http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/benghazi-attack-had-10-days-of-planning/article/2564682Benghazi attack planning began 10 days before raid
By Sarah Westwood | May 18, 2015 | 4:27 pm
Al Qaeda operatives in Libya had planned the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi at least 10 days before terrorists claimed four American lives, internal documents show.
Top defense leaders knew the extremist group had claimed responsibility for the attack, which came on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, within one day of the Benghazi raid, according to records obtained by the right-leaning nonprofit Judicial Watch.
Al Qaeda insurgents had orchestrated the attack to "kill as many Americans as possible" in response to the military's killing of Abu Yaha al Libi, a leader of the terrorist cell. The terrorist leader was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan three months before the violence in Benghazi.
The documents also confirm the movement of weapons from Benghazi into a pair of Syrian ports during the chaos that followed the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in October 2011.
Intelligence officials knew of the arms trafficking as early as October 2012.
The records release, prompted by a lawsuit over the State Department's failure to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Judicial Watch in May of last year, comes amid renewed scrutiny of the Benghazi incident as a congressional committee prepares to take Hillary Clinton's testimony for the first time.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi's quiet year-long probe gained national attention earlier this year when it uncovered Clinton's use of a private email and server to conduct her affairs as secretary of state.
After Rep. Trey Gowdy, the committee's chairman, demanded Clinton testify separately for her refusal to use a government email and for her role in the botched Benghazi response, Clinton said through her lawyer she would be willing to appear before the committee only once.
The South Carolina Republican has since led an effort to postpone Clinton's testimony until the State Department produces a more complete record of documents related to its handling of the 2012 raid.
Chris Farrell, director of research at Judicial Watch, said the documents provide "hard and fast" evidence that the Obama administration had knowledge of Al Qaeda's plans prior to the attack.
"They had intelligence indicators that something was going on because of the approach of the anniversary [of September 11]," Farrell told the Washington Examiner. "It isn't like its some unknown stray date. It wasn't the other 364 days of the year when people are not keyed up."
He said the documents raise additional questions about why the administration promoted a narrative that suggested the attack was a spontaneous response to an anti-Muslim video clip.
"In the following weeks and months you didnlt see the administration react or adjust its policies," Farrell said. "They still have other larger sort of policy positions and decisions that contradict what they knew was going on even in the immediate aftermath of the attack."
The State Department's release of more than 100 pages of documents to Judicial Watch followed Gowdy's public criticism of the agency over its supposed resistance to cooperating with congressional investigators.
"Congress is involved in a political process," Farrell said. "We're using a legal process to force the production of records."
Farrell noted his group expects to receive more State Department documents as a result of the continuing lawsuit.
