Death in Benghazi, Part I: The Attack

by Jerry Gordon and Mike Bates with Kenneth R. Timmerman (July 2014)

Major Gen. Qassem Suleymani (right) was the powerful figure behind the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya (left). Photo: EPA/Ay-Collection/Rex USA

Source: New York Post composite graphic 6-22-14

The shadowy Iranian spy chief who helped plan Benghazi. Suleymani is the nexus of the Iranian global terrorism campaign aimed at destabilizing the Middle East.  

Here are some excerpts:

Qassem Suleymani is the head of the Quds Force, an organization that acts as a combination CIA and Green Berets for Iran, and a man who has orchestrated a campaign of chaos against the United States around the world.

Today, the Obama Administration has allied itself with Suleymani to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In this case, Iran’s goal — a Shi’ite-friendly government in Iraq — coincides with America’s hope that the country doesn’t fall apart.

Timmerman cites a former Iranian intelligence source saying:

“Iran wants chaos. They want to generate anti-American anger, radicalize the rebels, and maintain a climate of war,” … “They are very serious about this. They want to damage the reputation of the United States as a freedom-loving country in the eyes of the Arabs.”

“In Libya, Iran wanted to block US influence, which they saw as a threat.”…. “They saw the uprising against Khadafy — and the Arab Spring more generally — as an opportunity to accomplish this.”

Timmerman reveals Suleymani’s central role in the Iranian global terrorism campaign and the murders in Benghazi:

Suleymani has orchestrated attacks everywhere from Lebanon to Thailand. The US Department of Justice accuses him of trying to hire a Mexican drug cartel to blow up the Saudi Ambassador to the United States while he was in Washington, DC.

My sources, meanwhile, say Suleymani was involved in an even more direct attack on the US — the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya.

The details of planning and recruitment of the Ansar al-Shariah militia and the leaders of the Benghazi  attack, Quds Force officer Ibrahim Mohammed Joudaki and Hezbollah operative Khalil Harb, are detailed in Timmerman’s New York Post article. Timmerman concluded with this comment:

This is the deadly deception we face from Iran. Suleymani may work with us to battle ISIS, but don’t believe for one moment that he’s our friend.

Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs and the Party of Surrender. His thriller fiction works Honor Killing and St.  Peter’s Bones, dealt with an Iranian plot to secret a nuclear device into Washington, DC and the dire threats to the ancient Assyrian Chaldean Christian community in Iraq driving them to secure refuge in their diaspora. Timmerman spent 24 days in a PLO-Fatah dungeon as a captive during the First Lebanon War in 1982. That episode did not deter him from returning to Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Israel to report on arms trafficking and state and non-state terrorism. Both he and former UN Ambassador John Bolton were nominated by a former Swedish Foreign Minister for a Nobel Peace Prize their work disclosing Iran’s nuclear program. Read our interview with Timmerman in our NER Press collection, The West Speaks by Jerry Gordon.

Bates:  Good afternoon and welcome to Your Turn. This is Mike Bates. With me in the studio is Jerry Gordon, a Senior Editor of the New English Review and its blog the Iconoclast. He is also the author of the book, The West Speaks. Jerry, welcome to Your Turn.

 

 

Gordon:  Glad to be back.

 

Bates:  We have joining us by telephone from Washington D.C., Kenneth Timmerman. 
 

 

Timmerman:  Thank you.

 

Bates:  So what really happened on the night of September 11, 2012?

Timmerman:  I tell that story in some detail in the book because it has really never been well told. It was a coordinated terrorist attack. It was orchestrated by the Quds Force which is the military overseas strike force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The people who they had hired there, were hired guns. There was also here a pickup team. However, the first people who entered the diplomatic compound came in as a coordinated military attack. They breached the walls. They brought in fifty caliber gun trucks. They put down covering fire so the diplomatic security officers who were there to guard the ambassador would hunker down in a separate building. Then they located the ambassador who was in the Villa. They knew where the safe haven was because they had already done reconnaissance. That is not something that spontaneous protestors would have done. They went down and rattled his cage to make sure he was inside. Once they knew he was inside they went back upstairs and torched the place with diesel knowing that he would perish in the flames and smoke.

Bates:  So did Chris Stevens die of a beating or from smoke inhalation?

Timmerman:  He died of smoke inhalation. When I say they rattled his cage I mean quite literally there was a door of metal bars. It was not a solid door. It was a door of metal bars and they rattled that door and banged on it with their AK47’s. Finally, they were pulled back by the leader who was under the control of the Iranians.

