13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi

by Mitchell Zuckoff

  While Tig and Jack scaled the dirt mound, Rone had kept moving forward toward the gate. He hunched down behind one of the concrete traffic barriers to the right of the Compound entrance, waiting for his partners. Rone radioed Tanto and D.B. to say they’d reached the gate and were getting ready to move in.

  First to join Rone were the three militiamen, who took cover positions nearby at the barriers. Before them stood a concrete archway some twenty feet wide and fifteen feet high, painted a friendly shade of pale yellow. Deep inside the archway were the Compound’s heavy gates, their wrought-iron balusters backed by solid steel plates, to prevent anyone from ramming them open, climbing over, or shooting through. Normally closed except when vehicles entered or exited, the gates were thrown wide open. Someone had taken the time to latch the bottom of the gates to fixed anchors in the driveway, to keep them from swinging closed. Also open was the adjacent steel pedestrian gate.

  When Jack reached the Jersey barriers, he noticed that one of the militiamen crouching nearby had not only an AK-47 but also a rocket-propelled grenade launcher strapped across his back. Jack momentarily worried that the man might be a threat to Rone, so Jack watched him, gun up, ready to shoot if the militiaman aimed his gun in Rone’s direction. The militiaman showed no sign of being a threat, so Jack concluded that he must be one of the good guys. Jack scuttled forward, dropped in, and kneeled to the man’s left. Six inches separated their shoulders as they looked toward the gate.

  A few yards away, Tig continued to struggle with the ammunition for his belt-fed machine gun. He fought to get his second drum out of an improvised canvas pouch. Tig wanted the drum clipped securely in place on the weapon, so he wouldn’t run out of rounds when the shooting started. He radioed the Annex: “We’re moving onto the Compound.”

  Rone took Tig’s radio call as a signal. Without warning his companions, he sprang to his feet and quick-stepped around the concrete barrier. Rone rounded a corner of low hedges and ran headlong through the gate into the Compound, his assault rifle pointing the way forward.

  Jack had expected that they’d make eye contact or otherwise communicate before moving. But when he saw Rone move, his training kicked into gear. A bedrock rule among SEALs and other Special Operations fighters is that no one goes in alone, ever, regardless of whether they’re entering a room or an open space. Rone had been trained the same way, so Jack knew that when he led the charge, Rone felt confident that Jack and Tig would have his back.

  Jack popped up, stepped around the barrier, and sprinted into the Compound.

  Tig was wrestling with his weapon when Rone and Jack moved. He was on his feet seconds later, but that brief gap was just enough time for someone to begin shooting at him from farther east down the gravel road. The shots came from an intersection with a street the operators called Adidas Road because a sporting goods store was located there.

  Tig dropped flat onto the ground behind a barrier as a round zipped above his head. He pressed the talk button on his radio: “Hey base, I’m taking fire, but I’m not hit!” Pinned down, Tig looked up and saw flashes of gunfire passing over him. One of the 17 February militiamen jumped to his feet about ten feet to Tig’s left. He let loose with his AK-47 on full automatic, firing in bursts at a rate of six hundred rounds per minute. His magazine spent, the militiaman dropped down to reload. Tig pulled his night-vision goggles over his eyes and stepped into the fight. He brought up his fully loaded machine gun, resting it atop the barrier.

  As Tig prepared to fire, an unarmed man rushed toward him, hands raised, from the darkened street.

  “Friendly! Friendly! 17 February!”

  Still ready to blast away, Tig caught the eye of the militiaman reloading his AK-47.

  “Friendly!” the unarmed man yelled again. “17 February!”

  Tig and the armed militiaman exchanged quizzical looks that Tig translated into universal soldier language: Who the fuck is this nut?

  Tig exhaled. Whoever had been firing at them from up the street had run off, or was dead or wounded from the AK-47 barrage. Either way, the incoming gunfire had stopped. Tig pointed two fingers at his eyes, pantomiming to the armed militiaman to keep watch on the new arrival. The militiaman nodded.

