Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU).
Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.
These e-mails are very damning in regards to all of the lies and obfuscations that were put into play after the fact of the attack. But let's keep in mind that the failure to implement any attempt to rescue or intervene in the attacks as they occurred should not have in any way hinged upon knowing who was responsible for the attack.
Also the phone calls came before the emails, at “the very beginning of this incident”,
Background Conference Call With Senior State Department Officials
October 9, 2012
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/10/198791.htm
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL:“...I neglected to mention from the top that that agent from the top of this incident, or the very beginning of this incident, has been on the phone. He had called the quick reaction security team, he had called the Libyan authorities, he had called the Embassy in Tripoli, and he had called Washington. He had them all going to ask for help.”