Gordon:  Ken, what happened at the Annex? We know that unfortunately two ex-Navy Seals and CIA Contractors were killed with mortar fire. Could the Ansar al-Sharia pick up team do that?

Timmerman:  That is one of the specific things that I discovered in writing this book. The Libyans had no experienced mortar men, not in the Libyan Army and not amongst the guerilla fighters. The mortar men were Iranians. I believe they were Iranian nationals who came as part of a special unit that arrived in Benghazi on July 31st with a specific intent and orders to carry out this terrorist attack.

Bates:  Did the State Department have some advanced warnings that these threats were made?

Timmerman:  She was warned repeatedly. They beseeched her in cable after cable, please send us more security. We need more security officers and she refused to do that. Hillary’s whole shtick if you wish in Libya was that we are not the George W. Bush Administration and we do not occupy Arab countries. We do not go there with our guns ablazing and Marines on the ground. We are friendly with these Muslim groups and they are friendly with us. So she did not want to contradict that by having the appearance of any kind of military presence on the ground. Even the eighteen U.S. Special Forces team who had been there up until August were told not to wear their military uniforms outside of the Embassy compound in Tripoli. Those were Hillary Clinton’s orders.

Gordon:  Ken, who concocted this fairy tale as you call it in your book about the internet video being the trigger point for this attack?

Bates:  Kenneth, I have read reports elsewhere that some of these terrorists that were attacking the facility in Benghazi were coordinating the attacks using cell phones obtained, most likely stolen, not given, but taken, from the State Department and that American Intelligence Agencies were listening to them in real-time as they planned and carried out the attack. Is that true?

Gordon:  Didn’t they come in masquerading as humanitarian aid workers?

Gordon:  Ken, did the orders come from Tehran for this attack in Benghazi?

Timmerman:  The attack was ordered by Tehran and personally by Qassem Suleymani the head of the Quds Force. He deputized a very senior Revolutionary Guards Commander. I named him in the book. He is a two-star General. He personally came to Libya to make sure that everything happened correctly. He had another Deputy who was the ground commander and there was a third individual, who I also named, who was a very Senior Lebanese Hezbollah militia leader, an Arab. He fit in with the people on the streets so he did not look Iranian. He was their front person. He was the one who was there actually recruiting the fighters and giving them the operational orders on the ground. This was an Iranian operation from start to finish. They used pick up players who weren’t the ones who planned the operation, carried out the surveillance, gave the orders and watched it as it was going on.

Bates:  Regarding the attack in Benghazi I have heard the facility referred to as an embassy, as a consulate, as a diplomatic facility, as a CIA safe house. What really was the purpose of this structure that was attacked on September 11, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya?

Gordon:  Ken, what was going on at that facility?

Timmerman:  The CIA compound was set up during the insurrection in Libya to serve the CIA as a base to arm the rebels because they had a presidential finding from the White House to provide weapons to the rebels against Qaddafi. Part of that operation was, as I reveal in Dark Forces, to give the rebels stinger missiles at  the very beginning of the conflict before NATO started to bomb Qaddafi. The missiles were provided through a cut out, the government of Qatar, and Qatari Special Forces. That is a fascinating story because in the end we tried to get those missiles back. It is one of the reasons they continued to operate the CIA Annex in Benghazi and they failed. So some of the missiles went missing.

Gordon:  What was the status of John Brennan in this episode?

Bates:  Kenneth, a few weeks prior to the publication of Dark Forces, American Special Forces captured Abu Khattala who was the alleged leader of this attack. Was that something that we should be really amazed about much like the Bin Laden killing or was this a timed event that was staged. I mean, Khattala was interviewed by western journalists. How hard could he have been to find all of those years?

Gordon:  Does Iran have an agenda that encompasses that entire region?

Timmerman:  In Libya their agenda was primarily to kick the Americans out, to smash any semblance of normality to keep the country from recovering. They did not want to see Libya become a modern pro-Western Arabic/Muslim country at peace. So they were really hoping to just perpetuate the violent civil unrest in Libya. Going after our legation, driving the American diplomatic force out of Libya was part of that plan.

Bates:  I have heard numerous reports that our military was ready to launch a rescue mission or some sort of attack from either Italy or elsewhere in the region and they were given a stand down order. Is that true and who would have given that order?

Bates:  Thank you Kenneth for joining us today on 1330 WEBY.

Continue reading part II here.

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The West Speaks.

 

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