Through their fascination with the 14-minute YouTube video of both Muhammad and his producer, the media ultimately generates an inexcusable and murderous response from the Islamic world.
There is only one question: did those who made this film actually break any laws? No, they did not violate, and therefore the issue is considered settled and the media must move on. Focusing on those who have not broken a single American law as a way to divert attention from those who "killed and took hostilities against the United States" is not only misleading; it tests and gives Islamic blasphemy laws precedence “over American liberties.”
Worse, even if the films made are considered offensive to Muslims and are "illegal" in the US, in reality, this attack on the "embassy" that "accidentally" started on 9/11 has nothing to do with the movie. On September 10, I wrote an article entitled "Jihadists Threaten to Burn the US Embassy in Cairo." They demand that the US release jihadists from its prisons, including the "Blind Sheikh" behind these threats. (As in the case of the plant seizure in Algeria – trans.) There is no mention of an “offensive film”. My source, El-Fagr, an Arabic website, reported all this back on September 8th.
In other words, a few days before “Muslims got angry about this movie,” they threatened to burn down the US embassy in Cairo. I even saw sporadic Arabic messages from about a month ago saying that "extremist elements" were threatening the embassy. The film is just a pretext, aided and abetted by the media, not to mention the Obama administration: Hillary Clinton declared the video "disgusting and reprehensible", words more suitable for those who killed (and possibly raped, see below) Americans; The US Embassy itself apologized for those who “harmed the religious feelings of Muslims” and asked the YouTube administration to remove the 14-minute trailer.
Thus, the US administration confirms the laws of Islam on blasphemy and once again joins America's enemies - the jihadists.
Retired septuagenarian Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) thought it was good, suggesting that the administration's response to the "embassy" attack was akin to a court ordering a rape victim to apologize, saying, "It's like judging a woman who was raped." : “You asked for it because of the way you were dressed.”
Just as the rape itself was completely allegorical. According to the Arabic website Tayyar, "The American ambassador to Libya was sexually assaulted before being killed by gunmen who stormed the 'embassy' building in Benghazi last night [Tuesday, September 11], protesting against a film insulting the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him."
Sexual abuse and neglect are common tactics used against non-Muslims, especially women, as was the case with the repeated rape of Lara Logan. For example, Arab media reports that have just emerged discuss how Christian women who wear crosses around their necks or simply do not wear the hijab can be subject to sexual harassment, verbal abuse and even rape threats on the streets of Egypt. It only “became much more flagrant and terrible [after the attack on the “embassy”] and even reached the point of threatening genocide and cleansing the land of Egypt of infidel Christians,” writes one Christian woman in Egypt.
Also, men are not immune from such rapes. Indeed, the photographs of Ambassador Stevens, stripped of his clothes, bloodied and clearly tortured before he was killed, are very reminiscent of the photographs of the "massacre" of Gaddafi "before he was killed." One "US supporter" - "freedom fighter", for example, can be seen "raping Gaddafi with a baton", while others dragged him with them.
Al-Qaeda-linked militants who subjected " sexual violence and killed" Gaddafi - the same people who sexually assaulted and killed the American ambassador. We were told that the "late" Libyan "dictator" was "murdered" because he was an "evil oppressor" of his people. Why was the American ambassador who “welcomed the revolution” and helped “build a better Libya” there killed?
These are media issues, and the Obama administration needs to have answers, not hype with second-rate YouTube videos and an assault on American Freedom as enshrined in the First Amendment. He must explain why it is, after four years of appeasing the Islamic world in a manner unprecedented, including by helping to oust longtime American allies like Mubarak in Egypt to empower the Islamists, that we should all look at his dead and raped Americans. embassy stormings, US flag burnings, and more anti-American sentiment than ever before.
Yesterday I watched the new American film "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" dedicated to known history, when in Benghazi in 2012, Islamists associated with al-Qaeda destroyed the US embassy and killed the American ambassador Stevens, who had a hand in the overthrow of Gaddafi. The film portrays these events through the lens of the true story of 6 CIA mercenaries GRS.
The description of this story below is told verbatim most of film
BENGHAZI: DEATH OF THE SCORPIONS
On the night of September 11-12, 2012, the US ambassador, his assistant and two security officers were killed in the Libyan city of Benghazi. But which one it was became clear much later.
Despite the official results of the investigation into the attack on US facilities in Benghazi, experts are absolutely clear that in addition to the Islamists, the leadership of the US State Department and, possibly, the president of this country are directly to blame for the death of two diplomats during the first attack. Why will become clear after describing the events of that night.
