Posts Tagged libya

Mark Geist On What Happened In Benghazi

From NRA:

Mark “Oz” Geist served 12 years in the United States Marine Corps and was a member of the Annex Security Team that fought the Battle of Benghazi. He answered freedom’s call when Washington wouldn’t even pick up the phone. Mark has the courage to tell the truth about Benghazi and how our politicians’ inexcusable inaction led to the deaths of four Americans, including Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

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ISIS Leaders Killed By Mysterious Sniper

From The Daily Mail:

According to unconfirmed social media reports, ISIS fighters are now sweeping the city for the man ordinary Libyans are said to be dubbing ‘Daesh hunter’. 

The reporter also urges caution in believing what could be nothing more than ‘wild rumours’ on his Twitter account. 

Even so, social media is ablaze with reports of rumours of the sniper, who has become somewhat of a hero to those living under the control of the evil terror group, according to the Libya Herald.

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CIA Met With Benghazi Director

From The Daily Beast:

This is the first time the CIA has commented on the upcoming movie. Intelligence officials apparently had particular concerns that certain information in the Mitchell Zuckoff nonfiction book, on which Bay’s film is based, would end up in the final cut of the movie. This would allegedly jeopardize the security and safety of intelligence agency personnel serving in the field, in part because a major Hollywood production could widely disseminate protocol and procedures that the CIA uses to protect its staff in foreign locations, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The CIA wanted to make sure that details that are in a published book, are not in the movie? If the details would “jeopardize security and safety” how did they make it past the vetting process and into the book? This has the fingerprints of the White House all over it.

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Holding Our Leaders Accountable

From SOFREP:

Many are quick to light their torches and encircle presidential candidate Hillary Clinton without due process. It’s worth taking a step back to acknowledge that Clinton’s role as secretary of state was largely to serve as a public figurehead; the day-to-day, on-the-ground operations were run by Patrick Kennedy.

The big questions that should be asked by the House Select Committee on Benghazi are, “Why didn’t Mrs. Clinton hold Kennedy and Lamb accountable in the aftermath?” and “What do these two have on her that keeps Hillary blocking and tackling in the media for two diplomats whose decisions got good Americans killed that day?”

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Pentagon Tried to Stop Secretary of State Clinton From Going to War in Libya

From The Washington Times:

Mrs. Clinton’s main argument was that Gadhafi was about to engage in a genocide against civilians in Benghazi, where the rebels held their center of power. But defense intelligence officials could not corroborate those concerns and in fact assessed that Gadhafi was unlikely to risk world outrage by inflicting mass casualties, officials told The Times. As a result, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strongly opposed Mrs. Clinton’s recommendation to use force.

Instead of relying on the Defense Department or the intelligence community for analysis, officials told The Times, the White House trusted Mrs. Clinton’s charge, which was then supported by Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice and National Security Council member Samantha Power, as reason enough for war.

“The decision to invade [Libya] had already been made, so everything coming out of the State Department at that time was to reinforce that decision,” the official explained, speaking only on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

 

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Saudi Arabia Faces Challenges in the New Year

Saudi Arabia Faces Challenges in the New Year is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Michael Nayebi-Oskoui

The Middle East is one of the most volatile regions in the world — it is no stranger to upheaval. The 2009 uprisings in Iran and the brinksmanship of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government were followed by the chaos of the Arab Spring, the spillover of the Syrian conflict into Iraq and a potential realignment of the U.S.-Iranian relationship. Unlike recent years, however, 2015 is likely to see regional Sunni Arab interests realign toward a broader acceptance of moderate political Islam. The region is emerging from the uncertainty of the past half-decade, and the foundations of its future are taking shape. This process will not be neat or orderly, but changes are clearly taking place surrounding the Syrian and Libyan conflicts, as well as the region’s anticipation of a strengthened Iran.

The Middle East enters 2015 facing several crises. Libyan instability remains a threat to North African security, and the Levant and Persian Gulf must figure out how to adjust course in the wake of the U.S.-Iranian negotiations, the Sunni-Shiite proxy war in Syria and Iraq, and the power vacuum created by a Turkish state bogged down by internal concerns that prevent it from assuming a larger role throughout the region. Further undermining the region is the sharp decline in global oil prices. While Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates will be able to use considerable cash reserves to ride out the slump, the rest of the Middle East’s oil-exporting economies face dire consequences. Read the rest of this entry »

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Benghazi Select Committee Hearing

From The Post and Courier:

Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the Republican chairman, vowed to pursue the facts wherever they lead him. Opening the panel’s first public hearing since its establishment four months ago, he said the U.S. must learn from past violence on U.S. facilities from Beirut to East Africa to Benghazi to prevent repeat attacks.

Watch the hearing via CSPAN:

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Libyan Airliners Missing

From Washington Free Beacon:

Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports.

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Why Benghazi Matters

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Panel Says White House’s Failure To Negotiate Gaddafi Surrender Resulted In Benghazi Attack

From The Daily Mail:

The Obama administration’s unwillingness to help broker a peaceful exit for the Libyan strongman, ‘led to extensive loss of life (including four Americans)’ when al-Qaeda-linked militants attacked U.S. diplomatic facilities in the city of Benghazi,’ the commission told reporters.

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Containing Terrorsim With Small Forces

From Lawfare:

The United States is deeply concerned about the potential for countries like Libya, Mali, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and others to export insecurity—particularly terrorism, but also other forms of violence and instability. However, Washington is not willing to dedicate substantial resources to dealing with these crises, as it did in the counterinsurgencies of the 2000s or the peace operations of the 1990s.

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Brandon Webb of SOFREP Talks to Sun News

From Sun News:

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Two Foreign Techers Found Dead In Libya

From Al Jazeera:

“The bodies of a British man and a New Zealand woman who had been killed by bullets were found on the beach in Mellitah on Thursday afternoon,” said another source. They were found next to their luggage, but their belongings were not stolen and the motive for their killing was unclear.

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Analyzing Breaking Events

By Scott Stewart

In last week’s Security Weekly, Tristan Reed and I provided a little bit of an “inside baseball” look at how we analyze the transnational criminal cartels in Mexico. We tried to explain some of the challenges that analysts face while analyzing a human network – Los Zetas in this instance — that is by its very nature a criminal and clandestine organization.

But cutting through the misinformation and disinformation surrounding murky human networks is not the only difficult task Stratfor analysts are faced with. Indeed, perhaps one of the most difficult things we are asked to do is untangle, decipher and contextualize breaking events for our readers and custom intelligence clients. Sometimes we are able to do so pretty well — a rapid reaction piece I wrote on Sept. 14, 2012, “Understanding What Went Wrong in Benghazi,” continues to be a highly read analysis. But on occasion, we’ve even fallen into the trap set by erroneous reporting. For example, our very first analysis on the attack in Benghazi incorrectly stated that the casualties were caused by rocket-propelled grenade attacks on the motorcade leaving the compound and that the incident was the result of violent protests over a derogatory movie about the Prophet Mohammed instead of a calculated assault by a well-trained and heavily armed militia. Read the rest of this entry »

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3 Reasons Benghazi Still Matters

From Reason.tv:

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