadhafi forces. Witnesses have described scores of mercenaries being flown in to put down the rebellion, although many of the fighters already were in Libya.

As a result, people with roots in sub-Saharan Africa and black Libyan citizens have been targeted by rebel forces in the messy and confusing fight for control of the country.

In the Khallat al-Firjan neighborhood in south Tripoli, Associated Press reporters saw rebel forces punching a dozen black men before determining they were innocent migrant workers and releasing them.

The Gate of the Sea club near Tripoli's fishing port became a lockup Monday night, when residents rounded up people in the surrounding area.

Guards at the club said they looked for unfamiliar faces, then asked for IDs. Those without papers or whose legal residences were distant cities were marched to the club.

This week, an armed guard stood by a short hallway that led through two metal gates onto a soccer field surrounded by high walls. There was no roof, so the detainees clustered against the wall to get out of the heat.

Even prior to the uprising, Ghdaffi was known to recruit foreign fighters from sub-Saharan Africa

ELSEWHERE: According to recently unearthed documents, Chinese arms companies attempted to circumvent the UN sanctions and sell an estimated $200 million in arms to the waning Ghdaffi regime.

The documents suggest that Beijing and other governments may have played a double game in the Libyan war, claiming neutrality but covertly helping the dictator. The papers do not confirm whether any military assistance was delivered, but senior leaders of the new transitional government in Tripoli say the documents reinforce their suspicions about the recent actions of China, Algeria and South Africa. Those countries may now suffer a disadvantage as Libya’s new rulers divide the spoils from their vast energy resources, and select foreign firms for the country’s reconstruction.

Senior rebel officials confirmed the authenticity of the four-page memo, written in formal style on the green eagle letterhead used by a government department known as the Supply Authority, which deals with procurement. The Globe and Mail found identical letterhead in the Tripoli offices of that department. The memo was discovered in a pile of trash sitting at the curb in a neighbourhood known as Bab Akkarah, where several of Col. Gadhafi’s most loyal supporters had lavish homes.

The document reports in detail about a trip by Col. Gadhafi’s security officials from Tripoli to Beijing. They arrived on July 16, and in the following days they met with officials from three state-controlled weapons manufacturers: China North Industries Corp. (Norinco); the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corp. (CPMIC); and China XinXing Import & Export Corp. The Chinese companies offered the entire contents of their stockpiles for sale, and promised to manufacture more supplies if necessary.

The hosts thanked the Libyans for their discretion, emphasized the need for confidentiality, and recommended delivery via third parties.

“The companies suggest that they make the contracts with either Algeria or South Africa, because those countries previously worked with China,” the memo says.

The Chinese companies also noted that many of the items the Libyan delegation requested were already held in the arsenals of the Algerian military, and could be transported immediately across the border; the Chinese said they could replenish the Algerian stocks afterward. The memo also indicated that Algeria had not yet consented to such an arrangement, and proposed further talks at the branch offices of the Chinese companies in Algiers.

Appendices stapled to the memo, and scattered nearby, show the deadly items under discussion: truck-mounted rocket launchers; fuel-air explosive missiles; and anti-tank missiles, among others. Perhaps most controversially, the Chinese apparently offered Col. Gadhafi’s men the QW-18, a surface-to-air missile small enough for a soldier to carry on his shoulder – roughly similar to a U.S. Stinger, capable of bringing down some military aircraft.

While Algeria reportedly hadn't consented to such a deal, rebels and the interim government remained suspicious after Ghdaffi's wife and three of his children were able to seek asylum in neighboring Algeria.

Towards the beginning of the uprising, Libyan rebels were able to use seized radar equipment at the airport outside of Benghazi to track C-130 and IL-76 cargo planes- some bearing registration codes used by the Algerian military- flying into and out of Ghdaffi loyalist strongholds.

Libya Endgame? Reports of Ghdaffi's Death Circulate As Rebles Encircle Tripoli

Rebels seeking to oust Libyan leader Mummar Ghdaffi have advanced to the outskirts of the capitol city of Tripoli while managing to cut off fuel and supplies not even a week after seizing the Western coastal city of Zawiyah.

Aided by NATO airstrikes and ferrying in weapons and supplies by tugboat, rebels surrounded the capital and began an assault on Ghdaffi's remaining stronghold on Sunday. Amid reports circulating that he had been killed, the defiant Libyan leader made a brief audio statement in state-run TV claiming that the rebel 'rats and vermin' in Tripoli 'have been eliminated'.

Rebel forces announced that they had captured one of Ghdaffi's sons, Seif al Islam Ghdaffi, in a raid that thrust into downtown Tripoli. The rebels had also been arming themselves after forces loyal to Ghdaffi abandoned checkpoints and arms depots in the suburbs around the city.