But the ability of the CIA facility's defenders to successfully repel a second attack that same night lifted the veil of secrecy over a key element in the agency's defensive arsenal: the secret security structure the CIA created after Sept. 11, 2001. The two Americans who died defending a CIA facility in Benghazi were initially identified as State Department security officers. But later, cunning journalists found out that the former Navy SEALs served under contract in an organization with the innocent name CIA Global Response Staff (GRS) - the CIA Global Response Department.
WHAT IS GRS?
This department employs hundreds of former American special forces soldiers. The task is armed protection of the agency's spies. Mainly due to the fact that in Benghazi they often acted contrary to received orders and instructions, America then managed to avoid much greater casualties. This is evidenced by a simple reconstruction of events. But, before moving on to it, it’s probably worth listening to what we managed to learn about the tasks of GRS operatives first-hand.
“They don’t learn foreign languages, don’t meet foreigners, and don’t write intelligence reports. Their main tasks are to plan escape routes from where spies meet with their agents, screen informants, and provide a "security envelope" during meetings and at CIA facilities. But if push comes to shove, you’ll have someone who will shoot.” These are the words of a former American intelligence officer. To this we can add that the most qualified employees informally called "scorpions".
GRS is always "in the shadows", the task of its leadership is to train groups that work undercover and unobtrusively provide an adequate level of security for CIA employees when working in high-risk areas. In addition, the agency cooperates with the leadership of the US military special operations structures in special operations such as the elimination of Osama bin Laden. CIA veterans recognize that GRS teams have become an important component of traditional espionage, providing protection to intelligence officers working at a level of risk that would have been unimaginable during the Cold War.
Spy networks at the time involved the relatively safe movement of an agent, often alone, through quiet cities Eastern Europe. Now, "intelligence often involves an agent riding in an armored Land Cruiser with several (former) Delta Force or Special Forces troopers," said a former CIA official who worked closely with such a security team overseas.
Current and former U.S. intelligence officials confirm that GRS has approximately 125 employees who regularly work abroad. At least half of them are contract workers, who often earn about $140,000 a year and are overseas for three to four months. Full-time GRS officers (those who are permanent employees of the CIA) typically perform supervisory functions and are paid slightly less, but still enjoy all the benefits of civil servants. Although the agency initially created the GRS to protect its officers in conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, its mission has since been expanded. Now, in addition to providing security for secret drone bases, they protect CIA facilities and officers in places like Yemen, Lebanon and Djibouti.
In some cases, elite GRS units provide security for employees of other agencies, including National Security Agency teams, while they install sensors or eavesdropping equipment in conflict zones.
US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens is in the consulate building. However, the complex of buildings behind the high wall has not yet officially become a “consulate”. It was to resolve this issue that Stevens came to Benghazi for one day.
He is also concerned about the situation in the city. State Department security officer in Libya Eric Nordstrom has twice asked his superiors to strengthen security at the mission in Benghazi.
There were more than enough reasons for this. In April 2012, two former guards threw a stick of dynamite over the consulate fence. Then, fortunately, no one was hurt. On June 5, an explosion occurred outside the gates of the “consulate” again. Again there were no casualties, but according to an eyewitness, the hole in the outer wall was “large enough for up to forty militants to break through at the same time.”
On the day of the attack, two security guards noticed a man in a Libyan police uniform taking photographs of the consulate building with a mobile phone from a house under construction opposite. He was quickly detained. However, they released him just as quickly after sending a formal complaint to the police. Consulate officer Sean Smith, who saw all this, wrote a gloomy message on his blog, which for him personally was not prophetic: “I hope we don’t die today.”
But all signs of an escalation were ignored by Washington, and Nordstrom’s requests to strengthen security were rejected. According to Nordstrom, his leadership at the State Department somehow sought to keep security in Benghazi at an artificially low level. And the inevitable happened.
FIRST ATTACK
The street in front of the consulate was quiet that day, and no unusual activity in the area of the complex was reported to the State Department during the day. There were no more than seven Americans in the complex, including Ambassador Stevens. Around 8:30 pm local time, Stevens finishes his final meeting with the Turkish diplomat and escorts him to the main gate. Then around 9 pm he goes to his room. At about 9.40 pm, large groups of armed people approached the complex from several directions, chanting: “Allah Akbar!”
The assault begins. The militants throw grenades through the outer walls of the consulate and, supported by heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks, burst into the territory, firing from machine guns and RPGs. Seeing crowds of armed people on the consulate's security cameras, an officer of the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) presses the alarm button and begins shouting through the loudspeaker: “Attack! Attack!".
Immediately calls were made to the US Embassy in Tripoli, the SDS Control Center in Washington, the headquarters of the Libyan “February 17 Brigade”, which provided security for the Americans, and the GRS rapid response team stationed in the CIA complex on the next street.
