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Romney camp joins in calls for clear Libya explanation, says Obama officials giving mixed info
Published September 30, 2012
FoxNews.com
The administration and the Obama re-election campaign appeared to give conflicting statements Sunday about the president’s knowledge on the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya, according to the Romney camp, which has joined in asking for a clearer explanation of the events and the U.S. response.
Obama Campaign senior adviser David Axelrod said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the president called the Sept. 11 strike an act of terror “the day after it happened.”
However, David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said later Sunday that “in the days after” the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, it was “not clear” the strike was an act of terror.
“This is obviously was a very, very fast-moving period of time,” Plouffe said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” I think now, based on the recommendations and the investigation of the intelligence community, they made the decision to conclude that this was a terrorist attack.”
Ryan Williams, Romney Campaign spokesman, said in a statement "The Obama White House and the Obama campaign can’t seem to get their stories straight on the attack on our consulate in Libya. This morning, they offered conflicting stories on if and when the President thought the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist act."
"These inconsistencies raise even more questions about the confusion and mixed messages that have marked the White House’s response from the very beginning," Williams added.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said Sept. 16 that the attack was a “spontaneous” response to an anti-Islamic movie trailer and not a pre-planned or terrorist attack.
Sen. Bob Corker is also among Republicans calling for more and complete answers about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya -- where four Americans were killed -- calling the administration’s response so far “bizarre.” “It seems that with each passing day, the situation surrounding the administration’s response to the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya becomes more bizarre.
The United States Congress and the American people are still waiting to get straight answers,” Corker told National Intelligence Director James R. Clapper Jr. in the letter dated Sept. 29.
The letter follows Clapper taking responsibility last week for the administration’s initial response and acknowledging the assault was “deliberate and carefully planned terrorist attack.”
Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also said Plouffe’s comments Sunday show the administration’s “deafening silence” on the attack in Libya is evidence of “gross negligence or incompetence.”
Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who heads the House Homeland Security Committee, on Friday called for Rice to resign over her "misleading" statements.
Corker also joins in the growing concern about whether the consulate, as well as U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the three other Americans killed, had adequate security and why FBI investigators have yet to reach the crime scene.
“Yet just 18 days ago the administration apparently judged that it was appropriate for our consulate to be lightly guarded and it was safe for our ambassador to come through the city with a small security detail,” Corker wrote. “What has changed in Libya in such a short time that even FBI agents, our most elite investigative personnel, cannot safely enter the city? What has led to such a precipitous decline?”
Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.), also sent letters last week demanding more detailed answers, including one to Rice seeking clarification on her statements.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/30/corker-calls-admins-libya-response-bizarre-joins-fellow-republicans-in-wanting/#ixzz27zuCSzHK
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Posted at 11:15 AM ET, 09/30/2012
TheWashingtonPost
MSM: Hey, the president dissembled on Libya
By Jennifer Rubin
Late Friday afternoon the spokesman for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James R. Clapper Jr. released a statement in which the intelligence head tried to fall on the administration’s sword on the Libyan-consulate debacle. But the problem was that Clapper’s statement did not absolve the administration of repeatedly making false statements after intelligence agencies knew this was a planned al-Qaeda terrorist attack.
The Post’s Glenn Kessler got things started with a devastating timeline of the Libya events.
Then Fox News’s Bret Baier put together an extremely useful video account of the sequence of events. And the New York Times followed suit:
The Obama administration’s shifting accounts of the fatal attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, have left President Obama suddenly exposed on national security and foreign policy, a field where he had enjoyed a seemingly unassailable advantage over Mitt Romney in the presidential race.
After first describing the attack as a spontaneous demonstration run amok, administration officials now describe it as a terrorist act with possible involvement by Al Qaeda. The changing accounts prompted the spokesman for the nation’s top intelligence official, James R. Clapper Jr., to issue a statement on Friday acknowledging that American intelligence agencies “revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.” . . . The Benghazi attack calls into question the accuracy of intelligence-gathering and whether vulnerable American personnel overseas are receiving adequate protection.”
In its own ticktock of events, the Times, like other outlets, makes clear that even if DNI was initially confused, the White House and other top officials continued to push the connection to the anti-Muslim film long after it was known that this was an orchestrated al-Qaeda assault.
No doubt the mainstream media were slow to get to this story, because they initially labeled the episode a “bad for Mitt Romney’s campaign” story. However, the real Libya story is only now unfolding. It will be impossible for the president to avoid scrutiny and for others to escape blame for what appears to be either the most inept response to a terrorist attack in memory or a clumsy effort to shove an intelligence failure under the rug so as to keep the president’s campaign on track.
