U.S. ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens killed in attack . GRAPHIC

[HairOfTheDog]

When he arrives, Abu Khatallah is very likely headed to a federal trial. That's what the Obama administration wants, a position at odds with some of the President's Republican critics.

Avoiding Gitmo "proves" Obama is committed to its closing.

My question: Why did it take so long to capture this guy? It wasn't like he was in hiding!

Yeah, it looks clear to me that Obama is on a mission to get Gitmo closed before he leaves office.

I don't know why it took two years to nab Khatallah who was moseying about in the location of the incident for quite some time, considering that he was a prime suspect right off the bat. But, here are some of the answers to that question being floated by various unnamed "official sources".

Snip:
Even as they hailed the capture, Obama administration officials were vague in explaining why it took so long to go after Mr. Abu Khattala, who was linked to the attack shortly after it happened and even gave an interview to a New York Times reporter over a strawberry frappé on a hotel patio without apparent fear of being found.

Some American officials, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing sensitive operations, said there had been a proposal to capture Mr. Abu Khattala for at least a year. But it was not clear that Mr. Obama had considered such a plan. “It is not true that the president has had the operation sitting on his desk for a year,” said another official familiar with the White House’s point of view.

Officials said they had been waiting for the right combination of factors that would enable them to know where Mr. Abu Khattala would be at a specific time, in a situation that would minimize the chances of casualties.

While Mr. Abu Khattala had kept a fairly high profile in Libya at first, he changed his pattern after American commandos seized the terror suspect Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai in October in a daylight raid in Tripoli, according to a law enforcement official. He became more difficult to track as he moved around quietly to evade detection, the official said. Then, last week, the official said, the United States obtained information about his whereabouts that enabled an operation.

“We had finally worked out a scenario where we felt it was right operationally to be able to pull it off,” another official said. “The circumstances were right; the environment was right.”

Government agencies on Tuesday brushed off critics who asked why the authorities had needed so long to grab a man who met openly with a reporter. “Frankly, it’s not a surprise that an individual like this would show up for an interview,” said Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman. “We don’t think they would show up for a scheduled meeting with the Special Forces.”

“This entire operation, from start to finish, was law enforcement,” one official said.

That does not mean that Mr. Abu Khattala was read a Miranda warning of his right to remain silent and have legal counsel. The Obama administration has adopted a policy of delaying that warning for extensive questioning of suspected operational terrorists.

.........And, Hillary Clinton's public comment on the capture:
“It took, as you know, 10 years to bring Osama bin Laden to justice,” she said on CNN during an event to promote her new book. “It’s taken more than two years to bring this perpetrator to justice.” But, she added, “Khattala has been very much on the minds of our law enforcement, our military and our intelligence professionals since that night in September of 2012.”

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/world/....html?_r=0