Ambassador Stevens calls his deputy, Gregory Hicks, in Tripoli. The phone number the boss calls is unfamiliar to Hicks, and he only answers the third call. He hears Stevens shouting on the phone: “Greg, Greg, we're under attack!” This last words ambassador. A few minutes later, the radio operator from the consulate reports: “If you don’t come here, we will die.”
MAP OF THE AREA
In Benghazi, militants attacked two separate compounds of American diplomats and intelligence officers. The first time is at the consulate. The second is to the CIA building complex, located approximately two kilometers from the consulate complex. Between 120 and 150 militants took part in the assault, some of whom wore long shirts in the “Afghan” style fashionable among Islamists. Some had their faces covered, some were wearing bulletproof vests.
RPGs, hand grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, NATO FN F2000 assault rifles and mortars were used during the attack. The pickup trucks carried heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns. The attackers carried cans of diesel fuel. The logo of the Ansar al-Sharia group, which helped local authorities authorities to provide security in Benghazi. It was only in January 2014 that Ansar al-Sharia was included in the US State Department's list of terrorist groups. The attackers said they were acting in response to the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” which sparked widespread protests across the Arab East.
DSS Special Agent Scott Strickland leads Stevens and Information Officer Sean Smith to a safe house in the main consulate building. Other SDB officers run to a nearby building for weapons. Taking weapons, they try to return to the main building, but after a shootout with militants they retreat. The militants burst into the main building and begin to shake the locked metal bars of the shelter. Having failed to achieve success, they bring canisters of diesel fuel to the grate, spill fuel on the floor and furniture, and strike a match.
The building is filled with thick smoke. Stevens, Smith and Strickland move into the bathroom and lie down on the floor. But when the room fills with acrid smoke, they decide to leave the shelter. Strickland climbs out the window, but Stevens and Smith are probably too weak to follow him. Strickland returns to the shelter several times, but cannot find the diplomats in the smoke. He goes back up to the roof and radios for other security officers. The three of them fight their way into the main building in an armored personnel carrier; they search the house. Smith is found by SDS agent David Abben. He is unconscious, but dies a few minutes later.
The nearby CIA compound is still quiet. But, according to the testimony of operatives of the GRS group, they received information about the attack on the consulate around 21.30, and were ready to go to help within five minutes, but for some reason the order to leave was postponed three times by the CIA resident in Benghazi. But they and the embassy in Tripoli again receive calls from the besieged consulate. At the other end of the line they manage to say: “We are under attack, we need help, please send help immediately.” The call is interrupted. After discussing the situation, the GRS team, led by Senior Security Operations Officer Tyrone Woods, accepts independent decision go to the rescue. By 22.05 the team has been briefed and is seated in armored Land Cruisers.
Having made their way into the consulate, the GRS group tries to create a protective perimeter and unsuccessfully tries to find Ambassador Stevens in the smoke-filled building. The group decides to retreat to the CIA complex with the surviving consulate employees and Smith's body. On the way back, one armored Land Cruiser of the group is fired upon with machine guns and thrown with hand grenades, but with two punctured tires it reaches its destination safely. At 23:50 the gates to the CIA complex slam behind him.
The spokesman for the Libyan Supreme Security Committee, Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, says that the roads leading to the consulate in Benghazi are cordoned off and that Libyan security forces have surrounded it.
By chance, on the night of the attack, a US Army Special Forces team was sent to the Sigonella Air Force Base in Sicily, but was not deployed to Benghazi. American officials claim that when the attack on the consulate was completed, the group had not yet arrived in Sigonella...
AMBASSADOR STEVENS
After the Americans retreat from the consulate, the Libyans find Ambassador Stevens. He lies on the floor in a dark, smoky room with a locked door. Several people pull him through the window and place him on the tiled floor in the courtyard. Stevens is still alive and the crowd is chanting “Allahu Akbar!”, probably already about his rescue. The versions that he was tortured and killed are doubtful - everything that happened in the consulate was filmed. Around 1 a.m., Stevens is transported in a private vehicle to Benghazi Medical Center, a hospital controlled by the Ansar al-Sharia group. For an hour and a half, Dr. Ziyad Abu Zeid tries to bring the ambassador back to life. But it's too late.
The doctor said Stevens died of asphyxiation caused by inhaling toxic fumes and said the ambassador had no other injuries.
There are three different versions of subsequent events. Dr. Abu Zeid believes that the ambassador’s body was taken to the airport under the protection of Libyan Ministry of Internal Affairs officers. U.S. State Department officials say they do not know at all who brought Stevens to the hospital and then transported his body to the airport. And a certain GRS agent claims that, in the absence of orders and on their own initiative, two GRS operators, who were already in Libya before the attack, heard about the attack and went out without permission to search for Stevens. Arriving in Benghazi, they found Stevens' body in a hospital and, after a shootout, removed the body from the hospital.
