by Aaron Klein
Not only did we transfer weapons to the Mideastern rebels, it has been extensively reported that U.S. contractors working with the CIA have previously helped train the rebels fighting the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Reuters reported that Obama allegedly signed a secret order in 2012 authorizing U.S. agencies such as the CIA to provide support to rebel forces in Syria.1 Such support included helping run a secret military communications command center in Turkey while U.S. citizens were training rebels and possibly giving them equipment, at least since the summer of 2012.
The United States was behind covert training bases in Jordan and Turkey, where the Mideastern rebels were provided “two-week courses include training with Russian-designed 14.5-millimeter anti-tank rifles, anti-tank missiles, as well as 23-millimeter anti-aircraft weapons,” according to the LA Times.2 More than one year before other media outlets covered this story, I first documented the exact location of a U.S.-run training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country’s northern desert region.3 Three months later, I reported on growing collaboration between the Syrian opposition, including the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army and al-Qaeda, as well as evidence the opposition was sending weapons to jihadists in Iraq.4
What did the Obama administration think would happen after it armed jihadists in Libya and then armed and trained Islamic gunmen fighting in Syria? Did the White House actually believe these battle-hardened, anti-Western extremists would simply forfeit their weapons when they were done fighting Assad or Muammar Gaddafi? I wish I could say we learned our lesson the hard way in Benghazi on September 12, 2012, when rebels we aided turned their weapons and ire on the United States. The Obama administration, however, evidenced little appreciation for national security, since it continued for more than a year to assist the anti-Assad rebels.
Just as alarming is a stream of reports about Westerners who joined the fight in Syria. Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian terrorism expert, penned an extensive article documenting that one in nine Westerners who joined these foreign jihadist insurgencies were complicit in terrorist plots back home.5 While the figures are not exact, some estimates suggest Westerners fighting in Syria include 200 to 400 French citizens, 200 Germans, 200 to 300 Brits, 100 fighters from Belgium, and up to 200 or more from Australia. There have been reports of dozens of Americans conducting warfare alongside the rebels in Syria.6
WRECKING LIBYA, PROLIFERATING WEAPONS
Before we more directly address the global implications of our efforts to aid the rebels, efforts headquartered at the Benghazi mission and CIA annex until the attacks on our facilities there, let’s take a brief look at how we essentially wrecked Libya by helping topple Gaddafi in hopes of bringing democracy to his country. Make no mistake about it: Gaddafi was a thug, a thief, and at times a terrorist supporter. He changed course somewhat after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, giving up his weapons of mass destruction, acceding to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and allowing the U.S. and international community to assist in the destruction of those weapons. The strongman, however, was far from a democratic leader. Still, Libyans were not living under the constant threat of radical Islamic factions during Gaddafi’s rule. There were no reports of al-Qaeda erecting training camps in the country. Islamists were not waging war with the country’s military while gaining swaths of territory where these thugs are imposing hard-line Sharia law.
A month before the 2012 terrorist attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, a Library of Congress report detailed how al-Qaeda had established a major base of operations in Libya in the aftermath of the U.S.–NATO campaign that deposed Gaddafi and his secular regime. The report, quoted in more depth earlier in this book, documented that al-Qaeda and affiliated organizations were not only establishing terrorist training camps but also enforcing Taliban-style Islamic law in Libya while the new, Western-backed Libyan government incorporated jihadists into its militias.7
As this book went to print, Islamists had seized three strategic Libyan ports and were tightening their grip on the south and east of the country amid fears that the weak, secular, Libyan government could lose total control. Just who are these Islamists who are now threatening to engulf the country? I’ll let Reuters inform you. This one sentence in the news agency’s March 6, 2014, report accurately sums up the devastating situation: “The weak government in Tripoli is struggling to control well-armed former anti-Gaddafi rebels and Islamist militias.”8 That’s right. The rebels we helped arm in the name of democracy and freedom are currently the greatest threat to democracy and freedom in Libya.
It gets worse. A ninety-four-page United Nations report has warned that weapons initially sent to Benghazi are spreading from Libya to extremists at an “alarming rate,” fueling conflicts from Gaza to Mali and beyond. The February 15, 2013, report authored by the UN Security Council’s Group of Experts identified Libya as the key source of weapons transfers in the region, specifically blaming Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for arming the rebels. While not referencing the U.S. support for the arms transfers, the UN experts said they had found that Qatar and the UAE had breached the arms embargo on Libya during the 2011 uprising by arming the rebels. The experts said Qatar had denied the accusation, while the UAE had not responded.9 As we documented in chapter 2, the Obama administration used Qatar and the UAE as cutouts to ship weapons to the Libyan and later Syrian rebels. The New York Times reported that after discussions among members of the National Security Council, the Obama administration backed arms shipments to Libyan rebels from both Qatar and the UAE.10
In its devastating report, the UN cites cases, both proven and under investigation, of illicit transfers from Libya to more than twelve countries and also to terror and criminal groups, including heavy and light weapons; man-portable air-defence systems, or MANPADS; small arms and related ammunition; and explosives and mines.11 The report failed to mention the key involvement of the Obama administration, as described in mainstream media reports, in coordinating the Arab arms shipments to the rebels.