If Obama is smart, he’ll get the entire story out quickly and completely. It’s never the screw-up that gets you, it’s always the cover-up. And Obama better come clean. Fast.
By Jennifer Rubin | 11:15 AM ET, 09/30/2012
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September 30, 2012, 10:59 AM.
GOP Continues Criticizing Libya Response.
By Michael M. Phillips and Tom Barkley
Allies of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pressed their attack on the Obama administration for its handling of the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.
Two days after the office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that the assault, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, was “deliberate and organized,” Romney running mate Paul Ryan echoed calls for a congressional investigation into what Republicans describe as the administration’s shifting explanations of the attacks.
Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), a frequent critic of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, all but accused the administration of covering up the involvement of al Qaeda-allied terrorists for political reasons.
Acknowledging the role of Islamist extremists would interfere “with the depiction that the administration is trying to convey that al Qaeda is on the wane, that everything’s fine in the Middle East,” Sen. McCain said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He was particularly critical of the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who five days after the attack portrayed it as a spontaneous response to an online video that mocked the Prophet Muhammad, a holy figure for Muslims. Ms. Rice said the initial demonstration was hijacked by more heavily armed extremists.
“Five days later? That doesn’t pass the smell test,” Sen. McCain said. “It’s either willful ignorance or abysmal intelligence to think that people come to spontaneous demonstration with heavy weapons, mortars and the attack goes on for hours.”
David Axelrod, a senior Obama campaign adviser, responded to Mr. McCain’s criticism by saying, “That was the original information that was given to us.”
“What we don’t need is a president or administration that shoots first and asks questions later,” Mr. Axelrod told CNN, a thinly veiled jab at Mr. Romney. In the hours after of the attack on the U.S. consulate and a nearby U.S. facility, Mr. Romney drew sharp criticism for using the event to attack Mr. Obama’s foreign policy.
The Republican salvos come just over a month before Election Day, as Mr. Romney is slipping in the polls both nationally and in key battleground states such as Ohio.
Mr. Ryan, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” said the administration’s response to the Libya crisis “was slow, it was confused, it was inconsistent.”
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White House defends UN ambassador over response to Benghazi attack
Libya embassy attack becomes election issue as Republicans call for Susan Rice's resignation over alleged misinformation
Matt Wells in New York
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 September 2012 20.37 BST
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Some Republicans have called for Susan Rice's resignation for 'misinforming' the American people. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
The White House has defended its ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, after criticism from Republicans determined to exploit the Obama administration's shifting position on the attack in Libya that killed the US ambassador.
David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said on Sunday that Barack Obama had "100% confidence" in Rice, who initially described the Benghazi attack as a spontaneous assault in the wake of anti-US protests elsewhere in the Middle East.
Late last week the White House began calling it a planned terrorist attack by forces who may have been linked to al-Qaida, prompting criticism of Rice from senior Republican figures.
On Friday, Peter King, chairman of the House of Representatives homeland security committee, said Rice should resign for "misinforming" the American public in the interviews she gave in the aftermath of the attack. "Somebody has to pay the price for this," he told CNN.
Republicans sense an opportunity in what they regard as the White House's faltering reaction to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September, when a mob set fire to the building, killing the ambassador, Chris Stevens.
After initially describing the attack as opportunistic in the wake of protests against an internet video made in the US that was offensive to Muslims, the White House changed tack. Speaking to reporters on the campaign trail on Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney described it as "terrorism".
Libya's president, Mohamed Magariaf, has also blamed "al-Qaida elements" for the death of Stevens and three other Americans working for the state department.
The issue is sensitive to the Obama campaign, which has made the killing of Osama bin Laden and the president's determination to beat al-Qaida a central plank of his re-election effort. Also, any suggestion that groups linked to al-Qaida were gaining ground in Libya would be a blow to the US-backed international coalition that mounted air strikes which eventually led to the downfall of the former Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
In a statement on Friday, Shawn Turner, the director of public affairs for national intelligence, clarified the position. He said: "In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo. We provided that initial assessment to executive branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available. Throughout our investigation, we continued to emphasize that information gathered was preliminary and evolving."
A lack of information about the circumstances of the attack has left open the question of whether it was planned in a few hours, to take advantage of a spontaneous anti-US protest in Egypt against the anti-Muslim video, or whether it was planned over longer term to mark the 11th anniversary of al-Qaida's 9/11 attacks on the US.
In the NBC interview on Sunday, Plouffe defended the change of explanation for the Benghazi attack. "I think now based on the recommendations and the investigation of the intelligence community, they made the decision to conclude that this was a terrorist attack. In the days after, that was not clear. This was a very fast-moving period of time … we provided information that we received from the intelligence community as we got it."