STORMING THE CIA COMPLEX
Just after midnight, the CIA compound begins shelling with machine guns, rockets and mortars. At about 4 o'clock in the morning the militants launch an assault. The GRS team repels attacks until the morning of September 12th.
And early in the morning, at Benghazi airport, the Libyan military encounters another group of heavily armed Americans.
It turned out that in Tripoli, the CIA-Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) joint operations team, which includes another Scorpio, Glen Doherty, heard reports from liaison officers from the CIA compound and made an independent decision to fly to Benghazi. The team, which included two active-duty JSOC operatives and five GRS contractors, hijacked a small aircraft in Tripoli around midnight. Having paid the pilots 30 thousand dollars, they forced them to fly to Benghazi.
After several hours of negotiations at Benghazi airport, around 5 a.m. they travel with the Libyans to the CIA compound to help evacuate American citizens to the airport for evacuation. A few minutes after they enter the gate, the complex comes under heavy fire again. The arriving group immediately takes up defensive positions. During a lull in the shooting, Doherty begins looking for his friend, Tyrone Woods. They tell him that he is on the roof. Doherty goes up to the roof. Woods and two other agents hold the line here with an MK46 machine gun. The friends quickly hug, reload the machine gun and change firing positions. A few minutes later, a mine falls on Woods' position. "Scorpio" is mortally wounded. Doherty tries to change position and take cover from the fire. The second mine falls directly on him, killing him on the spot. Special Agent David Abben suffered shrapnel wounds and several broken bones. According to his father, Abben said that the mortar man was a professional - the first mine fell 50 meters from their position, and the next two hit the target.
Several operatives immediately go up to the roof to help the wounded and lower them and the bodies of the dead from the roof along the stairs. At this time, the JSOC operator uses a portable monitor to receive a “picture” from the camera of a Predator drone flying over the complex. He was sent by colleagues from the US Army Africa Command. The operator reports to the head of the base: “A huge crowd has gathered here, and everyone must leave here immediately!” The evacuation is agreed upon, and every American is ordered to take away their personal weapons and safety equipment. Within a few minutes, everyone gets into their cars. The column is heading to the airport. Along the way, they are fired upon from small arms, but there are no new losses.
RESULTS
So, leading fighting, CIA GRS officers successfully rescue six State Department employees, recover Smith's body, and evacuate more than thirty Americans from Benghazi. The final report on the incident states that about 100 militants were killed in the exchange of fire.
After the attack, all diplomats are transported to the capital of Libya, Tripoli, and embassy employees who are not critical for the work of the diplomatic mission are evacuated from Libya. Secret materials went missing, including documents with lists of Libyans who collaborated with the Americans and documents relating to US oil contracts.
Senior intelligence officials only admitted in November 2012 that Woods and Doherty were not working for the SDS, as previously reported, but for the GRS.
TWO COMRADES SERVED
Glen Doherty served with a SEAL team that participated in the 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, and then served in Iraq and Afghanistan. After retiring as a petty officer first class in 2005, he worked for a private security company in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Kenya and Libya.
After Doherty's death, debts remained - loans on two houses in California. He had no insurance against death - he was a contractor, not a full-time CIA employee. After his death, CIA contract soldiers even created a special organization to solve such problems. Her tasks increased after three more “scorpions” were killed in Afghanistan.
Doherty’s friends have no complaints about the CIA, but one of them, giving an interview on this matter, sadly remarked: “It’s sad that when a guy like that leaves, after him there’s nothing left except, frankly, very large debts.”
In September 2014, Glen Doherty's family sued the CIA and State Department for $2 million, alleging that they did not provide sufficient security to either the US diplomatic mission or the CIA facility in Benghazi. The clause in the contract regarding compensation for damage to loved ones for the loss of a breadwinner in the event of his death was a fiction. It extended to his wife and children, and Doherty was divorced and had no children.
Glen Doherty's sister, when asked about her brother's motivation, clarified: his tasks did not include protecting the embassy. Doherty himself, in an interview with ABC News a month before the attack, said that his task in Libya was to search and destroy MANPADS.
Tyrone Woods, during his service as a SEAL, visited Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East and Central America. He was awarded the Bronze Star medal for valor in Iraq. There, in Anbar province, he participated in 12 combat and 10 reconnaissance raids, as a result of which 34 active militants were captured. Retiring as First Chief Petty Officer, Woods has protected U.S. diplomats in embassies from Central America to the Middle East since 2010.