“NIGHTMARE” THREAT TO AIRLINERS WORLDWIDE
The proliferation of MANPADS in Libya is now one of the greatest threats to airliners around the world. Recall from previous chapters that thousands of MANPADS were looted when Gaddafi’s reserves were unprotected following the NATO campaign there in 2011. The U.S. special mission in Benghazi was desperately attempting to retake the antiaircraft weapons, with reports that hundreds of missiles were tracked going to the group Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the al-Qaeda franchise based in Algeria that is now considered one of the gravest threats to the United States. Thousands more fell into the hands of assorted other jihad groups.
Former CIA director David Petraeus has warned of a “nightmare” scenario in which missile proliferation could provide terrorists the capability to shoot down a civilian airliner, an ironic turn of events since Petraeus himself was one of the driving forces behind arming the Libyan revels and toppling Gaddafi. Speaking about the MANPAD proliferation, Petraeus stated, “As you know, that was always our worst nightmare, that a civilian airliner would be shot down by one. Which is why we were so concerned when they moved around.”12
The antiaircraft threat combined with our meddling in the Syrian insurgency may have already precipitated the unprecedented, nearly weeklong closure of twenty-two U.S. embassies in the summer of 2014. At the time it was reported the closures were in response to an intercepted message from al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. I reported the threat was the direct result of U.S.-supported efforts under way to purge al-Qaeda affiliates from the ranks of the Syrian rebels.13
The Western support for the jihadist Libyan and Syria rebels, a policy that helped create an al-Qaeda–linked army, may have emboldened the jihadists behind the brazen assault on an Algerian gas complex in January 2013, where foreigners, including Americans, were employed. In the Algerian assault, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb laid siege for four days to the gas complex, with the ordeal finally ending in the deaths of thirt
y-eight hostages and twenty-nine kidnappers after Algerian forces stormed the compound. A senior Algerian official was quoted in the New York Times saying several Egyptian members of the group behind the bloody gas complex siege also took part in the Benghazi assaults.14 The Algerian official said that information was extracted during the interrogations of the jihadists who had survived the compound assault. American counterterrorism and intelligence officials told the Times that Ansar al-Sharia, the group that carried out the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, had connections to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. I cannot repeat enough that an arm of Ansar, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, served as the quick reaction force inside the U.S. Benghazi mission, hired by the State Department while top officials working under Hillary Clinton nixed a team of U.S. special forces and repeatedly rejected military overtures for more security.
CNN reported that three men who participated in the Benghazi assaults with Ansar al-Sharia were later traced by counterterrorism officials to northern Mali, where they are believed to have connected with the jihad organization led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar. It was Belmokhtar’s group that claimed responsibility for the Algerian gas facility siege. Another intelligence source told CNN that Belmokhtar had received a call in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attack from someone in or close to the city. The person on the other end of the call stated, “Mabruk! Mabruk!” meaning “Congratulations” in Arabic, according to the source.15
BOSTON BOMBING
Militants linked to the Western-backed Libyan rebels have some ties to the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombing in which two pressure cooker bombs exploded, killing 3 people and injuring more than 260. The common thread runs through al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), one of the deadliest members of the al-Qaeda conglomerate. AQAP previously attempted several major attacks within the United States.
The group was the first al-Qaeda member to comment on the Benghazi attack, releasing a statement arguing the assaults on the U.S. mission and nearby CIA annex were revenge for the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of the most senior al-Qaeda operatives. AQAP did not directly claim responsibility for the Benghazi attacks. Al-Libi, of Libyan descent, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan in June 2012.
Lost in the news media coverage about the U.S. response to the Libya attacks was that one day before the assaults, on September 10, 2012, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a forty-two-minute video announcing al-Libi’s death. Released on a jihadi online forum fewer than eighteen hours before the Benghazi attack, Zawahiri urged jihadists, and particularly those in Libya, to avenge the killing of al-Libi. “His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders,” he said.16
CNN quoted sources disclosing that several Yemeni men belonging to AQAP took part in the Benghazi attacks. One senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that “three or four members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” took part in the attack. Another source quoted by CNN as being briefed on the Benghazi investigation said Western intelligence services “suspect the men may have been sent by the group specifically to carry out the attack. But it’s not been ruled out that they were already in the city and participated as the opportunity arose,” continued the CNN report.17
AQAP has also been tied to the Boston bombing. The jihadi group is behind Inspire magazine, the periodical thought to have provided bomb-building instructions for Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon terrorists.
