US investigates: Attacks coordinated to mark 9/11?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama admin­is­tra­tion, roiled by the first killing of a U.S. ambas­sador in more than 30 years, is inves­ti­gat­ing whether the assault on the U.S. con­sulate in Libya was a planned ter­ror­ist strike to mark the anniver­sary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and not a spon­ta­neous mob enraged over an anti-Islam YouTube video

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama vowed in a Rose Gar­den address that the U.S. would “work with the Libyan gov­ern­ment to bring to jus­tice” those who killed Ambas­sador Chris Stevens and three other Amer­i­cans. Intel­li­gence offi­cials said the attack on the Beng­hazi con­sulate was “too coor­di­nated or pro­fes­sional to be spon­ta­neous,” accord­ing to a U.S. coun­tert­er­ror­ism official.

The offi­cial spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because he was not autho­rized to dis­cuss the inci­dent publicly.

National Secu­rity Coun­cil spokesman Tommy Vietor said it would be pre­ma­ture to “ascribe any motive to this rep­re­hen­si­ble act.”

The attack, which came hours after a mob stormed the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and tore down the U.S. flag, was pre­sumed to have been trig­gered by a movie, whose trailer has gone viral on YouTube, depict­ing the Islamic prophet Muham­mad in dis­re­spect­ful ways. In an extra­or­di­nary move, Gen. Mar­tin Dempsey, the chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called anti-Islamic preacher Terry Jones and asked him to stop pro­mot­ing the film. A spokes­woman said the church would not show the film Wednes­day evening.

“Make no mis­take. Jus­tice will be done,” a somber Obama pledged at the White House, Sec­re­tary of State Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton at his side.

He ordered increased secu­rity at U.S. diplo­matic mis­sions over­seas, par­tic­u­larly in Libya, and said he con­demned “in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the out­ra­geous and shock­ing” attack. Clin­ton said she was par­tic­u­larly appalled that the attack took place in Beng­hazi, which the U.S. had helped lib­er­ate from dic­ta­tor Moam­mar Gad­hafi dur­ing the Arab Spring rev­o­lu­tion in Libya this year.

The after­math of the two attacks also stirred the U.S. pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, where until Wednes­day, for­eign pol­icy had taken a back seat to the strug­gling economy.

Obama spoke shortly after the Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee, Mitt Rom­ney, crit­i­cized the admin­is­tra­tion for state­ments issued before and after the Cairo attacks that expressed sym­pa­thy for those insulted by the video.

“I also believe the admin­is­tra­tion was wrong to stand by a state­ment sym­pa­thiz­ing with those who had breached our embassy in Egypt instead of con­demn­ing their actions,” Rom­ney told a morn­ing news con­fer­ence. “It’s never too early for the United States gov­ern­ment to con­demn attacks on Amer­i­cans and to defend our values.”

Obama and Clin­ton made a rare joint visit to the State Depart­ment, where griev­ing col­leagues of Stevens and the other three Amer­i­cans killed in Beng­hazi gath­ered in a court­yard. The pres­i­dent also ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff at gov­ern­ment and mil­i­tary build­ings and ves­sels around the world until sun­set on Sept. 16. Flags had already been low­ered in many places to com­mem­o­rate the vic­tims of the 9/11 attacks.

Clin­ton denounced those who might kill over an insult­ing movie.

“There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for this,” Clin­ton said. “None. Vio­lence like this is no way to honor reli­gion or faith and as long as there are those who would take inno­cent life in the name of God, the world will never know a true and last­ing peace.”

Under­scor­ing the administration’s frus­tra­tion, Clin­ton won­dered aloud about the attack in Beng­hazi, which Gad­hafi had once threat­ened to destroy.

“This is not easy,” she said. “Today, many Amer­i­cans are ask­ing, indeed I asked myself, how could this hap­pen? How could this hap­pen in a coun­try we helped lib­er­ate, in a city we helped save from destruc­tion? This ques­tion reflects just how com­pli­cated and, at times, just how con­found­ing, the world can be.”

“But we must be clear-eyed in our grief,” she said, say­ing the attack was car­ried out by a “small and sav­age group” not rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Libyan peo­ple. She noted that Libyan secu­rity guards had tried to fight off the attack­ers, had car­ried Stevens’ body to the hos­pi­tal and led other con­sulate employ­ees to safety. Sev­eral of the Libyan guards also were killed.

Stevens, a 52-year-old career diplo­mat, was killed when he and a group of U.S. employ­ees went to the con­sulate to try to evac­u­ate staff as the build­ing came under attack by a mob wield­ing guns and rocket pro­pelled grenades. Stevens is the first U.S. ambas­sador to be killed in an attack since 1979, when Ambas­sador Adolph Dubs was killed in Afghanistan.

Three other Amer­i­cans were also killed and the State Depart­ment iden­ti­fied one of them as Sean Smith, an Air Force vet­eran who had worked as an infor­ma­tion man­age­ment offi­cer for 10 years in posts such as Brus­sels, Bagh­dad and Pre­to­ria. Smith was also well-known in the video game community.

The iden­ti­ties of the oth­ers were being with­held pend­ing noti­fi­ca­tion of relatives.

“The mis­sion that drew Chris and Sean and their col­leagues to Libya is both noble and nec­es­sary, and we and the peo­ple of Libya honor their mem­ory by car­ry­ing it for­ward,” Clin­ton said.

U.S. offi­cials said some 50 Marines were being sent to Libya to rein­force secu­rity at U.S. diplo­matic facilities.

Stevens spoke Ara­bic and French and had already served two tours in Libya, includ­ing run­ning the office in Beng­hazi dur­ing the revolt against Gad­hafi. He was con­firmed as ambas­sador to Libya by the Sen­ate ear­lier this year.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Sep 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.