U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in rocket attack - Page 19

"a crowd gathered at dusk, about 7 p.m. (1700 GMT), chanting slogans against the film and angry at Washington's failure to act against its promoters. At some point, shooting began, with some in the crowd thinking they were under fire from the consulate. Around 10 p.m., rioters surged into the compound, bullets and grenades flew, and fires started.

Among the assailants, Libyans identified units of a heavily armed local Islamist group, Ansar al-Sharia, which sympathizes with al Qaeda and derides Libya's U.S.-backed bid for democracy.

Eventually, some three dozen Americans drove off to a safe house, knowing one diplomat was dead and Ambassador Christopher Stevens missing. When an eight-man rescue team flew in from Tripoli, they and their Libyan escorts were pinned down with the survivors by another attack in which two more Americans died...

...Tellingly, he [Abdel-Salam al-Bargathi, who runs the security operations] and another senior officer, Wissam Buhmeid, the commander of the pro-government local defense force, the Libya's Shield Brigade, stressed that the Libyan guards on the consulate - estimated by Bargathi at up to 40 or more - may have felt little will to defend the compound from what they, and many other Libyans, judged to be justified religious indignation....

...I first of all place the blame on the United States itself for allowing such a movie to be produced. This was the product of the anger of Muslims," Buhmeid said, noting also that the guards had only light weapons in the face of rockets.

...I saw utter chaos. The power went out and it was completely dark," he said. "There were definitely people from the security forces who let the attack happen because they were themselves offended by the film; they would absolutely put their loyalty to the Prophet over the consulate. The deaths and injuries and attacks are all nothing compared to insulting the Prophet."

Bargathi, of the police command, said the killings had taken the protest too far, but said: "What we saw was a very natural reaction to the insult to the Prophet. We condemn the deaths but the insult to the Prophet made people very angry."

Ali Fetori, 59, an accountant who lives near the embassy, said: "The security people ... just all ran away and the people in charge were the young men with guns and bombs.""

...Libyan officials said the surviving Americans withdrew to a safe house. It would be normal security procedure in countries like Libya for international personnel to have a secure, secret location prepared for just such an eventuality.

Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, commander of a special operations force for the February 17 Brigade, told Reuters that he took a call about 1:30 a.m. from Tripoli telling him that a helicopter was on its way from the capital's Mitiga airport with a rescue squad of eight U.S. troops - he described them as marines...

...Here, two more things went wrong. First, Obeidi found four times as many Americans at the single-storey, fortified house as he had been told expect - 37, not just 10. So he did not have enough transport. Then, the villa came under massive attack.

This time, there was little doubt in the minds of Libyans who experienced it that this was a well-organized assault by men who had mastered the complexities of military mortar fire.

"This attack was planned," Obeid said. "The accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any ordinary revolutionaries."

...Though Libya's deputy interior minister described the locating of the safe house as a "critical security breach"...

"It began to rain down on us," Obeidi said just as the rescue force was preparing to leave. "About six mortars fell directly on the path to the villa," he said. One American fell wounded by him. A mortar struck the building itself, throwing from the roof another American posted there onto the men below."