Plouffe insisted that Rice had the full backing of the administration. Asked by Meet the Press host David Gregory if Barack Obama had "100% confidence in her", he said: "Absolutely. She's done a terrific job for this country, for this administration."
The response to the attack has rapidly become an election issue in the past few days. On Friday, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who sought the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2008, accused the White House of a cover-up.
Speaking to Fox News, Giuliani said: "This is a deliberate attempt to cover up the truth, from an administration that claimed it wanted to be the most transparent in history. And it's the worst kind of cover-up: the kind of cover-up that involves our national security. This is a cover-up that involves the slaughter of four Americans."
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Bashar al-Assad 'betrayed Col Gaddafi to save his Syrian regime'
The Assad regime in Syria brought about Muammar Gaddafi's death by providing France with the key intelligence which led to the operation that killed him, sources in Libya have claimed.
Col Gaddafi, killed almost exactly a year ago Photo: AFP/GETTY
By Adrian Blomfield, Nick Squires, Henry Samuel and Ruth Sherlock
8:00PM BST 30 Sep 2012
French spies operating in Sirte, Gaddafi's last refuge, were able to set a trap for the Libyan dictator after obtaining his satellite telephone number from the Syrian government, they said.
In what would amount to an extraordinary betrayal of one Middle East strongman by another, President Bashar al-Assad sold out his fellow tyrant in an act of self-preservation, a former senior intelligence official in Tripoli told the Daily Telegraph.
With international attention switching from Libya to the mounting horrors in Syria, Mr Assad offered Paris the telephone number in exchange for an easing of French pressure on Damascus, according to Rami El Obeidi.
"In exchange for this information, Assad had obtained a promise of a grace period from the French and less political pressure on the regime – which is what happened," Mr El Obeidi said.
A National Transitional Council (NTC) fighter holds a picture of the Libyan fallen leader Muammar Al Gaddafi
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While it was not possible independently to verify his allegation, Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, played a leading role in both the Nato mission to bomb Libya and in bringing international pressure to bear on the Assad regime.
The claims by Mr El Obeidi, the former head of foreign intelligence for the movement that overthrew Gaddafi, followed comments by Mahmoud Jibril, who served as prime minister in the transitional government and now leads one of Libya's largest political parties. He confirmed over the weekend that a foreign "agent" was involved in the operation that killed Gaddafi.
He did not identify his nationality. However the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera quoted Western diplomats in Tripoli as saying that if a foreign agent was involved "he was almost certainly French".
The news of the Syria deal could potentially embarrass Nato, which initially claimed that it did "not target individuals".
According to the alliance's official version, an RAF reconnaissance plane spotted a large convoy of vehicles trying to flee Sirte on Oct 20th last year, two months after Gaddafi fled Tripoli.
Nato warplanes then bombed the convoy, apparently unaware of who was travelling in it, before militia fighters later found Gaddafi hiding in a drainpipe. He is believed to have been killed by his captors en route to the city of Misurata, west of Sirte.
But Mr El Obeidi said that France had essentially masterminded the operation by directing Libyan militiamen to an ambush spot where they could intercept Gaddafi's convoy.
He also suggested that France had little interest in how Gaddafi was treated once captured, although the fighters were encouraged to try to take him alive.
"French intelligence played a direct tole in the death of Gaddafi, including his killing," Mr El Obeidi said. "They gave directions that he was to be apprehended, but they didn't care if he was bloodied or beaten up as long as he was delivered alive."
Bashar al-Assad, right, and his brother Maher
According to Mr El Obeidi, French intelligence began to monitor Gaddafi’s Iridium satellite telephone and made a vital breakthrough when he rang a senior loyalist, Yusuf Shakir and Ahmed Jibril, a Palestinian militant leader, in Syria.
As a result, they were able to pinpoint his location and monitor his movements. Although Turkish and British military intelligence officers – including the SAS – who were in Sirte at the time were informed of the ambush plans in advance they played no role in what was "an exclusive French operation", Mr El Obeidi said.
At the time of Gaddafi's death, Mr El Obeidi had fallen out of favour with the most powerful faction in Libya's transitional government because of his links with Gen Abdul Fatah Younes, a senior rebel commander killed by his own side in July last year.
Even so, he continued in his intelligence role in a semi-official but senior capacity.
Sources quoted by Corriere della Sera said one reason for the French lead in the operation was that then President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted Gaddafi dead after the Libyan leader openly threatened to reveal details of the large amounts of money he had donated to Sarkozy for his 2007 election campaign.
"Sarkozy had every reason to want to get rid of the colonel as quickly as possible," Western diplomats said, according to the newspaper.
A spokesman at the French foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny the claims.
