About 125 to 150 gunmen were reported to have participated in the attack. Some of the attackers were covered in their faces and wore bulletproof vests. The weapons used in the attack included rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 and FN F2000 assault rifles, gasoline cans, mortars, and vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns and artillery.
The attack unfolded in the evening. The attackers first blocked the main road outside the consulate with a truck carrying a machine gun. The truck is printed with the logo of the Ansar Islamic Organization; the organization is composed of militant Islamic militants and cooperates with the local government to manage the security of the Benghazi region. (The Ansar Islamic Organization was listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Department in January 2014.)
Before the attack, the area around the consulate was quiet. There are no more than 7 Americans in the consulate, including Ambassador Stevens.
Ambassador Stevens visited Benghazi at that time to review a plan to build a cultural center and modernize the local hospital equipment. The last meeting of Ambassador Stevens of the day was a meeting with Turkish diplomats. After the end, Stevens escorted the Turkish diplomats to the gate, which was about 8:30 pm local time. The streets outside the consulate were very deserted, and the records of the State Council also showed that there was no unusual situation outside that day. Ambassador Stevens returned to his room at about 9 p.m., and according to the guards later, he was alone in the room. At about 9:40, a group of militants shouting "Allāhu Akbar" (meaning Allah is Great) flocked to the consulate from all directions. The attackers threw hand grenades at the consulate and forced their way into the consulate under the fire of a large number of automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns mounted on trucks provided support. A Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) officer saw from the consulate’s surveillance cameras that “a large group of people, people with weapons, flooded into the consulate.” He immediately pressed the alarm bell and broadcasted it. The device shouted "Attack! We are under attack!". The consulate then notified the embassy in Tripoli and the Diplomatic Security Command Center in Washington, and reported to the Martyrs Brigade on February 17th (February 17th Martyrs Brigade/كتيبة شهداء 17 فبراير—a local elite mercenary group in Libya) and The U.S. rapid response base (the CIA-affiliated base) a mile away asked for help. Ambassador Stevens called Gregory Hicks (the chief deputy of Ambassador Stevens), the deputy director of the delegation in Tripoli, hoping to tell him that the consulate was under attack. However, because Sikes did not recognize the phone number of the consulate, he did not answer the call; Ambassador Stevens made two calls, but Sikes did not answer both times. Finally, when the ambassador called for the third time, Schicks finally picked up the call.
Special operative Scott Strickland of the Diplomatic Security Service brought Ambassador Stevens, Director of Foreign Affairs Intelligence Management Shane Smith, an information management officer and others into the emergency in the main building. Evacuate in the evacuation room. The rest of the operators went to another building to take out their M4 carbines and tactical equipment. They tried to return to the main building, but were forced to retreat due to a large number of armed attackers.
The attacker broke into the main building and damaged the iron windows of the emergency evacuation room. They then moved in several barrels of diesel oil, spilled it on the floor and furniture, and set fire to it. Soon, the whole building was filled with smoke. Stevens, Smith, and Strickland moved to the bathroom and lay on the floor to avoid the smoke. But they still decided to leave the refuge room because they couldn't stand the smoke. Strickland escaped through the window, but Stevens and Smith did not follow him. Strikeland had returned to the evacuation room several times, but because of the dense smoke, he could not find two people; he climbed onto the roof and contacted the other operators by radio. The three operators then returned to the main building in an armored vehicle; they searched the building and found Smith's body, but no trace of Stevens was found.
According to the security team members who came to support, at about 9:30 local time, they knew that the consulate had been attacked and were on standby within 5 minutes, ready to support the consulate at any time. However, their rescue mission was delayed by a "chief CIA official in Benghazi". When the incident occurred, the regional security office of the consulate turned on an alarm and notified the Benghazi CIA subsidiary base and the Tripoli embassy by telephone, stating that "we are under attack and we need support, please send support immediately..." etc., Then the call was dropped. After a brief discussion, the Global Response Staff (GRS) at the CIA-affiliated base, including senior security officer Tyrone Woods, immediately decided to implement rescue operations. At 10:05, the rescue team had listened to the briefing and had boarded the armored vehicle and was ready to set off. At the same time, the correspondents in the CIA-affiliated base are telling the upper-level command chain about the current development. In addition, a small group of CIA officials (including the later deceased Gren Doherty) and members of the Joint Special Mission Command are planning the fastest route to Benghazi in Tripoli.
The GRS team, which came to rescue from the CIA-affiliated base, blocked the surrounding area as soon as it arrived at the consulate and tried to search for the whereabouts of Ambassador Stevens and Shane Smith. The diplomatic security officer David Urban found Smith who was unconscious and was later convicted of death, but the team was unable to find Ambassador Stevens in the densely smoky building. The team then decided to take the survivors and the remains of Smith back to the affiliated base. On the way back to the base, the team's armored vehicle was attacked by weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles and grenades. Although the armored vehicle had two tires broken in the attack, it still managed to return to the base; the gate of the base was closed at 11:50 in the evening.
