The movie was a little incomplete about that. The initial background into panels suggest they were there to "monitor the weapons depots as the situation deteriorates".
Yeah, but WHY..?
Of course to plunder the more serviceable weapons of Khaddafi's arsenal and then transfer them.
At another juncture they perform a MANPADS missile buy with a local warlord, then cut to HQ, where they admonish that they wish to BLOW UP his main stash.
But that, too, is wrong:
They key aim was to scoop up the best weapons and then transfer them.
But that wasn't in the movie.
It's like some theoretical Jason Bourne film in which he is fighting through a chaotic world, but in this version more acceptable to libs there are no dark Treadstone machinations, back in DC.
But of course those Bourne films show DC treachery in very exotic, almost twisted, detail.
If Michael Bay was to continue to have a film career, he had to stick the men in a tight, sterile political vaccuum, and we here at FR with all our unusual tools fill in the many blanks.
I'm not sure if the outside world does that, however.