The rebel assault on the capital began on Saturday night at the Ben Nabi mosque near the heart of the city. As worshippers inside the mosque barricaded themselves and used the loudspeaker system to chant antigovernment slogans, loyalist troops converged and opened fire on the building. Rebels and local residents then moved in and attacked the Ghdaffi loyalists with machine guns and molotov cocktails, driving them back. From there, the rebels moved into Green Square and in a largely symbolic maneuver, raised the pre-Ghdaffi royal flag of Libya (below) that the rebels have adopted during the months-long uprising.

Green Square is where Ghdaffi held military parades and state-sponsored rallies throughout his rule.

From there, the rebels reportedly withdrew- but not before sending text messages and using mosque loudspeakers to call for a general uprising against the Ghdaffi regime. One rebel spokesman said that a small number of fighters and several caches of arms on the roads into and out of Tripoli were smuggled into the city in the days and weeks before the uprising.

Both the rebels and many international observes note that the rebel encirlcement of Libya represents an unprecedented challenge to Ghdaffi's 41 year rule, and that the collapse of his regime is only a matter of days if not hours.

Kinetic Military Action Figure Update- Al Qaeda Looting Ghdaffy's Arsenals? Libyan Official Defects; Rebels, Qatar Bartering for Oil

LIBYA: NATO continued airstrikes against forced loyal to Libyan leader Mummar Ghdaffi outside the eastern oil city of Brega, striking a convoy that was heading towards rebel positions as well as armour and surface to air missiles in Ghdaffi's hometown of Sitre. The city of Brega has changed hands between rebels and Ghdaffi loyalists no less than three times in the last month.

The faction of the Libyan military loyal to Ghdaffi have also adapted the rebel's tactics of mounting machine guns, mortars and anti-aircraft guns on pickup or flatbed trucks. Not only does this give them a greater degree of mobility, but it also raises a problem for NATO pilots, as they would be much more difficult to distinguish from simlar rebel vehicles.

Amid reports that US and Egyptian special forces are covertly training rebel fighters in Eastern Libya [How covert is it if I'm reading about it on front the front pages of the International Business Times- I mean, really?- NANESB!] a senior Algerian security official has raised concerns that al-Qaeda has been exploiting the unrest in Libya to obtain weapons from Ghdaffy's arsenal for use elsewhere.

The senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a convoy of eight Toyota pick-up trucks left eastern Libya, crossed into Chad and then Niger, and from there into northern Mali where in the past few days it delivered a cargo of weapons.

The weapons included Russian-made RPG-7 anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, explosives and ammunition, he said.

He also said he had information that Al-Qaeda's north African wing, known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) had acquired from Libya Russian-made shoulder-fired Strela surface-to-air missiles known by the NATO designation SAM-7.

"Several military barracks have been pillaged in this region (eastern Libya) with their arsenals and weapons stores and the elements of AQIM who were present could not have failed to profit from this opportunity" the official told Reuters "AQIM, which has maintained excellent relations with smugglers who used to cross Libya from all directions without the slightest difficulty, will probably give them the task of bringing it the weapons," said the official.

On top of that, a 2007 US raid against al Qaeda in Iraq yielded records on at least 600 foreign al Qaeda operatives in Iraq. Of those, an estimated 20% came from Libya- almost all of them from cities in the east that are now in rebel hands.

BBC Map showing first few days of NATO airstrikes

QATAR: The Liberian-flagged Suezmax tanker Equator arrived in the rebel-held eastern Libyan port of Marsa al Hariga on Tuesday, the first traffic since anti-Ghdaffy demonstrations began a few weeks ago.

The tanker's arrival comes shortly after the rebels announced a deal with the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar where the oil would be marketed by Qatar in exchange for food, medicine (and the rebels hope weapons and ammunition as well). The 'barter' arrangement means that Qatar is able to circumvent international sanctions against Libya.

UNITED KINGDOM: Former Libyan Foreign minister Moussa Koussa flew to England from Tunisia last Thursday and announced his defection from the Ghdaffi regime.

As head of Libya external intelligence, Mr Koussa was an MI6 [British intelligence]asset for almost two decades. He was charged with conducting negotiations over Libya's giving up its weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

He was notably uncomfortable in making public statements on behalf of the regime in recent weeks. One Libyan official said that Mr Koussa had deliberated timed his statements to present a "rational" argument in the immediate aftermath of Col Muammar Gaddafi's rambling statements on national television.

With his arrival in the UK, Scottish prosecutors have sought to interview Koussa regarding the Libyan regime's role in the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that killed 270 people. At the time, Khoussa was head of Libya's Bureau for External Security (the Mathaba) which was implicated in the Lockerbie bombing as well as a 1986 bombing attack on a Berlin disco that killed 3 (including two American soldiers) and injured more than 200. Aside from the terrorist attacks against foreign interests, operatives from the Mathaba (often with Libyan diplomatic credentials) would also harass and threaten exiled Libyan opposition figures.

Since the uprising began, Ghdaffi has lost his interior minster and justice minister to the side of the rebels.