Story Summary

The witness accounts gathered by The Associated Press give a from-the-ground perspective for the sharply partisan debate in the U.S. over the attack that left U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

Within 24 hours of the attack, both the embassy in Tripoli and the CIA station chief sent word to Washington that it was a planned militant attack.

One assumption often made in the back-and-forth is that if the attack was planned, then it must have been linked to al-Qaida.

A day after the Benghazi attack, an unidentified Ansar al-Shariah spokesman said the militia was not involved “as an organization” — leaving open the possibility members were involved. He praised the attack as a popular “uprising” sparked by the anti-Islam film, further propagating the image of a mob attack against the consulate.

On the day of the attack and the next day, The Associated Press referred to it as a mob attack, based on Libyan officials’ comment that there was a significant unarmed protest at the time.

The effectiveness of the roadblocks was later revealed in the State Department’s account of the evacuation. It described how the rescue force came under heavy fire and grenade attacks as they tried to leave the consulate area.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Oct-28/192980-libyan-witnesses-recount-organized-benghazi-attack.ashx#ixzz2AgUQq77L
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)