____________
Sources quoted by Corriere della Sera said one reason for the French lead in the operation was that then President Nicolas Sarkozy wanted Gaddafi dead after the Libyan leader openly threatened to reveal details of the large amounts of money he had donated to Sarkozy for his 2007 election campaign.
"Sarkozy had every reason to want to get rid of the colonel as quickly as possible," Western diplomats said, according to the newspaper.
What do you think?
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conbenho
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Nguyễn Hoài Trang
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Libyans Hand Over Their Weapons
By OSAMA ALFITORY
09/29/12 08:51 PM ET EDT
BENGHAZI, Libya -- Hundreds of Libyans converged Saturday on a main square in Benghazi and another in Tripoli in response to a call from the military to hand over their weapons, some driving in with armored personnel carriers, tanks, vehicles with mounted anti-aircraft guns and hundreds of rocket launchers.
The call by the Libyan chiefs of staff was promoted on a private TV station in August. But it may have gained traction in the wake of the attack against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in which the American ambassador and three staffers were killed. The incident was followed by a popular uproar against armed militias which have increasingly challenged government authorities.
In response, the government has called on all militias to disband or join a command center coordinating between the army and the militias. The government had relied on many militias for security during the turmoil following last year's ouster and killing of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi.
Army Col. Omran al-Warfali said the turnout has been impressive.
"Hundreds of citizens came since the early hours of this morning to handover their weapons from all segments of society, men and youth, women, and even children came to hand over bullets they found it in the streets," he said.
Previously, the government had estimated that over 200,000 people in Libya are armed. It has attempted a number of disarmament schemes, including offering people jobs in exchange for handing over their weapons, or offering to buy guns. Those offers have shown few results.
A military official has been urging citizens in ads on a popular TV station to hand in their weapons. The station, Libya alHurra or Free Libya, showed live footage of Saturday's collection and transfer of weapons to military barracks.
Ahmed Salem, an organizer of the efforts in Benghazi, said over 800 citizens handed in weapons at the main collection point. Over 600 different types of arms were collected, including anti-aircraft guns, land mines, rocket launchers and artillery rockets.
Moussa Omr, a former fighter who lives on the outskirts of Benghazi and who fought against Gadhafi, said it was time to turn over his weapon to the state.
"When I saw the announcement on television I came to Benghazi with my wife and son to hand over my weapon to the national army because I want to move from the stage of the revolution to state building," he said. "I trust the national army. They have been with us on the frontline and I know them one by one. I don't need this weapon after today, the militias have been expelled from Benghazi and the national army will protect us."
Anger at the militias boiled over after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate.
Most of Libya's militias emerged during the eight-month war against Gadhafi, but others sprang up after the end of fighting last October. With the country trying to rebuild after the 42-year dictatorship, the groups paid little attention to successive interim leaders. They were accused of bullying citizens, operating independent prisons and holding summary trials for Gadhafi loyalists. Recently, Islamist-led militias have also attacked shrines, such as tombs associated with religious figures they consider counter to their strict interpretation of Islam.
Last weekend, thousands of protesters marched against the militias in Benghazi, the cradle of the uprising against Gadhafi, and stormed two of their compounds.
In Tripoli, at least 200 former fighters handed over their weapons, including two tanks, at the Martyrs' square in the city center. A cleric urged young fighters to give up their weapons. "The nation is built with knowledge not guns," he said standing in the square.
______________
Associated Press Writer Esam Mohamed contributed to this report from Tripoli, Libya.
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Syria despatch: meeting Assad's snipers as they fight rebels in Homs
In an exclusive report, Bill Neely gains rare access to the Syrian government fighters waging war in the frontline city of Homs
The Syrian army sniper on duty in Homs. Photo: ITN
Bill Neely 8:00AM BST 30 Sep 2012
118 Comments
He sat in near darkness and total silence: a young man, with a hard face and a reputation to live up to.
In a city paralysed by fear, he is among the most feared. He is a Syrian army sniper and I'd come to meet him.
The soldier who'd taken me up the staircase and into the gloom of the house on the front line in Homs wouldn't give the sniper's name for fear that his family would be targeted and killed by rebels bent on revenge.
The sniper's nest was almost airless. He said nothing while I was there. He was watching and waiting for his target to appear.
Through a crack in the wall of his top floor firing point, his rifle and telescopic sight were aimed at the balcony of a house already pockmarked with bullet and shell holes.
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He'd seen a rebel gunman appear there and quickly pull back an hour earlier. He scarcely registered my presence, so intent was he on the kill. I felt almost queasy watching him; hoping his intended victim would stay hidden.
I left before he fired, but the crack of single shots outside was proof that on the front line of one of the deadliest cities in Syria, this is still a war of snipers; men with the blood of thousands on their hands, the most feared gunmen in a long and deadlocked war.