President Obama told Woods' father, "Please know that if my family had been attacked, I would have acted the same way." He replied: “I could not and would not go to sleep until I was sure that everything possible had been done to save people. But nothing was done." Responding to claims that help did not come because it was already over, Woods Sr. said the president could not have known how long the fighting would continue. He said he had not received an answer to two of his most important questions. One of them is about those three “lights off” to the rescue group by the CIA resident. Woods Sr. said that a journalist personally spoke with a friend of Tyrone who was with him in Benghazi. He claimed that there were three orders to withdraw. Woods Sr. said, "Perhaps if those three delays had not occurred, our ambassador's life could have been saved."
AFTERWORD
In general, the film could hardly tell anything new and it was rather interesting who would ultimately be pointed out as the main culprit. State Department or CIA. As a result, the main emphasis was placed on the guilt of the CIA resident, who complicated the situation with his indecisive actions. The issue of the slowness of the military machine, which also reacted untimely, is indirectly addressed. The guilt of the State Department in this story is given very briefly, although Clinton, under the pressure of incriminating facts, was forced to take responsibility for the death of the ambassador and now this story is one of the central ones in the American elections, since the Republicans are counting, among other things, with its help to drown Clinton in elections. This film is more grist for Clinton's mill, since it indirectly protects it by inserting a switchman in the form of a CIA resident in Benghazi. So after watching, I couldn’t leave the feeling that the film had internal political implications related to heated discussions topics of Benghazi in the American election race, where Republicans are inflating the guilt of the Democrats and Clinton in this story, and the Democrats are trying to fight back with references to the fact that there were more problems under Bush and whose cow would moo.
Of course, the film is filled with various patriotic clichés and templates, including frank statements that “we made the revolution in Libya” (hello to the fools who talked about how “the people themselves rose up and overthrew the tyrant”), various attacks on the Gaddafi regime intended to somehow then justify what happened to Libya, and the question “What is the horror of the Gaddafi regime compared to what came after it” remained unanswered.
In the film, the future fate of Libya is presented through the prism of the opinions of mercenaries who don’t care because it’s just another foreign country where they work for money. That’s why the topic of why everyone is fighting with everyone, why there is no order, why even the Americans themselves don’t know who is a friend and who is not and how to fix all this is generally ignored. In fact, they show how the United States, after organized aggression, overthrew the sovereign regime, after which Libya began civil war, during which, incidentally, the “liberated Libyans” slapped the American ambassador and the guards of a secret CIA facility. But these were still flowers. In 2013, al-Qaeda branches flourished there, and in 2014 the Caliphate emerged, which now has its own vilayat there, whose attacks on Benghazi in the spring of this year were hardly repulsed. In general, there is no special reflection on what the United States did to Libya in the film. Of course this all happened. No one is to blame. The hypocrisy of this position is very obvious.
From a technical point of view, the key episodes of this story were reproduced in sufficient detail and more or less reliably, but the question of how exactly Stevens died was not shown in the film.
From the point of view of picture and sound, everything is done at a high level, if in terms of plot Bay very often screws up, then from the point of view of picture he is of course one of the best visionaries of our time, plus it is noticeable that Bay was guided by " Black Hawk Down" in terms of shooting style and pseudo-realism.
But this is exactly the case when beautiful packaging is not able to completely hide the internal political subtext associated with the issue of guilt, and the silences associated with why all this happened with Libya. In general, I got the impression that this is a moderately opportunistic film that quite accurately reflects the details of the events that took place, but tries in every possible way to cover up the global causes of what happened in Benghazi in particular, and in Libya in general. Therefore, even in the USA the film was received rather coolly. In general, with a budget of 50 million, it grossed 69 million, which, taking into account advertising costs and kickbacks to cinemas, allows us to say that the film either barely made its money back or completely failed at the box office.
As a result, it’s a fairly bland one-off movie for home viewing with an eye to the above-mentioned points related to American domestic and foreign policy.
MOSCOW, September 12 - RIA Novosti. The American diplomatic missions in Benghazi and Cairo were attacked on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, with the US ambassador to Libya and three other consular employees killed in one of the attacks. These emergencies were preceded by the appearance on the Internet of fragments of the film “The Innocence of Muslims” created in the USA, in which the Prophet Muhammad is presented in an extremely unsightly form.
The US authorities are strengthening the security of their diplomatic missions around the world, and are sending an anti-terrorism unit of Marines to Libya. Meanwhile, according to experts, attacks on diplomatic missions are a direct consequence of the “Arab Spring,” which ended with the Islamists coming to power in the countries of this region.
Murder of the Ambassador
US diplomatic missions were attacked on Tuesday.
First, in Cairo, after evening prayers, several thousand people surrounded the embassy complex, staging a mass protest. The crowd chanted anti-American slogans, demonstrators threw lit firecrackers onto the territory of the diplomatic mission. The protesters burned a US flag in front of the embassy, and hoisted a black flag on one of the poles near the diplomatic mission with the words: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” And several people broke into the territory of the diplomatic mission and lowered the American flag on the building.
