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

[HairOfTheDog]

Today, three top State Department officials resigned under pressure.

The independent review panel's report on the Benghazi consulate killings was submitted yesterday and will be presented in public hearings on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Hillary Clinton won't testify due to doctor's orders resulting from her recent concussion). I'm surprised by just how poorly the State Department was reviewed by the independent panel on this incident.

The board determined that there had been no immediate, specific tactical warning of a potential attack on the 11^th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. But the report said there had been several worrisome incidents before to the attack that should have set off warning bells.

It did confirm, though, that contrary to initial accounts, there was no protest outside the facility.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, administration officials linked the attack to the spreading protests that had begun in Cairo earlier that day over an American-made, anti-Islamic film. Those comments came after evidence already pointed to a distinct militant attack in Benghazi.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on numerous TV talk shows the Sunday after the attack and used the administration talking points linking it to the film. An ensuing brouhaha in the heat of the presidential campaign eventually led her to withdraw her name from consideration to replace Clinton as secretary of state in President Barack Obama's second term.

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., emerging from the Senate briefing on the report, kept up the congressional criticism of Rice. "Now we all know she had knowledge. She knew what the truth was. It was a cover-up," he said.

Many more details and full story here:
http://start.new.toshiba.com/news/read.p...011&page=3

Mrs. Clinton has signed off on the report and confirmed that the panel's recommendations designed to prevent another such occurrence are already being implemented.

Looks like big changes for the State Department with Obama losing three top executives now and Mrs. Clinton at the start of his next term.

[HairOfTheDog]

Catch them if we can...


Captured: al Libi, Libyan suspect in the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks in Africa
Last weekend, 15 years after the fact, US Army Delta Forces captured Abu Anas al Libi. The raid and operation to apprehend him was approved by the Libyan government, though they reportedly weren't privy to all of the details.




Next up: Abu Khattala? Suspected leader in 2012 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya

Now, the US forces are on a mission to capture Libyan militia figure Ahmed Abu Khattala (no photo available). He is allegedly a key figure among those charged with the Sept 12, 2012 attack at the US embassy in Libya - which left Ambassador Stephens and two others dead. Khattala has recently lived openly in Benghazi and has even been interviewed by CNN's Arwa Damon.

Hoping the capture and trials of those involved in last year's attack don't take 15 years to accomplish. There's some concern that Khattala may be more difficult to apprehend than originally estimated, despite the Libyan government's reported cooperation, because Libi's capture was reported in the media so quickly - giving Khattala a possible head-up. (Libi's apprehension was supposed to be kept secret for at least a few days, but his family reported him as "abducted" almost immediately after he was captured.)

[HairOfTheDog]

CAPTURED: ABU KHATTALAH



The Capture Op
For days, Army Delta Force commandos, the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies lay in wait for one of the alleged masterminds behind the deadly September 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Then over the weekend, they lured Abu Khatallah (pictured above) to a point south of the eastern city and nabbed him. U.S. officials said he did not put up a fight. Not a shot was fired.

Abu Khatallah is on the USS New York heading to the United States, a U.S. military official said. After he was captured Sunday, he was put on the U.S. Navy ship in the Mediterranean and was interrogated by the FBI-led High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG.

Libya's Pissed
The U.S. action was a violation of Libyan sovereignty and was carried out without informing Libyan officials, the Libyan government said. (HOTD: The Libyan officials can step right behind Congresspersons in the "Obama's a sneaky bastard!" complaint queue -- Obama didn't even inform US Congress before releasing alleged terrorists, why would he inform the Libyan government before snatching up an alleged terrorist from their soil?)

So, Now What?

Obama Administration's tentative plan:
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.

Key Republican Senators weigh in:
-Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina wants to postpone criminal prosecution to give interrogation more time. "We should have some quality time with this guy. Weeks and months," he said. "Don't torture him, but have some quality time with him."

-Arizona Sen. John McCain wants to see Abu Khatallah in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "Where else can you take him to?" McCain said.

The story: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/18/us/ben...?hpt=hp_c5

[BlueTiki]

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!

[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

[HairOfTheDog]

KHATALLAH CHARGED IN US FEDERAL COURT

Snipped:
Ahmed Abu Khatallah - the man the U.S. accuses of being the ringleader in the attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012- has been brought to federal court in Washington, D.C., a U.S. official confirmed Saturday.

The (2012 embassy) attack has spawned a political controversy in the United States because some Republican lawmakers claim the Obama administration tried to mislead the public about it, and should have done more to prevent it. The GOP critics say they plan to make Benghazi an issue for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, under whose watch the attacks occurred, should she decide to run for president.

The criminal investigation led by the FBI has been extraordinarily challenging, authorities say, in part because lack of Libyan government control in the city prevented investigators from visiting the crime scene for weeks.

U.S. officials, however, say they collected surveillance video, phone eavesdropping and witness statements to bring charges against Abu Khatallah and others involved. They are charged in a criminal complaint in federal court in Washington.

U.S. military commandos captured Abu Khatallah in a nighttime raid June 15-16. U.S. intelligence assets concocted a ruse to lure him to a villa where the Americans surprised him. The commandos, accompanied by several FBI agents, came ashore by boat and quickly took him away. He has been held on the warship USS New York since, undergoing questioning/interrogation by a team from the FBI-led High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

The extended questioning, without Abu Khatallah's being advised of his Miranda rights to remain silent, is being done under an Obama administration policy intended to allow interviews for intelligence purposes. Attorney General Eric Holder authorized lengthier pre-Miranda questioning in a memo issued in December 2010.

Full story: http://us.cnn.com/2014/06/28/justice/abu...?hpt=hp_t1

[Duchess]

The GOP report regarding the Benghazi attack has quietly been released by House Republicans. There isn't nearly the fanfare there was when it was announced they were going to investigate.

The Friday report by the Republican-led House Select Committee on Intelligence found no intelligence failure prior to the attacks, no evidence that the White House told the military to stand down during the attack and no evidence that the CIA was involved in related arms shipments. The report did, however, find that the consulate was inadequately protected.

As for the initial message from the Obama administration that the attack began with a spontaneous protest, the committee did find that inaccurate but blamed unclear intelligence reports, not a purposeful attempt from the White House to mislead.

The select committee's report on the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans took two years and thousands of hours of work in Congress.

Story

[HairOfTheDog]

Death Penalty Off the Table


Abu Khattalah (left) is the suspected ringleader of the Libyan terrorists who killed Ambassador Stevens and Information Officer Sean Smith at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi and then killed CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty while they were defending a nearby CIA annex from the rooftop on Sept 11, 2012.

Khattalah was captured in Libya and transported to the U.S. by the Navy in June 2014. Among other charges, he is accused of providing material support to terrorists, malicious destruction of property, and attempted murder of an officer and employee of the U.S.

Prosecutors say the attack was aimed at murdering American personnel and plundering maps, documents and other property from the post.

I don't know when his federal trial is scheduled to begin. I also don't know why the Justice Department decided not to pursue the death penalty, but that decision (without the rationale behind it) was made public today; I'd like to know why.

The department revealed its decision, which pushes the case forward toward trial, in a brief court filing that offered no additional explanation.

In a separate statement, spokeswoman Emily Pierce said Attorney General Loretta Lynch made the decision after reviewing the case and consulting with federal prosecutors. She said the department remains "committed to ensuring that the defendant is held accountable" for the 2012 attacks.

Khattala's attorneys, who have challenged the strength of the government's evidence, had implored the Justice Department to remove the death penalty as a possibility should he ultimately be convicted of any capital crimes in a trial. With the death penalty now off the table, he would face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Refs:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/05/...spect.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...spect.html