Out into the blinding light and off, across a back street, past piles of stinking rubbish, three Syrian soldiers ahead, gesturing at me to sprint across the next junction. Head down, I raced for my life to avoid the single shot from the other side. Both regime and rebels use the sniper to lethal effect.
Up again into the darkness of another house, this time to see two snipers, back to back, their gun muzzles inched through small holes in the wall.
Their war is fought across short distances. One of them said his target was a rebel position just 50 yards away. Behind him, the young sniper with the blackened face was aiming for two hundred yards.
Theirs is also a war of fixed positions. Since May, the front line in this district of Homs, Babr Spa, or Lion's Door, has moved just five hundred yards. One hundred yards a month; at the cost of hundreds of lives. The day before, five Syrian soldiers were killed there.
The war in Homs is deadlocked. In spite of the devastating shelling of the nearby district of Babr Amr earlier this year and President Assad's appearance in one of its main squares to confirm its recapture, fierce gun battles are still being fought there.
Syrian troops wouldn't let me get closer. But I could hear everything from a distance; the machine guns and AK47's were firing almost incessantly.
Twice this year,I have crossed the front line to talk to groups of rebels in Homs. They were Syrian almost to a man. That's not how the regime's troops see their enemy.
"Most of them have long beards," one soldier told me. "They're jihadis and foreigners, Turks, Chechens, Saudis."
Another said there were European Muslims among the rebels, "British, Germans, French." The regime routinely refers to them as terrorists. I was asked regularly why Britain was supporting terrorists backed by Saudi Arabia, who wanted to overthrow a secular regime.
It's almost a shock to see civilians in parts of Homs. They don't flinch when shells or shots ring out. I bumped into Saleh Shattour on a sidestreet. He wasn't an old man but he looked old, his face, like his mouth,collapsed in sadness. He said life was very hard now; he couldn't count the number of neighbours who had been killed. When I asked him how he felt in his heart to see his neighbourhood like this he struggled, then broke down. "I have no heart, no heart left. How will this end? God alone knows," he sighed.
The war in Homs is macabre. On one house, a half sized plastic skeleton had been left hanging from a nail. On what I was told was the deadliest junction in the area - you could tell by the speed at which the soldiers sprint across it - a mannequin in a shocking pink dress had been positioned in the middle, as if to mock the rebel snipers on the other side.
The mannequin in a shocking pink dress on what is said to be the deadliest junction in the city. Picture: ITN
But it was the next position on the front line that shocked me. It's one thing to hear about the widespread use of torture in this dirty war, especially by a regime bent on crushing the revolution by whatever means necessary. It's quite another to see the instruments of torture in front of you.
Through holes in walls and houses, I reached a building the Syrian troops said they'd taken from rebels two weeks earlier. What they claimed they'd found there still lay scattered around. It wasn't the bags with Saudi Arabian marking that first caught the eye, it was the meat hooks.
A couple of the soldiers lifted up a makeshift wooden scaffold, took one of the meat hooks and attached it to the underside.They demonstrated how it would work. The prisoner would stand on a stool, be hooked onto the metal - I shuddered to think how - then the stool would be kicked away and he would be beaten as he was hanged.
A solider with the makeshift scaffold. Picture: ITN
There were bloodied knives lying around, and other implements that didn't bear too much thinking about. The soldiers claimed this was a rebel torture centre, but they seemed to know how everything worked. At the far end of the building was deep well into which, the men said, the bodies of the dead were tossed.
No side appears to be winning in Homs, the focus of long and bloody fighting. The governor of the city, Ahmad Moneir Mohammed, said he was confident the war would all be over in a month. I suggested that after 18 months of stalemate, that was perhaps optimistic. He wasn't having it. "Eighty per cent of Syria's problem will be solved when Homs is retaken," he said.
But the explosions that detonated for an hour outside the windows of his office gave the lie to any idea that this war is winding down.
It is not abating in Damascus, the capital, either. Each time I return to the capital the conflict has bitten deeper. When I arrived this time, plumes of black smoke rose from the southern suburbs, forming a huge arch over a city that echoed to the sound of explosions from the army's bombardment of rebel-held areas.
Once, residents of Damascus believed the fighting would never come their way. Now, there is no-one here who cannot see, and hear, the shelling all around them.
Clusters of tanks sit on main roads. Checkpoints everywhere grind the traffic to a halt. It's a gridlocked city trapped in a deadlocked war.
Two months ago the rebels thought they were on a roll. They had just killed the defence and interior Ministers, and President Assad's brother in law, in a daring bomb attack on a high security building in Damascus. They followed it with a ground assault on both Damascus and Aleppo. Rebels in Aleppo attacked from three sides and took huge swathes of the city, much to their surprise, within two days.
