-Libyan Chief Lawmaker says Attack was ‘Meticulously Planned’
THE deadly attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi was planned and
“meticulously executed,” the country’s assembly chief said.
“I don’t want to talk about what happened in other countries but as for Libya, the operation was meticulously executed,” Mohammed al-Megaryef said of the wave of protests across the world over a US-produced film mocking Islam.
“There was planning. It was not a peaceful protest which degenerated into an armed attack or aggression. That’s how it was planned,” he said.
US ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on Tuesday when suspected Islamic militants fired on the consulate in the eastern Libyan city with rocket-propelled grenades and set it ablaze.
“The attack itself and the manner in which the attack occurred …confirms that this was planned and programmed to achieve a purpose,” Mr Megaryef said.
The attack “was prepared, especially since it coincided with the date of September 11,” he said in reference to the September 11, 2011 attacks in the United States by al-Qaida.
“I do not exclude discovering things that will link al-Qaida and the US consulate attack,” said Mr Megaryef but added that it was “very early to talk about the investigation.”
His comments come as al-Qaida said the deadly attack in Libya was in revenge for the killing of the network’s number two Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, SITE Intelligence Group reported.
“The killing of Sheikh Abu Yahya only increased the enthusiasm and determination of the sons of (Libyan independence hero) Omar al-Mokhtar to take revenge upon those who attack our Prophet,” said al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, quoted by the US-based monitoring group.
Al-Qaida’s Yemen-based offshoot did not claim direct responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans.
But it stressed that “the uprising of our people in Libya, Egypt and Yemen against America and its embassies is a sign to notify the United States that its war is not directed against groups and organizations … but against the Islamic nation that has rebelled against injustice.”
The statement comes four days after al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a video eulogizing Libi, his late deputy and propaganda chief who was killed in a drone strike in June.
US military and intelligence agencies have launched an elaborate manhunt in Libya against the militants suspected of staging the most serious assault on an American diplomatic mission in decades, officials and experts said Friday.
With hi-tech weaponry and surveillance tools, the Pentagon and US spy services have turned their attention to finding those who laid siege to the consulate, using methods honed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, in Tunis, four people were killed and almost 50 injured in an attack on the US embassy in the Tunisian capital on Friday by protesters angry over an anti-Islam film, the health ministry said.
“Three protesters were shot dead, the fourth was hit by a car and 49 people were injured, including nine seriously,” a spokesman for the ministry said.
More than 20 police officers were among those hurt, said the spokesman, updating the toll the ministry had given the previous day of two dead and 40 injured.