The indignation of those gathered was caused by the information that the film “The Innocence of Muslims”, in which the Prophet Muhammad is presented in an extremely unattractive form, is being prepared for release in the United States. Fragments of this film can currently be found in the public domain on the Internet. The discontent of Muslims could have been caused by the very fact that the image of the Prophet Muhammad was prohibited by Islamic norms. However, the film, in addition, presents some episodes from the biography of the prophet in an unsightly light. An American pastor from Florida, Terry Jones, who became notorious after several public events of burning the Koran, took an active part in the creation of the film.
A few hours after the incident in Cairo, it became known about the Libyan Benghazi, which a year ago was a stronghold of rebels fighting the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. Unknown persons fired at the diplomatic mission building with grenade launchers. The shelling is believed to have come from a nearby farm. Initially, it was reported that only one person died (his name was not given) and another was wounded in the arm. However, on Wednesday afternoon it became known that four people were killed in the incident. Moreover, among the dead - .
As Reuters reported, citing a statement by Libyan Deputy Interior Minister Wanis Al-Sharif, two diplomats were killed in the shelling, including the head of the diplomatic mission. Two more died during an attempt to evacuate them from Benghazi. After the grenade attack, the surviving diplomats were transported to a safe house. A special flight from Tripoli arrived for them, which was supposed to take diplomatic workers out of Benghazi. However, when the Americans left the safe house, unknown people opened fire on them, killing two people.
This is the first time American diplomatic institutions in Egypt and Libya have come under attack since the regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi were overthrown in 2011.
Strengthening security
After news of the attack on the American consulate in Libya, US President Barack Obama issued orders around the world.
“I have directed that all necessary resources and support be provided to ensure the safety of personnel in Libya, as well as strengthen the security of our diplomatic institutions around the world,” Obama said in a statement released by the White House press service.
A unit of American Marines specializing in anti-terrorism activities will be sent to Libya, AFP reports, citing a source in the Pentagon.
Ambassador Chris Stevens served in the foreign service for 21 years, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement Wednesday. He was sworn in as ambassador to Libya several months ago and became the first American official to travel to Benghazi since the overthrow of Libya's president last year.
"The attack also killed embassy information officer Sean Smith," Clinton said in a statement.
Smith, Clinton said, served in the State Department for about 10 years. He previously worked at embassies in Baghdad, Pretoria and The Hague.
"We condemn these horrific attacks that took the lives of diplomats who were helping Libyans build a better future," the secretary of state said.
Accusations of provocation
The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was condemned by the UN Security Council. Thus, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance said that “this kind of violence has no justification,” and the head of EU diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, called on Libya to “immediately take measures to protect the lives of all diplomats and foreign employees.”
In turn, representatives of Islamic countries, although they call on people to show restraint, still react extremely negatively to the film “The Innocence of Muslims.”
"This film insults the prophet and is immoral," the Egyptian government said in a statement.
The Afghan authorities, as France-Presse notes, blocked access to the YouTube portal, where excerpts from the film were published, for an hour and a half.
Negative reactions also came from the Vatican. Holy See spokesman Father Federico Lombardi called the film "a provocation for Muslims."
Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that Terry Jones, an American pastor from Florida who is offensive to Muslims, had a hand in creating the film. He produced “The Innocence of Muslims” and promised to show a fragment of the film to the parishioners of his church.
Jones gained scandalous worldwide fame after several public events of burning the Koran. After the first such action in March 2011, unrest occurred in Afghanistan, during which more than 100 people died. The actions and statements of Terry Jones are being widely condemned around the world, especially in Muslim countries.
“After all, the “Arab Spring” turned into the rise to power of political groups of Islamist orientation, and individual representatives of these groups, in accordance with their ideas, spin the “wheel of fortune,” Margelov noted.
ALL PHOTOS
Ambassador Stevens was considered one of Washington's leading experts on the Arab world. He was one of the main coordinators of Western assistance to the Libyan opposition that rebelled against Muammar Gaddafi last year. At the height of the fighting, he repeatedly traveled to Benghazi, where he eventually found his death - at the hands of the very “revolutionaries” whom he helped seize power, writes Kommersant.
The ambassador came to Benghazi to attend the opening of a cultural center, Vedomosti clarifies. Stevens began acting as ambassador at the end of August; during the revolution, he was a negotiator with the rebels on the US side. He has been in the diplomatic service since 1991.
The attack occurred late in the evening on Tuesday, September 11 - just on the anniversary of the terrible terrorist attacks of Al-Qaeda in the United States, but information about the death of the ambassador and consulate employees appeared only on Wednesday afternoon, Gazeta.ru reconstructs the course of events.
