One day after the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the assault had been planned 10 days earlier by an al-Qaida affiliate, according to documents released Monday by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
“The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman,” said a preliminary intelligence report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, obtained through a lawsuit after a Freedom of Information Act request.
The group, which conducted attacks against the Red Cross in Benghazi, was established by Abdul Baset Azuz, a “violent radical” sent by al-Qaida to set up bases in Libya, the defense agency report said.
“These documents are jaw-dropping,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said. “If the American people had known the truth — that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaida terrorist attack from the get-go — and yet lied and covered this fact up — Mitt Romney might very well be president.”
The attack was planned on Sept. 1, 2012, with the intent “to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge” for the killing of a terrorist in Pakistan and to memorialize the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the report said.
Four Americans were killed in the Benghazi attack, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
The incident became politically controversial because the White House initially described the attack as the result of a spontaneous protest. Republican critics said the White House intentionally played down that it was a terrorist attack because it occurred so close to President Obama's re-election.
Then-Secretary of State Clinton, who's seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, was to appear this week before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, but the hearing was canceled when Clinton and the committee chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., failed to agree on whether all the documents Gowdy requested had been given to the panel.
Other documents released by Judicial Watch show that American personnel in Libya had been monitoring weapons transfers from Benghazi to opposition forces in Syria, where al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood had taken the lead against Syrian President Bashar Assad in that country's civil war.
The documents predicted “dire consequences” of the Syrian civil war: that al-Qaida's well-established network in Syria, together with the ongoing conflict there and the influx of weapons and fighters, would lead to a resurgence for al-Qaida in Iraq. That group, which had been defeated in Iraq by U.S. forces allied with Sunni tribes, did make a resurgence last year, when it broke with al-Qaida, changed its name to the Islamic State and conquered huge swaths of Iraq and Syria.