In the capital they quickly dominated half a dozen suburbs; poor, Sunni districts where the revolutionary spirit burns and the regime is loathed. Syria's army was suddenly on the back foot, the regime reeling.
But with the help of hundreds of artillery pieces, mortars and warplanes, President Assad's men have regained the initiative. Suburbs have been effectively sealed, the perimeter saturated with troops. Checkpoints made movement in or out almost impossible.
The resulting destruction I have seen in some areas is extraordinary. Houses bulldozed, blocks of flats collapsed, the splatters of shells marking every building and every road. Neighbourhoods have been destroyed.
In the last few days,the Syrian army and its brutal militias have been, in the words of the state media, "cleansing the areas of terrorists." No-one knows exactly what this entails, but the reports from activists and human rights groups suggest that dozens of men, and in many cases women and children, are being murdered in a drive to inflict collective punishment on any district that has dared to welcome revolutionaries.
The tactic is working.
Rebels withdrew from the suburbs around Hajar Al Aswad, conceding that they'd run out of ammunition and local support. Clearly, many sympathisers who would dearly love to get rid of Assad also fear the terrible revenge of the regime for harbouring rebels in their areas.
A few days ago President Assad appeared on television, smiling broadly with Iran's foreign minister,perhaps content that his men have recaptured much of his capital.
He was probably not smiling just before seven o'clock on Wednesday morning when a loud explosion rattled the windows of homes half a mile away, around the presidential palace. Six or seven minutes later there was another huge blast. The rebels were striking back. They had bombed the headquarters of the army, supposedly one of the regime's most secure buildings. The method as well as the target was significant. The first bomb was detonated outside the side entrance by a suicide bomber in a white van; the second exploded inside the building and after it at least half a dozen heavily armed gunmen began an attack that lasted for more than three hours. The regime says only four guards were killed. The rebels claim dozens died but they often inflate the death toll from their attacks. But the tactics were straight from Iraq,straight from the manual of Al Qaeda.
Syria's Arab Spring revolution is now entering its second winter. It is a very long way from the flag waving, pro-democracy protests of its birth. It is a fully fledged war now, one that has claimed, by one estimate, more than 30,000 lives. August was the deadliest month so far, with the London based group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights putting the death toll at 5,400. That's around one hundred and eighty a day. Last week, the toll has exceeded that nearly every day. The sudden spike in casualties has been blamed on the regime's fightback in Aleppo and Damascus, especially its use of MiG warplanes.
The Assad regime has been accused by Amnesty International and many foreign governments of using the warplanes to bomb residential areas indiscriminately. The pictures emerging from Syrian State television illustrate an Aleppo more like Berlin at the end of the Second World War than the business capital and sophisticated city of six months ago.
Reports from the rebel side suggest they are hopelessly outgunned, starved of ammunition and incapable of holding the ground they took with such optimism eight weeks ago. After the bombing of the army headquarters in Damascus my cameraman colleague,Tony Hemmings, producer Paul Tyson and I had a taste of what many Syrians face.
The nerves of the soldiers were clearly frayed but our presence at the scene tipped many of them over into rage. We were surrounded by a mob of soldiers, secret police, intelligence officials and militiamen in civilian clothing. They wanted to take our camera and the footage we had shot. They didn't want the open humiliation of their charred and smoking command centre shown to the world. Brilliant, quick thinking by my cameraman saw him extract the memory card from the camera and hide it in his underpants.
Secret policemen saw his move, searched his trouser pockets but failed to find the card. We were roughed up, marched off, hands pinned behind us, the camera smashed to pieces as we were taken away. The mob shouted that we were British. A handgun was waved. It was an uncomfortable few minutes. But our ordeal ended when more senior army officers intervened and saw the official visas in our passports.
Tens of thousands of Syrians have not been as lucky. They have been taken away and never seen again. Their families have no idea if they're dead or in one of the hundreds of detention centres in Syria.
And so Syria's war grinds on relentlessly, chewing up its young, stoking sectarian hatreds, multiplying atrocities week by week, spiralling into ever more horrific mayhem.
In Homs, the young, hard faced men sit silently on the top floors of shattered buildings and wait, their fingers lightly on the triggers; time on their hands,death on their minds, victory in their sights.
Theirs is a war of single shots. But it has gone far beyond that now. Up into the cockpits of Russian-made fighter jets, where pilots try to crush the revolution from 10,000 feet. Down to the bowels of feared intelligence buildings where tens of thousands of prisoners are beaten and tortured with the metal bars I saw in Homs. Into the stony ground of Syria, where 30,000 dead now lie. And, finally, to the very doorstep of President Bashar Al-Assad who once declared his country immune from the revolution; a man who must sit now and wonder, as his windows rattle, where his future lies.
