[Chgogal]

They were locked in the safe room area of the consulate. The security person then broke through the window and got out thinking Stevens and the IT guy were right behind. They didn't follow the security person. He went back but could not find them. That is how I remember it. My memory is not perfect. This was reported on FOX a few weeks back.

[petitfour]

I already knew they were not locked in. The goal of the attackers would be to smoke them out and to take them.

[piasa]

They locked themselves in, the enemy could not get in so they needed to find a way to get them to come out. They didn't bring he deisel with them, it was the mission's deisel and they just happened to get the idea of smoking them out when they found it sitting there.

There were terrorists watching the ambassador's movements in Tripoli and they probably had plenty of opportunities to kill him before Sept 11 if they wanted to kill him. So it is possible they wanted to capture him instead.

The atackers were pretty hellbent to go as far as trying to break in the mission building and the annex rather than just destroy it; this suggests they were looking to capture or kill people more than just attacking the structure. Most of the time terrorists seem content to just set off a big bomb and run, but this group invaded, like our embassy in Iran in 1979.