The spokesperson of the Supreme Security Council of Libya, Abdul-Monem Hull, said after the incident that all roads leading to the Benghazi consulate had been blocked and surrounded by Libyan national security forces.
On the night of the attack, a U.S. Army commando was sent to the Sikonella base in Sicily, Italy, but it was not sent to Benghazi. U.S. officials said that the force did not arrive in Sigonella until the end of the attack.
The staff of the Diplomatic and Security Service and the regional security officer notified the headquarters in Washington, D.C. as soon as the attack broke out; at that time, the local time in Libya was about 9:40 pm, and the US Eastern time was 3:40 pm. About points. At that time, they used the term "terrorist attack" to describe the incident. At 4:30 EST, officials from the Pentagon informed the US Secretary of Defense Leon Paneda of the attack. The Pentagon then ordered the drones that were monitoring the armed elements camp to fly to Benghazi. The drone arrived at the scene at approximately 11:10 p.m. local time (5:10 p.m. EST), and then sent back the screen and images to Washington. About half an hour later (5:41 pm EDT), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the CIA Director David Petraeus. The CIA has a ten-man security team stationed at the affiliate base in Benghazi, and the State Department believes this The team will be able to effectively support the consulate.
After midnight, the CIA-affiliated base was strongly attacked by machine guns, mortars and rockets. The personnel in the base continued to resist until the morning of September 12. In the early morning, the Libyan government forces met with a group of American reinforcements (including Gülen Doherty) who had arrived from Tripoli and had just arrived at Benghazi Airport. The squad consists of two active members of the Joint Special Mission Command (green berets) and five CIA employees; they requisitioned a small jet in Tripoli at a cost of $30,000 to pay the pilots and asked the pilots to carry the squad to class Jiaxi. After meeting at the airport, the Libyan army and the reinforcement team that had just arrived in Benghazi went to the CIA-affiliated base at around 5:00 in the morning and assisted in sending about 32 Americans to the airport to wait for their evacuation. A few minutes after the evacuated convoy left the gate of the base, the base was hit by powerful fire again. The reinforcement team immediately entered a defensive state. As the artillery stopped, Doherty, an employee of the CIA, began looking for his friend, Tyrone Woods, who was also an employee of the CIA. Doherty was told that Woods was operating a Mk 46 machine gun on the roof. He found Woods and two other employees on the roof; they hugged each other quickly, made peace with each other, and then returned to combat positions. Only a few minutes later, a mortar shell hit Woods' position and caused quite serious damage. While Doherty tried to change the shooting position and find cover, a second shell hit him and killed him on the spot. David Urban, a 31-year-old diplomatic and security service officer, suffered severe damage from fragments in a mortar bombing and several bones were broken.
Several operators immediately rushed to the roof to assess the injuries of the injured and assisted in transporting the injured downstairs. At the same time, a member of the Joint Special Mission Command used a handheld imaging device to monitor the image of the "Predator" drone sent back by the U.S. Africa Command. The member told the chief of the base: A large number of armed elements have assembled outside the base, and we must evacuate everyone immediately! The superiors immediately agreed; all personnel in the base were told to pack their belongings and safety equipment and prepare to evacuate. Within minutes, everyone had boarded the evacuation vehicle. On the way to the airport, the vehicles continued to be attacked by small-caliber weapons, but they arrived successfully without any further casualties.
During the battle, CIA agents successfully rescued six State Department personnel, recovered Smith’s remains, and evacuated about 30 surviving American citizens from Benghazi; however, they were still unable to find Ambassador Stevens.
When Ambassador Stevens was finally found, he was lying alone in a dark, smoke-filled room with the door locked and only accessible through windows; he was found by a group of Libyan people who came to help. The people pulled the ambassador out of the window and let him lie flat on the stone floor of the courtyard. However, the masses did not know his identity. A freelance photographer named Abdel-Qader Fadl (Abdel-Qader Fadl) was also there at the time and informed the Associated Press that the ambassador was unconscious and “may have moved him. ’S head, but only moved once.” When the crowd found the surviving ambassador (the crowd still did not know that he was the ambassador), they kept chanting "Allāhu Akbar" (Allah is the greatest), although no one was able to determine whether the ambassador was still alive. Ahmed Shams, a 22-year-old student majoring in art, was also in the crowd. He expressed to the Associated Press that he was happy to find the surviving ambassador. They tried to give first aid but were nearby. There is no medical equipment or ambulance available. Another freelance photographer named Fahd al-Bakoush later publicly released a video of Libyans trying to rescue the ambassador from a densely smoked room. According to Bakush, the local people saw that he was still alive and still had a breath, but his eyelids kept beating. Although the people knew that he was a foreigner, they did not know that he was the American ambassador.