Bill Neely is International Editor for ITV News
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In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say
View Photo Gallery — The two U.S. Benghazi compounds that came under attack the night of Sept. 11 proved to be strikingly vulnerable targets in an era of barricaded embassies Click here for more photos of the anti-U.S. protests across the globe.
By Ernesto Londoño and Abigail Hauslohner, Sunday, September 30, 4:12 AM
The Washington Post
On the eve of his death, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was ebullient as he returned for the first time in his new role to Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that embraced him as a savior during last year’s civil war. He moved around the coastal town in an armored vehicle and held a marathon of meetings, his handful of bodyguards trailing discreetly behind.
But as Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions.
A U.S. military team assigned to establish security at the new embassy in Tripoli, in a previously undisclosed detail, was never instructed to fortify the temporary hub in the east. Instead, a small local guard force was hired by a British private security firm as part of a contract worth less than half of what it costs to deploy a single U.S. service member in a war zone for a year.
The two U.S. compounds where Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a sustained, brutal attack the night of Sept. 11, proved to be strikingly vulnerable targets in an era of barricaded embassies and multibillion-dollar security contracts for U.S. diplomatic facilities in conflict zones, according to interviews with U.S. and Libyan officials and eyewitnesses in recent days.
Cautioned to be low-key
Days before the ambassador arrived from the embassy in Tripoli, a Libyan security official had warned an American diplomat that foreigners should keep a low profile in Benghazi because of growing threats. Other Westerners had fled the city, and the British had closed their consulate.
Despite the security inadequacies and the warning, Stevens traveled to Benghazi to meet openly with local leaders. Eager to establish a robust diplomatic presence in the cradle of the rebellion against Moammar Gaddafi, the ousted autocratic leader, U.S. officials appear to have overlooked the stark signs that militancy was on the rise.
This account of Stevens’s last days and the attack, which includes new details about security at the compound and the ambassador’s movements, was assembled from more than a dozen interviews with American officials, prominent Libyans and others familiar with the case. Most agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity.
The attack marked the first violent death of a serving ambassador in a generation and has become a thorn in President Obama’s reelection bid. It also raised the prospect that a country Washington assumed would become a staunch ally as it recovered from its short civil war could turn into a haven for fundamentalists.
U.S. officials investigating the assault say their preliminary assessment indicates that members of Ansar al-Sharia, a fundamentalist group with deep roots in Benghazi, carried out the attack with the help of a few militants linked to al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Africa. Intelligence officers and a team of FBI agents in Libya are continuing the investigation.
When bullets and rocket-propelled grenades started raining on the main U.S. compound Sept. 11, the small guard force was quickly overrun, and the building was set ablaze. That visual, along with the now-iconic image of a dying Stevens being dragged by Libyans toward safety, could have hardly been further from the message the veteran ambassador had traveled to Benghazi to spread: America is here to stay.
“The revolution started there,” said a senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the ongoing probes into the attacks. “We wanted to make sure the U.S. was seen as interested in the views of the east. There was no greater advocate of that than Chris.”
‘Like his home’
Stevens was enthralled to be back in Benghazi, a city where he had served the year before as a special envoy to the rebels, said a close Libyan friend who was by his side Sept. 10.
“He had connections, contacts all over the eastern part of the country,” said the friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he fears that his close affiliation with Americans poses a risk. “Benghazi was like his home. He wore jeans. He used to run outside the compound. He felt very safe going to markets, to the square, meeting friends for coffee.”
The main purpose of Stevens’s visit was opening an education and cultural facility that would be called “the American space.” The initiative was a cornerstone of his goal of deepening Washington’s relationship with Libya, an oil-rich nation emerging from four decades of Gaddafi’s bizarre, totalitarian rule.
Once a nuclear threat and avowed nemesis of the West, Libya appeared poised to become a close ally in a region seething with anti-American sentiment. After all, NATO airstrikes had helped save Benghazi, the capital of the rebels in the civil war, and turn the tide against Gaddafi’s forces. Stevens was transfixed by the possibilities.
“He lost friends during the revolution, as did almost every Libyan, and he respected their losses,” Hannah Draper, a Foreign Service officer stationed in Tripoli wrote in a tribute to Stevens posted on her blog. “He supported the revolution, but his real passion was rebuilding a free Libya.”
Two weeks before his death, Stevens had taken an important step toward normalizing relations with Libya by opening a full-services consular section in Tripoli, enabling Libyans to apply for visas.
