Libya embassy attack ‘not pre-planned’

Washington: Last week’s deadly assault on a US diplomatic mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi was a “terrorist attack” but probably not a pre-planned operation, a senior US official said.

The attack, which left four Americans dead, including US Ambassador Chris Stevens, was carried out on the 11th anniversary of the September 11 attacks and amid protests in the Muslim world against an anti-Islamic film.

In Washington, where President Barack Obama’s election rival Mitt Romney has criticised the response to the attack, there has been keen interest in whether the attackers were simply an angry mob or an organised gang.

On Wednesday, the director of the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center said that while many questions remain to be answered, he was prepared to describe the killings as “a terrorist attack”.

But the director, Matthew Olsen, immediately qualified that statement.

“The facts that we have now indicate that this was an opportunistic attack on our embassy,” he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee, under questioning from Senator Joe Lieberman.

“The attack began and evolved and escalated over several hours at our embassy - our diplomatic post in Benghazi,” he said, emphasising that a US investigation was continuing.

Fox News, meanwhile, cited “intelligence sources” as saying that former Guantanamo detainee Sufyan Ben Qumu - transferred to his native Libya in 2007 and released the following year - was involved in the attack.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was due to address lawmakers on Thursday at a closed door secret intelligence briefing, but in the meantime Olsen confirmed that Al Qaida was among the suspects.

“At this point, what I would say is that a number of different elements appear to have been involved in the attack, including individuals connected to militant groups that are prevalent in eastern Libya,” he said.

“We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to Al Qaida or Al Qaida’s affiliates, in particular, Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.”

Benghazi was the cradle of last year’s Libyan revolt that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, and the region is still prey to several loosely organised militia groups with varying degrees of ties to the interim government.

Initial reports into Tuesday’s attack on the US consulate suggested that it had been assaulted by protesters angered by an amateur video produced by private US Christian groups deemed insulting to Islam.

But the militants who stormed the compound and torched the consulate were heavily armed, and Libyan officials have said that an armed group took advantage of the protest to launch a pre-planned attack.