US special operations forces have captured a top militant who helped lead the deadly 2012 attacks against a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The suspect, identified as Mustafa al-Imam, was captured in Libya just before midnight local time on Sunday. He is being transported via military plane to the US where he will be tried.
The mission was approved by President Donald Trump and done in coordination with Libya’s internationally recognized government.
The September 11, 2012, assault killed US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, State Department information management officer Sean Patrick Smith and contract security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
US special operations forces have captured a top militant who, Mustafa al-Imam, helped lead the deadly 2012 attacks against a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. The September 11, 2012, assault killed US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, State Department information management officer Sean Patrick Smith
Al-Imam, was captured in Libya just before midnight local time on Sunday. He is being transported to the US where he will be tried. Also killed in the attack were contract security officers Tyrone Woods (left)and Glen Doherty (right)
Stevens and Smith died in the burning diplomatic outpost despite efforts to rescue them. Woods and Doherty died nearly eight hours later in a mortar attack on a nearby CIA complex.
The Obama administration’s handling of the deadly assault became a lightning rod for Republican criticism of Hillary Clinton – who was secretary of state at the time – through her presidential campaign.
Multiple congressional investigations were held determine what happened and whether the Obama administration misled the public on the details of the bloody assault.
Initial accounts provided by administration officials, notably former US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, said the attack had grown out of a protest against an anti-Muslim internet film. Later, the administration said it was a planned terrorist attack.
Earlier this month, another man accused in the attack, Abu Khattala (pictured), went on trial in federal court in Washington. Khattala has pleaded not guilty to the 18 charges against him
A two-year investigation by a House Benghazi committee focused heavily on Clinton’s role and whether security at the compounds and the response to the attack was sufficient.
It was the Benghazi probe that revealed Clinton used a private email server for government work, prompting an FBI investigation that proved to be an albatross in her presidential campaign.
Earlier this month, another man accused in the attack, Abu Khattala, went on trial in federal court in Washington.
Khattala has pleaded not guilty to the 18 charges against him, including murder of an internationally protected person, providing material support to terrorists and destroying US property while causing death.
The assault started in the evening when armed attackers scaled the wall of a US diplomatic post in Benghazi and moved through the front gate.
The assault started in the evening when armed attackers scaled the wall of a US diplomatic post in Benghazi and moved through the front gate. Stevens (pictured, August 2012) was rushed to a fortified ‘safe room’ along with Smith, but were then siphoned off from security officers when attackers set the building and its furniture on fire
A two-year investigation by a House Benghazi committee focused heavily on Clinton’s role and whether security at the compounds and the response to the attack was sufficient (Pictured, buildings burn after they were set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi)
Multiple congressional investigations were held determine what happened and whether the Obama administration misled the public on the details of the bloody assault (Pictured, an armed man waves his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the US consulate compound in Benghazi)
Stevens was rushed to a fortified ‘safe room’ along with Smith, but were then siphoned off from security officers when attackers set the building and its furniture on fire.
Libyan civilians found Stevens hours later in the wreckage, but he died of smoke inhalation in the hospital, becoming the first US ambassador killed in the line of duty in more than three decades.
The CIA annex was then attacked by mortar fire, killing Woods and Doherty who were defending its rooftop.