Eli Lake
Jihadists twice set off explosives at the consulate prior to the incident that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, and announced threats on Facebook about escalating attacks on Western targets in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary, according to whistleblowers reaching out to House Republicans.
In the five months leading up to this year’s 9/11 anniversary, there were two bombings on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi
and increasing threats to and attacks on the Libyan nationals hired to
provide security at the U.S. missions in Tripoli and Benghazi.
Details
on these alleged incidents stem in part from the testimony of a handful
of whistleblowers who approached the House Committee on Oversight and
Government Reform in the days and weeks following the attack on the
Benghazi consulate. The incidents are disclosed in a letter to be sent
Tuesday to Hillary Clinton from Rep. Darrell Issa,
the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the oversight committee’s
subcommittee that deals with national security.
The State Department did not offer comment on the record last night.
The
new information disclosed in the letter obtained by The Daily Beast
strongly suggests the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens
were known by U.S. security personnel to be targets for terrorists.
Indeed, the terrorists made their threats openly on Facebook.
For
example, following a May 22 early-morning attack on a facility that
housed the International Committee on the Red Cross, a Facebook page
claimed responsibility, and said the attack was a warning and a “message
for the Americans disturbing the skies over Derna.” That reference was
likely to American surveillance drones over a city that provided
fighters to al Qaeda in Iraq in the last decade.
In
June a Facebook page associated with militants linked to the late
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi posted a threat to Stevens based on the
route he took for his morning jog. The Facebook page also posted a
picture of Stevens. The letter to Clinton notes that “after stopping
these morning runs for about a week, the Ambassador resumed them.”
A
senior State Department official contacted for this story said the
ambassador was “not reckless” with his own security or that of his
staff. But this official also acknowledged that the ambassador was “an
old-school diplomat” and strongly desired to have as few barriers
between himself and the Libyan people.
The
letter also discloses for the first time a bombing at the U.S.
consulate that occurred on April 6, 2012. It says that on that day, two
former security guards for the consulate in Benghazi threw homemade
improvised explosives over the consulate fence. That incident resulted
in no casualties. The Wall Street Journal first reported last
month that on June 6 militants detonated an explosive at the perimeter
gate of the consulate, blowing a hole through the barrier. The letter to
Clinton quotes one source who described the crater as “big enough for
forty men to go through.”
Obama
administration officials have said there was no specific intelligence
predicting the 9/11 anniversary assault on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi. A senior State Department official acknowledged that there
were five serious attacks on Western targets since the spring in the
lead-up to the attack on the 9/11 anniversary. Speaking of the June 6
attack at the consulate’s perimeter gate, this official said, “The IED
attack caused no loss of life and no injury. The wall acted as designed.
It absorbed it.” This official said that compared with the 9/11
anniversary assault, the earlier attacks in Benghazi were mild. “We
faced a coordinated, military-style assault. We’ve never seen that kind
of attack before,” this official added.
John Avlon, Harry Siegel, and Keli Goff on the Obama administration's handling of BenghaziUntil Sept. 19, eight days after the consulate attack, senior administration officials had said it resulted spontaneously from riots at the U.S. embassy in Cairo against an Internet video denigrating the Muslim prophet. Spokesmen for the State Department and the National Security Council did not return emails late Monday evening.
Rep.
Chaffetz told The Daily Beast Monday that the allegations detailed in
the letter were based on whistleblowers he described as “people who have
firsthand knowledge of the incidents themselves.” Chaffetz declined to
provide more details about the whistleblowers other than to say they
were U.S. government employees and there were fewer than 10 of them.
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