AQAP has previously attempted attacks on U.S. soil. One such attempt was the 2009 Christmas Day plot by a Nigerian recruited by the group to blow up a plane flying into Detroit. That attack failed when the suspect’s device malfunctioned. In October 2010, AQAP reportedly attempted to blow up planes destined for the United States using printer bombs disguised as air cargo. The plan was thwarted after a tip from Saudi intelligence. In April 2012 it was reported that a British informant working for Saudi counterterrorism thwarted an AQAP plot to bomb a U.S-bound airliner.18
U.S.-AIDED REBELS PERSECUTE CHRISTIANS, MODERATE MUSLIMS
U.S. support for the Libyan and Syrian rebels has undoubtedly resulted in widespread reports of the persecution of moderate Muslims, Christians, and others targeted by gunmen enforcing hard-line Sharia Islamic law. The civilized world was in shock in February 2014 when an extremist group in the rebel stronghold of Aleppo in Syria’s north live-tweeted the amputation of a hand. The group tweeted that the blindfolded man being punished was a thief who had asked to have his hand severed “in order to cleanse his sins.”19
One of the main organizations originally armed by the United States was the Free Syrian Army (FSA), with reports of arms shipments from Libya to FSA bases in Turkey. The FSA is one of the main organized armed opposition structures fighting Assad. The U.S. aid to the FSA came amid scores of reports worldwide that al-Qaeda and other jihad groups are among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army.
The FSA has been widely accused of imposing Sharia law while its gunmen have been caught targeting minorities. The Huffington Post detailed that the U.S.-supported FSA has created a “Sharia law enforcement police force” in secular Syria “that is a replica of the Wahhabi police in Saudi Arabia – forcing ordinary citizens to abide by the Sharia code.” According to the Post, Syria has never known Sharia law.20
Christians in Syria say they are being threatened by FSA branches. Churches have been attacked. Christian leaders say they feel threatened. The Vatican news agency Agenzia Fides reported that 90 percent of the Christian population of Homs – about ten thousand people – were expelled from their homes by members of the FSA’s Faruq Brigade. The agency quoted Orthodox Metropolitan sources saying the FSA militants went door-to-door in the neighborhoods of Hamidiya and Bustan al-Diwan, forcing Christians to flee without giving them the chance to take their belongings.21
Christians in Libya are not faring well, either. In February 2014 Libyan police found seven Coptic Christians shot execution-style on a beach in eastern Libya, the second such killing targeting Christians that year. About 5 percent of Libya, or three hundred thousand Libyans, are Coptic Christians. Those Christians may soon find themselves living officially under Islamic law. As I was finishing this chapter, Libya’s national assembly voted to make Sharia the basis for the country’s law, with a statement declaring that “Islamic law is the source of legislation in Libya… All state institutions need to comply with this.”22
APPENDIX A
LIES AND MISLEADING CLAIMS
Ever since the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attacks, the Obama administration has done everything it can to cover up the truth. I’ve exposed these lies and misleading claims in detail throughout the book. Here is a snapshot look at all the various falsehoods that have been told by those responsible and their lackeys.
LIES
United Nations ambassador Susan Rice on September 16, 2012, visited five morning television programs to offer the official Obama administration response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, Rice asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”
Four days after Rice’s disinformation, Obama himself was questioned on September 20, 2012, about whether the Benghazi attack was carried out by terrorists. He responded, “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.” He was pressed at a town hall event hosted by Univision about whether al-Qaeda was behind the assault. He replied, “Well, we don’t know yet.”1
Numerous other Obama administration officials, including then secretary of state Hillary Clinton and others, claimed the attacks were in response to the obscure anti-Islam film while they minimized terrorism. Obama and Clinton appeared in an ad campaign denouncing the anti-Muhammad film. The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks.
These assertions are contradicted by logic, surveillance video, and testimony from those who were on
the ground during the assaults who described a coordinated attack by jihadists.
One day before Rice made the morning show rounds, CIA officials received an e-mail from the CIA’s Libya station chief stating the attacks were “not an escalation of protests.”2 Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the September 11, 2012, attacks, testified that he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent. According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”
The day after the attack, Libya’s deputy ambassador to London, Ahmad Jibril, told the BBC that Ansar al-Sharia carried out the assault.3
Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif was even more direct, saying foreigner jihadists who infiltrated Libya planned the attack and used some local Libyans during the event. He called the idea “that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.” The Libyan president said, “We firmly believe that this was a precalculated, preplanned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate.”4
The claim of a spontaneous protest is further contradicted by logic. Spontaneous protesters usually do not usually show up with weapons, erect armed checkpoints surrounding a foreign compound, and have insider knowledge of the facility while deploying military-style tactics to storm a U.S. mission.
It is further difficult to believe spontaneous protesters know the exact location of a secretive CIA annex, including the specific coordinates of a building that were likely utilized to launch precision mortar strikes. To believe the spontaneous protesters narrative, one must then accept that such protesters were capable of mounting a fierce, hours-long gun battle with U.S. forces stationed inside the CIA annex.