A photo of the dying ambassador was published in the media
The crowd that attacked the embassy bore little resemblance to spontaneously gathered demonstrators - they were militants armed with grenade launchers, which were used. Chris Stevens was evacuated in an unconscious state (PHOTO of this moment is published, among others, by The New York Post). According to updated data, he suffered carbon monoxide poisoning during a fire in the building and died in the hospital. In addition, State Department press officer Sean Smith, two Marines and ten Libyan security officials were killed.
Representatives of the State Department, Congress and US intelligence services are now saying that the attack was well planned, RIA Novosti reported on Thursday. “There was planning for an attack, of course. And it doesn’t matter who was behind it. However, it is unlikely that the attack was aimed specifically at Stevens. He was in the consulate by coincidence, after a trip to the east of the country,” the head of the Senate International Committee told reporters John Kerry.
The attack "was carried out too professionally and was too well coordinated to be spontaneous," an intelligence spokesman later confirmed. “This was a planned attack, not spontaneous actions of a crowd. The working version at the moment is this: they (the attackers) had a goal to attack the consulate, and they used the demonstration to cover up the attack,” a State Department representative said in turn.
In Afghanistan, the US initially supported al-Qaeda: events are repeating themselves
Christopher Stevens was first American Ambassador, who died in 33 years - in 1979, terrorists kidnapped the head of the diplomatic mission in Kabul, Adolf Dubs, and he was killed during the liberation operation. In general, American diplomacy experienced the most terrible shock after the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the seizure of the diplomatic mission in Tehran by supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
In the countries of the Arab Spring, the fall of “secular dictators” did not lead to the triumph of democracy, but to the strengthening of Islamists and the radicalization of a significant part of the population, the media emphasize. For Washington, this is an alarming signal: after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, known for his anti-Americanism, the attitude towards the United States in Libya not only did not improve, but even worsened. During the Jamahiriya, after Washington and Tripoli restored diplomatic relations in 2006, no one attacked US diplomatic missions or killed their employees.
And former Russian Ambassador to Libya Alexey Podtserob noted to Vedomosti that he sees in the events in Libya a repetition of the situation with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. In Libya, the Americans also fought on one side with the radicals against Gaddafi, and now the Salafis are turning against them. Law enforcement officials were unable to stop the violence in Benghazi, which indicates that real power in the country is in the hands of armed groups, Podtserob said.
Experts from the Carnegie Middle East Center also warn about the weakness of the civil administration, newly created democratic institutions and ongoing tensions between clans in their review of the situation in Libya, the newspaper writes.
Islamists are taking revenge for another anti-Muslim film. The director of the previous one had his throat cut
The reason for the attack in Benghazi was the release in the United States of the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” which many Muslims considered an insult to the Prophet Muhammad. This is a low-budget amateur film, the trailer for which has appeared on the Internet. The Prophet Muhammad is depicted in the film as a fraudster calling for mass murder. He appears as a rootless homosexual, a champion of extramarital affairs and slavery. His followers are depicted in the film as brutal rioters and murderers.
The making of the film involved Sam Basil, a native of Israel living in the United States, two Egyptian Copts and, according to some sources, a pastor from Florida, Terry Jones, notorious for burning the Koran. Shortly before the Islamic radicals protested, he added fuel to the fire of religious hatred by promising to stage an “Innocence of Muslims” screening for his parishioners in Florida.
Director Basil, after the news of the death of the American ambassador, chose to classify his location for a certain time. In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Basil repeated that he considers Islam a “cancer” and called his film a “political statement” about religion, the AP reports.
As the media recall, in 2004, Basil’s colleague, Dutch director Theo van Gogh, paid with his life for the film “Submission” about the role of women in Islam. Finding the painting offensive, radical Islamist Mohamed Bouyeri shot van Gogh and slit his throat on the street in Amsterdam.
Other countries of the Arab Spring are also uneasy. US sends destroyers and special forces
Basil's controversial film hours before the events in Libya provoked a similar incident in Cairo. There, about two thousand people broke into the territory of the US Embassy, tore the Stars and Stripes flag from the building of the American mission and hoisted in its place a black banner with the inscription “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet.” Police spent several hours trying to persuade the crowd to disperse. As a result, there were no casualties in Egypt.
After the Libyan attack, Tunisian law enforcement agencies were forced to use tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a protest near the US Embassy. Large protests also took place on Wednesday in Sudan, Morocco and the Palestinian territories, where angry crowds burned an American flag outside the UN building in Gaza.
US President Barack Obama has already ordered to strengthen the security of American diplomatic institutions around the world. In Libya, the Americans evacuated all their personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli and decided to reduce the number of employees at their embassy to a minimum. In addition, a special unit of marines was sent to Libya to strengthen the security of the diplomatic mission in Benghazi and two warships to the shores of the country. According to a Pentagon spokesman, the Laboon destroyer will arrive off the Libyan coast in the very near future. Another ship, the destroyer McFaul, will arrive in a few days. Both are armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Bold and optimistic, he knew the country to which he was sent like no other diplomat. His tragic death leaves a huge hole in the American foreign service, as well as in Washington's fitful dealings with the Arab world.
