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Scandal: More than six hours after terrorists attacked our consulate, former Navy SEALs manned a blood-soaked machine gun to defend U.S. territory. Meanwhile Apache helicopters sat on the ground in Italy. At 4 a.m. local time on Sept. 11 — six hours and 20 minutes after the initial attack began — former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed at the CIA annex not far from the consulate by a mortar shell. The machine gun they were firing was encrusted with blood, an indication they continued to fight after being wounded. During that eternity, Woods and Doherty might...

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, actually served as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East, according to Middle Eastern security officials. Among the tasks performed inside the building was collaborating with Arab countries on the recruitment of fighters – including jihadists – to target Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. The distinction may help explain why there was no major public security presence at what has been described as a “consulate.” Such a presence would draw attention to the shabby, nondescript building that was allegedly used for such sensitive purposes. [snip] The...

By Scott Wilson and Al Kamen Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, March 25, 2009 The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor. In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' " The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration...

When British diplomats abandoned their offices in Benghazi over the summer after the British ambassador’s motorcade was attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, their security detail left its weapons and vehicles in the custody of the U.S. consulate in that eastern Libyan city. Now that cache of weapons is missing amid signs that the Islamist militants suspected in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. consulate and a nearby annex remain active, despite Libyan government demands that they disband. The June 11 attack on British Ambassador Sir Dominic Asquith as he drove through Benghazi is among a list of 230 security incidents,...

WASHINGTON -- The former head of a 16-member U.S. military team in Libya said Wednesday the consulate in Benghazi, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, never had the forces it needed to protect itself. Lt. Col. Andrew Wood told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that U.S. security was so weak that in April, only one U.S. diplomatic security agent was stationed in Benghazi. The committee hearing followed assertions Tuesday night by the State Department that it never concluded that the Sept. 11 attack stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam. Ambassador Chris...

Jihadists twice set off explosives at the consulate prior to the incident that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, and announced threats on Facebook about escalating attacks on Western targets in the run-up to the 9/11 anniversary, according to whistleblowers reaching out to House Republicans.

Today marks the two week anniversary of the 9 11 12 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya. We should pause and take a look back at what our news media was officially told by the U.S. State Department less than 24 hours after the event. I am including a preliminary timeline that I gleaned from the briefing followed two questions asked by reporters about the alleged protests. The answers clearly show that the “movie trailer” protest storyline had not been adopted by the Obama Administration and that no one at the State Department could address the...

Forget the 3 AM phone call. Obama couldn’t even be trusted with an 11 PM phone call. They say that only a man with a clear conscience, or no conscience at all, can sleep this way. But hey, he had to be rested for the next fundraiser and the next party. Jay-Z and Beyonce, unlike dead ambassadors and Libyan militias, actually matter. Fox News’ Special Report informed us that Barack Obama knew of the attack on the Libyan consulate within 90 minutes of it beginning. There is no doubt that Obama knew that the attacks involved AK-47s, along with Rocket...

I had the privilege of attending Ty Woods' funeral this morning at the North Island Naval Air Station Chapel in Coronado. Ty and Glen Doherty are former SEALs and State Department contractors who came to the aid of the US Ambassador to Libya during the attack on the Benghazi Consulate. Ty and Glen were not assigned to the Ambassador's security detail. However, when the attack against the Consulate came, they ran toward the sound of gunfire and and defended the facility and the Ambassador for several hours against a numerically superior assault force, and went out like rock stars after...

This morning the White House said their position on blaming the anti-Islam film for the death of 4 Americans at the Libyan Consulate on September 11th will remain the same. Minutes later they began a slight backing off - slight, in the face of overwhelming evidence and opinion that the attack was in retaliation for the drone strike on al-Qaeda's second-in-demand and the life sentence of Blind Sheik Omar Rachman... The following was posted here yesterday: About an hour ago, I heard Fox News' Catherine Herridge tell Megyn Kelly that the night Ambassador Chris Stevens died, someone heard someone say...

<p>One person was killed and dozens of people were injured when anti-American protesters tried to storm the American Consulate in the southern port city of Karachi and clashed for several hours with the police and paramilitary troops on Sunday evening, rescue workers and police officials said.</p>

As you'll recall, I was very skeptical this morning of initial US government assertions that there was "no intelligence" indicating the deadly Benghazi raid was premeditated or planned in advance.  White House Press Secretary Jay Carney repeated this heavily-parsed denial at his briefing today (note that he appears to be reading a verbatim statement), only to give a markedly different answer just 45 minutes later:   Carney Contradicts On Whether There Was Advance Warning Of Embassy AttacksABC's Jake Tapper notes that the Defense Secretary briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the attack, telling Senators that the US Government believes...

Two former Navy SEALs were identified Thursday as the third and fourth victims of the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya this week that also killed the U.S. ambassador. U.S. officials and family members identified the men as Glen Doherty, 42, a native of Winchester, Mass., and Tyrone Woods, 41. Details of how they died haven't been made public.

But what about Romney’s gaffes? The consulate where the American ambassador to Libya was killed on Tuesday is an “interim facility” not protected by the contingent of Marines that safeguards embassies, POLITICO has learned ...A senior administration official Wednesday called the Benghazi consulate “an interim facility,” which the State Department began using “before the fall of Qadhafi.” It was staffed Tuesday by Libyan and State Department security officers. The consulate came under fire from heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades at about 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday. By the time the attack ended several hours later, four Americans were...

The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three other American diplomats in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi Tuesday underscore how anti-authoritarian revolutions across the Arab world have unleashed extremist Islamist forces violently opposed to America and its ideals. “The big question for the United States, and it’s only been made more urgent by these events, is how to adjust to a world where [moderate Muslim] governments have paved the way for more extremist elements to wield their influence,” says Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in Washington. “It’s...

A team of about 50 Marines has been dispatched to the Libyan city of Benghazi to secure the U.S. Consulate after attacks Tuesday left four Americans dead including the U.S. ambassador, a senior U.S. military official told Fox News. The official said a Marine "fast team" is being sent from the U.S. Naval base in Rota, Spain. They are not yet on the ground. The move comes after President Obama ordered "all necessary resources" provided to Libya to support the security of U.S. personnel in the country.

BEIRUT, Sept 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on Tuesday in the Libyan city of Benghazi, a Libyan official said.

BENGHAZI, Libya, Sept 12 (Reuters) - An American staff member of the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has died following fierce clashes at the compound, Libyan security sources said on Wednesday. "One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes," Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee, said, adding that he did not know the exact number of injured and could not say what the cause of death was. Armed gunmen attacked the compound on Tuesday evening, clashing with Libyan security forces before the latter withdrew as they came...

Lahore, Jan 27 (PTI) An employee of the US consulate in this eastern Pakistani city opened fire and drove his vehicle at a high speed to evade an apparent robbery, killing three persons in a busy commercial area, police said. The firing by the US national - identified by police as Raymond David, a member of the staff at the American consulate - killed two men who were apparently trying to rob him. A third man on a motorcycle was killed when he was hit by David''s vehicle as he attempted to leave the Mozang area of Lahore. David''s car...

Jerusalem - Israel said Monday it had charged two local employees of the British Consulate General in Jerusalem with arms trafficking as part of an investigation into an alleged plot to fire a rocket into a football stadium A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman confirmed the arrests and said Britain was urgently seeking confirmation of the charges. "We have been told by the Israeli authorities that the investigation into our two employees is unrelated to the work they do at the consulate," the spokesman said.