Eastern Libya’s deputy interior minister, Wanis el-Sharef, said Thursday a mob first stormed the consulate Tuesday night and then, hours later, raided a safe house in the compound just as U.S. and Libyan security arrived to evacuate the staff. That suggested, el-Sharef said, that infiltrators within the security forces may have tipped off the militants to the safe house’s location.
The attacks were suspected to have been timed to coincide with the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strike in the United States, el-Sharef added, with the militants using the film protest by Libyan civilians to mask their action.
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Killed in the attack were U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, and private security guards Glen Doherty and Tyrone S. Woods.
El-Sharef said four people were arrested at their homes Thursday, but he refused to give any further details. He said it was too early to say if the suspects belonged to a particular group or what their motive was. Libya’s new prime minister, Mustafa Abu-Shakour, said authorities were looking for more suspects.
The FBI is also in Libya investigating the attack. A government official speaking on the condition of anonymity told CBS News the FBI is planning to send investigators to Germany to interview Libyan U.S. Consulate personnel who were evacuated there.
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CBS News correspondent David Martin reports officials already have a prime suspect in the assault — a radical Islamic group called Ansar al Sharia. The name means “Supporters of Islamic law,” and U.S. officials describe it as an offshoot of al Qaeda.
Ansar al Sharia is one of multiple Libyan militias operating in the city.
At a news conference Thursday night, Hani al-Mansouri, the spokesperson for Ansar al-Sharia, denied that the group or any of its men took part in the attack. He claimed angry protesters simply stormed the consulate after security guards barricaded inside opened fire to disperse the crowd.
![ISAF spokesman Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz told CBS News the latest attack is, “tragic, but doesn’t reflect the security situation.” He calls the shooting an “isolated incident”.
“We’re confident this won’t stop operations,” he said. “We trust our Afghan partners. But we’re looking at how to mitigate incidents.”
White House press secretary Jay Carney said he didn’t want to “diminish at all the seriousness of the attack” but “it is important within the context here to recognize that missions … are being conducted ever day, every hour involving U.S. forces and the 330,000 Afghan forces.”
He added that the U.S. military “believes that the operational impact [of the attacks] has been negligible.”
The Afghan security forces have established an eight-point vetting process. Katz explained that recruits require two letters from local elders as a character reference as well as biometric, medical and drugs checks, but ISAF is still working with the Afghan forces to improve this process.
Nonetheless, early in 2012, top U.S. commander Gen. John Allen ordered American units to select a “guardian angel” to watch over fellow troops, even as they sleep, at joint U.S.-Afghan bases and on joint operations involving live fire – a direct response to the mounting green-on-blue attacks.
Last year, a U.S. Army team led by a behavioral scientist produced a 70-page survey that revealed both Afghan and American soldiers hold disturbingly negative perceptions of the other.
According to the survey, many Afghan security personnel found U.S. troops “extremely arrogant, bullying and unwilling to listen to their advice” and sometimes lacking concern about Afghans’ safety in combat. They accused the Americans of ignoring female privacy and using denigrating names for Afghans.
American troops, in turn, often accused Afghan troops and police of “pervasive illicit drug use, massive thievery, personal instability, dishonesty, no integrity,” the survey said.
U.S. military officials have downplayed that survey.
The U.S. hopes the Afghan Local Police, a village defense force backed by the national government, will become a key force in fighting the insurgency.](https://www.guerragarzayasociados.com/wp-content/themes/Extra/images/post-format-thumb-text.svg)
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