“Salaam alaikum. My name is Chris Stevens and I am the new US Ambassador to Libya." With these words, Christopher Stevens, the 52-year-old diplomat who died along with three other Americans on September 11 during the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, began his video introduction to the people of Libya. Even though he took up the post in May, the region was not new to him. Fluent in Arabic and French languages Stevens was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, and after working in Washington in international trade, he worked in Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia during 21 years of service in the US State Department.
But it was in Libya, where he also served as America's No. 2 diplomat from 2007 to 2009, that he achieved success and fame. His experience and authority in Libya proved invaluable during the chaotic Libyan revolution, and his work helped persuade the Obama administration to support the beleaguered rebels. All of which made Stevens' death even more ironic, as President Barack Obama said after the attacks: "It's especially tragic that he died in Benghazi, the city he helped save at the height of the revolution."
It is significant that less than three hours after Stevens' death in Benghazi, the Libyans launched an Arabic-language Facebook page honoring Stevens. On it they exchanged photographs of the ambassador. For example, in one of the photographs, the ambassador eats local food with his hands with Libyans. They also posted photos of themselves holding lit candles in memory of him.
Apparently, Stevens was not one to sit at his desk. He chose to leave Washington and be where he was. An avid traveler who grew up in California, he often escaped from the embassy to wander the Roman ruins of Libya. “We worked together in Syria,” says Deputy Secretary of State Liz Dibble, “and I remember him talking about his trip to Saladin's castle. It was a completely wrong, beaten path to arrive in the country.”
But despite these revelations, Stevens was known for his outgoing personality. "He could be a student from time to time, interested in social life," says Janet Sanderson, who first worked with him in Cairo in the 1990s. “He was extremely popular and very personable. He was a lot of fun. He loved to sit and talk about politics until 2 a.m. and drink coffee or tea endlessly.”
He used his human qualities to organize meetings or during his speeches, attracting people to them. "He could hold his audience's attention," Sanderson recalls. “He could hold the attention of Congress. He was great at explaining complex political situations. And he knew the answers to legislators' questions even before they asked them. Like the questions about Libya: who are they, the rebels? Can they unite? He knew all the factions, the world situation.”
It is possible that Stevens knew about Congress because of his participation in the Congressional Foreign Exchange Program, where he worked in the office of Senator Richard Lugar, who was the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.
In Cairo, Stevens made a name for himself as a tennis player. "He was tall, blond," Sanderson says. “He made an unforgettable impression in Cairo. It was his second tour, but he turned into a tennis player when he wanted to impress the visitors.”
Stevens was ambitious without being cruel. “Type A with California roots,” says Dibble. He was the first of the diplomatic class to be appointed head of mission. And he was fearless. When the United States evacuated embassy staff in Tripoli at the height of last year's revolution, Stevens negotiated in Benghazi about the possibility of working with opposition leaders to form a new government. He probably knew Benghazi better than any other American diplomat. “Oh yeah, we had to go through all sorts of hoops to get him to Benghazi,” recalls Sanderson, who recently left her post as assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs. “But he felt like a fish out of water. There he became part of the whole.”
He remained calm in difficult situations. “Even when everything was upside down, he made me laugh,” Sanderson says. “He never ran, he was never in a hurry. I never saw him hesitate or fuss,” Dibble recalls.
Stevens was known for mentoring young diplomatic staff. "From our point of view, when people become ambassadors, they become very serious and sometimes lose a little of the life, idealism and optimism that they had in their youth," says Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs spokesman and Stevens friend Aaron Snipe. “Chris has always had this optimism.”
“He felt he could do something special. He achieved this. I think he may have been embarrassed by what people said about him. I believe he wanted to show that he was doing his job and being himself. His life credo was the following: in any situation, keep your glass half full, no matter how difficult it is. And he worked in some of the toughest places in the world.”
The American diplomatic community will mourn Stevens, who became the first American ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979. But the world may miss him more. Libya and other countries transformed by the Arab Spring are in the midst of a historic change. “He dreamed of making an impact in Libya and I think he succeeded,” says Dibble. “I think he had high hopes for Libya given the massive transition the country is going through.” The region's new democracies need to rebuild free societies from the ashes of autocracy; it is also necessary to avoid the temptations of religious extremism. Stevens may have contributed to this process. As US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “The world needs people like Chris Stevens.” And he needs them more than ever.
Jay Newton-Small, Brian Walsh
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Time", September 12, 2012
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