BK Notes: They can't stop the Salafists from killing our Ambassador ir robbing the graves of Islamic Sufi saints and now they are assassinating officials and Sufi clerics and forming an alliance with al Qaeda and Saad Gadhafi, who has said that "I am not a politician, I am a Salafist" and is trying to start a counter-revolution to reclaim his family power.
Libya
Thwarts Arrests in Benghazi Attack
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and ERIC SCHMITT
Published:
September 9, 2013
WASHINGTON
— A year after the attacks in Benghazi that killed the United States ambassador
to Libya and three other Americans, the Justice Department has indicted
suspects. Intelligence officials have a general idea of where they are hiding.
And the military has a contingency plan to snatch them if that becomes
necessary.
But the
fledgling Libyan government, which has little to no control over significant
parts of the country, like Benghazi and eastern Libya, has rebuffed the Obama
administration’s efforts to arrest the suspects.
President Obama promised the
day after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks to bring the killers to justice, and the
fact that this has not happened has led Congressional Republicans to renew
their criticism of the administration for its handling of the Benghazi episode
as officials have made the case that Congress should authorize a military
strike against Syria.
“You
cannot have an attack on the mission, 12 months later identified a good number
of the participants, and have absolutely no consequences for the taking of
American lives,” Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, who leads the House
Intelligence Committee, said in an interview.
Mr.
Rogers would not specify what action he supported, but he did not rule out
military action.
Some
military and law enforcement officials have grown frustrated with what they
believe is the White House’s unwillingness to pressure the Libyan government to
make the arrests or allow American forces to do so, according to current and
former senior government officials. Mr. Obama acknowledged last month at a news
conference that the suspects had been charged but were still on the loose.
Several
senior F.B.I. officials and members of the F.B.I. team based in Tripoli, Libya,
who have been building the investigation for the past year believe the White
House should be pressing harder for arrests. Among the decisions that the new
F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, will be confronted with in the coming weeks
will be how hard to lobby the White House to exert more pressure on the
Libyans.
“Whether
he likes it or not, he is going to have to deal with this issue,” said a former
senior American official, referring to Mr. Comey. “There’s a huge frustration
on the issue among the agents about why nothing has happened to these guys who
have killed Americans.”
The
White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, was asked on “Fox News Sunday”
why one of the suspects, Ahmed Khattala, has been interviewed by several
American news media outlets but has remained free.
“The
United States government does what it says, and we will do what we say in this
instance, as we do in every other instance,” Mr. McDonough said. “I have no
doubt about that.”
Federal law
enforcement authorities have filed murder charges against Mr. Khattala, a
militia leader in Benghazi, in connection with the attacks. The authorities
have identified several others who they said they believe participated in the
attacks, and have filed charges under seal against some of them, according to
American officials.
Apprehending
the suspects could raise a series of thorny questions, like whether they should
be tried in Libya or the United States and, if they are tried in the United
States, whether they should be treated as civilians or military combatants.
Some
senior Obama administration and law enforcement officials would like Libya to arrest and try
the suspects because they do not want the United States to be seen as
interfering with another country’s sovereignty. But with militias controlling
much of eastern Libya, that may not be possible logistically or politically. If
the suspects were handed over to the United States, it is not clear whether
they would be tried in civilian courts or military tribunals, like the ones in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
“The
Libyan government has to wrestle with this idea: ‘What would that mean to us if
we apprehended some of these people, if we tried them, if we handed them
over?’ ” Gen. Carter F. Ham, a former head of the military’s Africa
Command, told a conference in Aspen, Colo., in July. “It’s a very, very complex
issue.”
Among
the obstacles the F.B.I. has encountered in Libya has been a reluctance by some
police and government officials there to target members of Ansar al-Shariah, a
local Islamist group whose fighters joined the attack, according to witnesses.
Government officials in Benghazi have said it would be impossible for lightly
armed Libyan forces to arrest militia members. Leaders of Benghazi’s most
powerful militias, some of whom fought with Ansar al-Shariah members during the
uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, say they would be hesitant to act
against suspects unless they were shown conclusive proof of their involvement.
Meanwhile,
the Pentagon has been preparing contingency plans should Mr. Obama order a
military operation against the suspects. For months, an unarmed American
military surveillance drone has flown virtually every day over Benghazi,
gathering information and poised to respond if any of the suspects are
identified.
The
top-secret Joint Special Operations Command has compiled “target packages” of
detailed information about possible suspects, senior military and
counterterrorism officials said. Working with the Pentagon and the C.I.A., the
command has been preparing the dossiers as the first step in anticipation of
possible orders from Mr. Obama to take action against those determined to have
played a role in the Benghazi assault that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
But a
number of Libyan political figures have expressed wariness that any unilateral
military action by the United States, like a drone strike, would fuel popular
anger and add a destructive new element to the uncertain security situation in
Benghazi, especially with the Obama administration considering military strikes
against Syria.
A
version of this article appears in print on September 10, 2013, on page A7 of
the New York edition
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