At about 1 am, as there were no ambulances available, Ambassador Stevens was rushed by the locals in a private car to the Benghazi Medical Center, which is controlled by militants of the Ansar Islamic group. In the hospital, the on-duty physician Ziad Abu Zeid gave Ambassador Stevens a 90-minute cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). According to Dr. Zaid, the ambassador died of suffocation due to excessive smoke inhalation, but there was no trauma other than that. The doctor said that he did not know where the body was later sent, but he believed that the body was sent to the airport by the Libyan Ministry of the Interior and placed in the custody of the US government. The US State Department said that they did not know who sent the ambassador to the hospital, nor who transported the ambassador's body to the airport to the US government.
The ambassador's body was taken to Benina International Airport, from where it was taken to Tripoli, the capital of Libya, and transported to Ramstein Air Base in Germany by transport plane. The remains of all the victims (4 in total) were then transported from Germany to Andrews Air Force Base (Andrews Air Force Base) near Washington, DC; U.S. President Barack Obama held a memorial ceremony for the victims in the base.
After the attack, all Benghazi diplomats were moved to the capital Tripoli for resettlement; some unimportant personnel were evacuated from Libya. Many sensitive documents stored in the consulate remain unaccounted for, including a list of Libyans working with the United States and documents related to oil contracts.
A total of four American citizens were killed in the attack, including Ambassador John Stevens, Director of Foreign Affairs Intelligence Management Shane Smith, and two former SEAL employees Gran Doherty and Tyrone Woods. John Stevens was the first American ambassador to die during his tenure after Adolf Dubbs, who died in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1979.
On September 10, 2012, at least 18 hours before the Benghazi attack, Al-Qaida leader Ayman Zawahiri released a film that echoed the 11th anniversary of the September 11th incident in 2001, calling on Muslims to attack Americans in Libya believe that the leader of the Libyan branch of Al Qaeda has revenge for the death of Abu Yehya Libi (died in Pakistan in June 2012 in an attack by a U.S. drone). It is not clear whether Zawahiri himself was aware of the plan to attack the Benghazi consulate, but he still vigorously praised the attackers of the Benghazi incident in another video on October 12, 2012. On September 14, 2012, the Al-Qaida branch in the Arabian Peninsula issued a statement stating that the Benghazi incident was revenge for the death of Abu Yehya Libi, but it did not say whether the incident was theirs. It was later reported that three members of the organization were involved in the attack. In addition, an intercepted call from Benghazi after the attack indicated that the leader of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Mokhtar Belmokhtar (Mokhtar Belmokhtar) may also be connected to the attack. .
New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick reported that Mohamed Bishari, a 20-year-old citizen living near the consulate, witnessed the attack. According to Bisari, there was no warning before the attack broke out, and it was led by the Islamist militant Ansar Islam. Kirkpatrick’s report stated that the Ansar Islamic Group stated that their attacks were in retaliation for the anti-Muslim film "Muslim Ignorance." The report further stated that Ahmed Abu Katara was named by witnesses and the authorities as the culprit in the attack, although he himself insisted that he was not involved in the attack on the consulate. According to Katara, he is closely related to the Ansar Islamic Organization, but is not a full member of the organization; however, witnesses, residents of the Benghazi region, and Western news media all call him Ansar Islamic The leader of the organization. Katara further claimed that he was the leader of Abu Obaida ibn al-Jarrah (أبو عبيدة عامر بن عبدالله بن الجراح), and some members of the organization also have Participate in the activities of Ansar Islamic Organization.
The imprisoned Omar Abdul-Rahman Jihadist Brigade is a professional armed organization of Al Qaeda. Their main request is to release the imprisoned Omar Abdul-Rahman. USA Today reported that the previous demonstrations in Cairo were mainly protests against the imprisonment of Omar Abdul-Rahman.
A few weeks after the attack, Obama and other administrative officials stated that "Muslim Ignorance" had incited many attacks on American diplomatic facilities and claimed that the film was the main catalyst for the Benghazi incident. Two days after the attack, CNN reporter Sarah Aarthun quoted an anonymous senior US administrative official: This mob is not ignorant. That film (referring to the ignorance of Muslims) and September 11 (referring to the film released by Ayman Zawahiri on September 10) gave them great reasons to attack, and for them this The attack was purely accidental. But it is clear that the incident was a premeditated military attack.
over
View more about 13 Hours reviews
