Posted on 09/09/2026 9:23:02 AM PDT by ransomnote
ransomnote: The prior posts in the series are here:
John “TIG” Tiegen
@TigTiegen
12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI:
DAY 6By late August and early September 2012, the intelligence picture was getting worse too.
On August 19, the Pentagon’s Joint Staff produced an intelligence update titled “Libya: Terrorists to Increase Strength During Next Six Months.” It warned there were “no near-term prospects” for reversing Libya’s trend toward becoming a terrorist safe haven and said eastern Libya was likely to become an even broader safe haven by the end of the year. It also warned that those conditions would allow terrorists to increase attacks against Western and Libyan interests.
Then, on September 5, AFRICOM produced another assessment on extremism in Libya. It said the disarray in Libya’s security services was giving jihadists freedom to recruit, train and move fighters and weapons. Most importantly, it said the threat to Western and U.S. interests remained high, particularly in northeast Libya.
That matters because Benghazi is in northeast Libya.
And this wasn’t the first time people were saying it.
Back in June, State Department security officials were already discussing what they called “an active terrorist cell in Benghazi” that was planning and carrying out attacks against Western interests, including the U.S. mission. Another security official warned that extremist activity had increased so much that he feared they had already crossed a threshold where they would start seeing more attacks on Western targets.
So by the beginning of September, you had:
Repeated attacks against Western targets.
Growing extremist activity.
A weak Libyan government that could not control the security environment.
Intelligence assessments warning eastern Libya was becoming a terrorist safe haven.
AFRICOM saying the threat to U.S. and Western interests in northeast Libya remained high.
The intelligence community later said there was no specific, credible warning of the exact September 11 attack. But there was plenty of strategic warning that the environment was getting worse and U.S. facilities and personnel in Benghazi were at risk. That is the distinction people need to understand.
There may not have been a warning with the exact date and time. But there sure as hell wasn’t a shortage of warnings.
By September 5, the United States government was writing in its own intelligence reports that the threat to Americans in northeast Libya remained high.
We were now 6 days away from September 11.
12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 6, 2026
John “TIG” Tiegen@TigTiegen
·
Sep 712 DAYS OF BENGHAZI:
DAY 7One thing people probably don’t understand about Benghazi is the way you rotate security personnel matters.
On the GRS side, we had overlap between rotations. The outgoing team didn’t just disappear and leave the incoming guys to figure everything out. We had time to pass along routes, problem areas, local knowledge, changes in the city and what we were seeing on the ground.
The State Department’s DS side did not have that same continuity.
Benghazi was being staffed through short-term TDY rotations. By September 1, only 3 DS agents were on the ground. Congressional testimony described all 3 as “brand new to the service,” all on temporary duty, and none had previously served at a high-threat post.
That doesn’t mean they were bad guys or incapable. Some DS personnel had solid military backgrounds. The bigger problem was the system they were being dropped into.
From what I saw, many of the DS guys relied heavily on local drivers because they simply did not know Benghazi the way we did. They knew how to get to a few key locations, like the Annex and maybe the hospital, but they didn’t have the same local familiarity or handoff between rotations that we had.
That matters more than people think. Security is not just carrying a gun. You need to know your city, need primary routes, alternate routes, choke points, hospitals, neighborhoods, where trouble normally develops and how to move when your route is gone.
And there is another difference people miss: training versus experience.
DS agents received training for dangerous assignments, but training does not replace years of operating in high-threat environments. GRS was built around guys who already had substantial operational experience before they ever got there. GRS guys had around 8 years in Special Forces or comparable high-threat backgrounds before coming into the program. I was an exception 4 year O311.
Training gives you a foundation.
Experience gives you judgment.
You can have good people and still put them into a bad system and shity situations.
That is what I believe State was doing in Benghazi: rotating people through on short TDYs with limited continuity, limited local knowledge and, for the 3 agents there by September 1, no previous high-threat-post experience.
Then Ambassador Stevens arrived on September 10 with 2 additional DS agents, bringing the total to 5 on the ground for the night of the attack.
Five sounds better than 3 on paper.
But numbers don’t tell the whole story.
How well do they know the city? How long have they worked together? Do they know alternate routes? Can they move without depending on somebody else to tell them where to go? And how much of what they know came from a course versus years of actually doing the job?
Those things matter when everything goes to shit.
And by September 7, we were only 4 days away.
12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 7, 2026
John “TIG” Tiegen@TigTiegen
12 DAYS OF BENGHAZI:
DAY 8A week or so before Ambassador Stevens was set to come back to Benghazi, we already knew what his events were going to look like.
One of the events planned for September 13 was a public event at a local school. So before he arrived, we went out and did a security assessment of the location.
We walked the building, looked at entrances and exits, evacuation routes, hard points and places we could use if something went bad, the location sucked.
The access was bad. The exit routes were bad, everything was a chokepoint! It was going to be a public event. Too many people, too many unknowns and not enough good options if something happened.
We talked about it a lot. We believed that was going to be the day he got attacked.
We also shut down a lot of our operations so we could help augment security for the Ambassador’s movements. We weren’t going to be driving his convoy or replacing DS. We were going to be there as additional security, overwatch and basically a QRF if something went wrong.
State Department personnel also came over to our compound before the visit. We did active-shooter training and medical training together so they understood how we would move and respond if something happened.
That part matters. We weren’t sitting around thinking Benghazi was safe.
We were preparing because we knew something was going to happen.
We were checking locations.
We were planning emergency routes.
We were coordinating with State.
We were training together.
We were preparing to change our own operations to support the Ambassador’s security.
And this was all before September 11.
The school event never happened.
We were now 3 days away.
12DaysOfBenghazi #Benghazi #13Hours #NeverForget #HonorTheFallen
September 8, 2026
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Thank You!
Thank you for posting this. Another occasion I’ll never forget.
The Benghazi person I interviewed shared that the Ambassador died in between a bed and a 12” section of a wall due to smoke inhalation. After the compound was cleared the locals came in, found him & took him to the hospital.
Lot of people refuse to believe this but a lot of locals were pro American. Pro Khaddaffi forces got the Americans out of Benghazi and then Libya.
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