  Tig rose. His machine gun up and ready, he sprinted into the Compound to catch up with Rone and Jack.

  D.B. took the lead as the sniper/observation team approached the eight-foot wall near the corner of Gunfighter Road and the gravel road leading to the Compound. He climbed over, then dropped to one knee, to provide cover for the two 17 February militiamen and finally Tanto as they joined him on the other side.

  Ahead was the tall building they hoped to use as their perch. But before they moved that way, they wanted to be sure no one was waiting to ambush them. Next door to their chosen building was a cinder-block house under construction. Tanto provided cover while D.B. and the two militiamen made sure it was empty.

  When the trio returned, the squad moved toward the tall building. But as they got closer, Tanto and D.B. realized that even if they reached the top, they’d be too far from the Compound to see much. They changed plans and kept going, one taking a knee as the others reached cover, then moving again, using the property walls as shields as they hopscotched steadily from one lot to the next. Each time they reached a corner they couldn’t see beyond, Tanto or D.B. used a tactical technique called “slicing the pie” or “pieing the corner.” The lead man approached the corner close to the wall. A few feet from the corner, he took small, sideways steps away from the wall with his gun up and ready. With each outward step he cleared a “slice” of the dark area on the far side of the corner, allowing him incrementally to determine that no one was there, without exposing himself all at once.

  As Tanto held one corner, he heard the radio call from Rone asking whether it looked safe for the operators to move up the gravel road. After telling Rone that he couldn’t see but didn’t hear any gunfire, Tanto moved ahead to the next corner.

  They made their way from one lot to the next, studying the shadows and the unlit passageways to see if anyone was hiding. Like their fellow operators on the street, they expected gunfire in their direction at every moment. The two operators and their militiamen shadows tried to remain quiet and unobserved, not knowing whether a large force of attackers was waiting to engage them at the next lot or on the far side of the Compound. Yet as they balanced moving fast against remaining safe, they found themselves cheating toward speed because they knew Americans were in danger inside the Compound.

  As they led their team down the block, Tanto and D.B. realized that most of the buildings were single-story homes that wouldn’t do them any good as sniper/observation towers. But through their goggles they saw a building under construction a hundred yards ahead that might work.

  “Let’s get on top of that and see what we can see,” D.B. said.

  They moved into the tall, unlit building with care, clearing each floor and the stairwells as they went. Their breathing grew heavier. Sweat soaked the operators’ shirts under their body armor. The machine gun in Tanto’s arms and the assault rifle slung over his back seemed to be gaining weight. He went up the stairs first, climbing carefully toward the unfinished fourth floor.

  At the top, Tanto stepped out and saw a bird’s-eye view at once spectacular and horrifying. Flames engulfed the 17 February barracks near the Compound’s front gate. The main villa was ablaze, with orange sparks rising into the inky Mediterranean sky. Black smoke curled and swirled from the buildings, cloaking the silvery stars above. Under different circumstances Tanto might have called it strangely beautiful. He shifted his attention from the view to his radio. Realizing that he hadn’t heard any recent calls from the Compound, Tanto wondered if the Americans there were still alive.

  The fourth-floor view was arresting but frustrating. A row of trees obscured any movement on the Compound grounds, making it impossible for them to establish a sniper or reconnaissance position. D.B. reached the top floor and stood alongside Tan
to.

  “This is worthless,” he said.

  They headed back down, rejoined the 17 February militiamen, and kept moving. The four-man squad jackrabbited across an open field of dirt and weeds, climbed over a wall, then repeated the process with another barren field and another wall. Their travels took them to yet another wall, this one running perpendicular to the wall that enclosed the west side of the Compound. D.B. threw over the go-bag containing his medical kit, extra ammunition, and his GPS unit, intending to climb after it.

  Tig’s low voice came over the radio: “We’re moving onto the Compound.”

  “Roger that,” Tanto replied in a whisper. “We still haven’t gotten there. We’re trying to meet you there.”