“Since returning to Libya as ambassador in May, there’s one question I’ve heard almost every day from Libyans: ‘When are you going to start issuing visas again?’ ” Stevens told attendants at the Aug. 26 groundbreaking of the consular section. “Now, at last, you have your answer: Tomorrow.”
Insecurity has beset Libya since the country’s civil war ended in October 2011 with Gaddafi’s dramatic execution. Militias have been reluctant to disband or surrender weapons. After the U.S. Embassy formally reopened in Tripoli last fall, the U.S. military’s Africa command dispatched a team to help build its security infrastructure. The troops, however, were never assigned to bolster security at the site in Benghazi, said Eric Elliott, a spokesman for the Africa command. Elliott and the State Department could not say why.
During the summer, the military team became smaller as the State Department assumed responsibility for security at the embassy at the end of July. Those who remained turned their attention to building a relationship with Libya’s burgeoning armed forces, Elliott said.
Inexpensive contractors
The Benghazi compound was an anomaly for U.S. diplomatic posts. It was not a formal consulate and certainly not an embassy. It was a liaison office established before Gaddafi’s ouster. It was staffed by the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, a State Department office that dispatches government officials to hardship posts for short tours. Instead of signing a costly security contract similar to those the government has for facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the State Department this summer awarded a contract to Blue Mountain, a small British security firm, to provide local guards at the Benghazi compound. The year-long contract, which took effect in March, was worth $387,413, a minuscule sum for war-zone contracting. Blue Mountain and the State Department declined to comment for this article.
Security in eastern Libya deteriorated sharply in recent months. A string of attacks, some linked to fundamentalist groups, made clear that Westerners were no longer safe. The International Committee of the Red Cross suspended operations and evacuated staff in the east after an attack June 12 on its compound in the port city of Misrata. In Benghazi, convoys transporting the U.N. country chief and the British ambassador were attacked in April and June, respectively. The British government shut down its consulate soon afterward.
The U.S. outpost had a close call of its own June 6, when a small roadside bomb detonated outside the walls, causing no injuries or significant damage. But the Americans stayed put.
Geoff Porter, a risk and security analyst who specializes in North Africa, said the sudden and stark shift from “predictable violence to terrorism” in the east over the summer was unmistakable.
“The U.S. intelligence apparatus must have had a sense the environment was shifting,” he said.
But if Stevens was deeply worried about deteriorating security, as CNN has reported he wrote in an entry in his journal, he kept quiet, said the Libyan friend who was with him the day before the attack.
“We didn’t talk about attacks,” the friend said. “He would have never come on the anniversary of September 11th if he had had any concerns.”
Three days before the attack, a U.S. official in Benghazi met with security leaders to ask them about the threat level, a senior Libyan official in the east said on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The American did not disclose the ambassador’s visit.
“They told him, ‘Look, if there’s going to be any foreign presence [in the city], it better be discreet,’ ” the Libyan official said.
Attack timeline
The assault on the compound was launched from three directions around 9 p.m., the Libyan official said. Guards and members of militias friendly to the United States who responded to try to repel the attackers were shot in the legs, the official said, suggesting the gunmen had been instructed not to shoot to kill. Sean Smith, 34, an information management officer, died during that phase of the attack and Stevens, 52, was trapped and mortally injured.
A group of Americans managed to escape to a second compound about a mile away, according to the Libyan official and others with knowledge of the attack. The site was used by U.S. diplomatic and intelligence personnel, according to people briefed on the attack.
Soon after the evacuated Americans arrived there, the second location came under attack, according to the Libyan official and a Libyan fighter who assisted in the evacuation. The fighter — a member of the militia known as the February 17th Brigade, which was friendly toward the Americans — received a call from a counterpart in Tripoli. He said the Americans at the second compound needed help and told him to get in touch with a man named Paul. When the militia leader got the American on the phone, Paul told him not to send his men.
“Listen, my men have orders to shoot on sight, and the situation in the safe house is under control,” Peter told the militia leader, according to the account by the Libyan official.
In a lengthy firefight at the second compound, two former Navy SEALs who had been deployed to Benghazi as security contractors were killed. Hours later, the Americans who survived managed to get to the airport and flee the city.
This week, the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli evacuated nonessential embassy staff, citing security risks. The Benghazi compound was an empty, burned-out husk.
Youssef Arish, whose family owns property next door to the facility and who remembers Stevens fondly, said most Libyans were bereft by the attack.
“It’s only a few people, and they don’t just hate America,” he said. “They hate the [Libyan] government; they consider them non-Muslims. They’re just a few people, but they’re going to hurt the relations between Libya and other” nations.
Hauslohner reported from Benghazi and Julie Tate contributed to this report.
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Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog". Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
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Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