  D.B. and Tanto climbed the wall perpendicular to the Compound. When they reached the top, they realized that they still couldn’t see inside the grounds. That meant there was no point for them to drop over to the other side. A better plan, they agreed, would be to work their way around to the south side of the Compound and see if they could enter through the rear B1 gate, which opened out to the Fourth Ring Road. The burning villa was toward the front of the Compound. By approaching from the rear, Tanto, D.B., and the militiamen conceivably could ambush any attackers driven to the back gate by Rone, Jack, and Tig.

  As Tanto started to climb down, part of the wall collapsed beneath him. He slammed to the ground, scraping and badly bruising his left leg. Blood oozed from cuts and scrapes on his left arm.

  D.B. jumped down from the wall. He and one of the 17 February militiamen rushed over.

  “Damn,” D.B. said. “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” Tanto said. His leg hurt but nothing was broken. “I’m fine. We gotta go.”

  D.B. looked back at the wall. “Oh shit, my bag.”

  They’d already suffered too many delays, first at the Annex and now as they tried to reach the Compound. The radios were silent. That couldn’t mean good news. Climbing over a half-crumpled wall to search for D.B.’s bag in the dark would cost more time, time that might mean lives.

  “Dude,” Tanto said, “fuck it. I got extra mags.” D.B. knew he was right.

  They rushed toward the Fourth Ring Road. As they ran side by side, huffing and puffing, D.B. caught Tanto’s eye and smiled. “This sucks,” D.B. said. Too winded to answer, Tanto returned the grin.

  After clearing another wall, they found themselves near a grocery store about fifty yards from the Compound’s back gate. A dozen or so bystanders stood outside the store, looking toward the fires inside the Compound. Tanto told their two 17 February companions to watch the crowd as he and D.B. went to the gate.

  As they moved away from the store, Tanto and D.B. came face-to-face with a 17 February commander talking on a telephone in Arabic. It wasn’t clear how the militia leader had arrived at their location, but Tanto thought the two militiamen they’d brought with them must have called him on their radios.

  “Hey dude,” Tanto said, pointing toward the grocery store onlookers. “Are those your guys? Are they friendly?”

  “No, they aren’t,” the commander said in English.

  “So, make sure they don’t shoot at us,” Tanto said. “If they do, kill them.”

  The militia commander nodded as he continued talking on the phone.

  As Tanto headed toward the gate, he mumbled under his breath to D.B.: “Man, I wish I could understand Arabic better. I got the gut feeling he’s talking to the bad guys, telling them that we’re coming in.”

  More than forty minutes had elapsed since DS agent Alec Henderson pressed the duck-and-cover alarm at the sight and sounds of armed attackers pouring onto the Compound.

  During that time, an alert about the ongoing attack had gone out from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Command Center, informing the White House Situation Room, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the FBI, according to an official Defense Department timeline. In response to that alert, at 10:32 p.m. Benghazi time, or 4:32 p.m. in Washington, the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon notified the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Word quickly reached Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Panetta and Dempsey had a previously scheduled meeting with President Obama within the half hour, at 5:00 p.m. Washington time, or 11:00 p.m. Benghazi time. There, Panetta testified later, they discussed potential responses. Panetta told a congressional committee that Obama ordered the Defense Department to respond with “all available DOD assets.” Panetta testified that he didn’t speak directly with the president again on September 11.

  Meanwhile, according to a letter the White House sent to Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, at Obama’s request Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf “to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya and access to Libyan territory.” Magariaf pledged “full cooperation,” the letter said.

  As military options remained under discussion, the unarmed US surveillance drone neared Libyan airspace over Benghazi, to provide live video images of the burning Compound. But at 10:30 p.m. Benghazi time, the drone remained more than a half hour away. As the GRS operators moved inside the Compound walls, they did so blind.

  As the attack continued, Panetta later testified to Congress, two Marine security platoons stationed in Spain were ordered to prepare for deployment, one to Benghazi and the other to Tripoli. A Special Operations force in the midst of a training exercise in central Europe was ordered to prepare to deploy to a staging base in southern Europe. A US-based Special Operations team was told to get ready to travel to the same staging base.

  But in the end, none of them was sent to Benghazi.

  Panetta said consideration also was given to sending armed aircraft, along with refueling tankers and other support. But, he added, it would have taken at least nine hours for them to get there. Panetta described it as “a problem of distance and time.” Embassy officials in Tripoli took part in those discussions. Gregory Hicks, the embassy’s deputy chief, testified to Congress that the embassy’s defense attaché talked with officials at AFRICOM and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hicks said he asked the defense attaché: “Is anything coming? Will they be sending us any help? Is there something out there?” Hicks testified that he was told that the nearest help was at the US air base in Aviano, Italy, where Air Force fighter planes were two to three hours away. But no tankers were available for them to refuel, so hours longer would pass before any fighters could take off.

  “And I said, ‘Thank you very much,’ ” Hicks testified, “and we went on with our work.” In the end, no American warplanes were sent to Benghazi.

  The nearest and most likely help from American ground forces remained the seven-man, Tripoli-based GRS team, which included two active-duty Delta Force operators, former SEAL Glen “Bub” Doherty, and a linguist who’d act as translator.

  As minutes passed and the Compound burned, talk of response options and available assets continued in Washington, Tripoli, at AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, and elsewhere. Later in the night, a global conference call would include representatives from AFRICOM, the European Command, the Central Command, the Special Operations Command, the Transportation Command, and the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.

  None of those discussions mattered to the operators already on the ground in Benghazi. The members of the Annex’s GRS security team had long since concluded that they couldn’t wait for outside help. They couldn’t wait for drones or gunships or Marines stationed in Spain. They couldn’t wait for Special Ops teams in central Europe or the United States, or even their fellow GRS operators and Special Ops soldiers en route from Tripoli. They couldn’t wait for action by the presidents of the United States or Libya, or the secretaries of State or Defense. They couldn’t wait for the United Nations, the United States Army, Air Force, Marines, or Navy, the Libyan Air Force, or anyone else.

  The Special Mission Compound i
n Benghazi was overrun. Buildings and cars were on fire. Armed enemies of the United States roamed freely inside the walls. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and communications expert Sean Smith were missing inside a burning villa. Five other Americans also were in danger.

  The operators’ only option was to act. At the Annex, Oz prepared to withstand and repel a possible second wave. At the Compound, Tanto and D.B. headed toward the back gate. Rone, Jack, and Tig rushed through the front gate.

  None had any idea what would happen next.

  SEVEN

  Man Down

  JACK TORE THROUGH THE COMPOUND GATE BEHIND Rone. As he passed under the entrance archway, he saw the back of Rone’s orange plaid shirt some twenty-five yards ahead of him. Rone sprinted toward the flaming, smoke-spewing villa, and Jack followed in his wake.

  As Jack came onto the Compound’s manicured grounds, he cut sharply to his right, a move that took him off the brick driveway and onto a thick swath of well-tended grass. From there, the Compound wall would serve to partially cover his back, in case their enemies followed him through the gate. His rifle at his shoulder, his finger near the trigger, Jack dropped to a knee. He scanned back and forth, right and left, covering Rone.

  To Jack’s right, past a row of low hedges and several palm trees, he saw the burning 17 February barracks building. His every sense hyper-aware, Jack heard scattered gunshots ring out from somewhere inside the Compound. Jack didn’t see any shooters in the darkness and he couldn’t tell from which direction the shots originated. He knew that he was vulnerable and exposed, but he wouldn’t move until Rone was clear.

  When Jack saw Rone reach the villa, he sprang to his feet and ran to join him near the building’s charred front entrance. Two DS agents who’d been searching for the ambassador and Sean Smith were already there. They stood to the right of the blown-open front doors, on the patio area near the low window that the DS agents had used in their repeated forays into the safe-haven area in attempts to find the missing men. The operators and the DS agents gathered in a loose circle by the four-foot pile of sandbags stacked along the patio’s edge. At their feet were clods of dirt and shards of pottery, remnants of a smashed two-foot clay planter.