International Relations The Benghazi attack
The Benghazi attack, which led to the death of an American Ambassador Christopher Stevens, took place in 2012 on 11th September. The attack was carried out by Islamist militants who played out events that led to his death including three other Americans. The day of the attack started with concerns reflecting security incidents in Libya where the ambassador sent cables to D.C addressing security issues that had been facing Libya (Hubbard 12). A weekly report in Benghazi also addressed the same concern indicating, “Libya has been facing a growing frustration with police and security forces who were too weak to keep the country secure.” In the evening, the militants launched the attack by firing gunshots and freeing explosives that could be heard from Benghazi compound where the ambassador had gone to rest after the day’s events. The Islamic militants were flowing through the gates of the compound using these weapons and it is not clear how the gate was opened. They set the buildings on fire, and the US security forces were scrambling to evacuate people out of the buildings to a nearby CIA location (Burton, Fred, Samuel 67). Ambassador Stevens and the information officer Sean Smith had been taken to the safest building in that compound and before they could be moved out, they were overcome by smoke and died.
The Benghazi attack was linked to the intelligence failures. Days before Ambassador Stevens died, he had warned about potential political disputes by a local militia group of the office of Consul (Byman 121). The Intelligence had good information to oversee the attack. More so, there was continuous intelligence reporting during the attack which was delivered at a critic level. This reporting captured the conversation between the Islamic factions who were responsible for the attack (Haddad, and Nazir 484). The claim that the incident was a “demonstration gone bad” was later said to have been false. The claim was believed to have been misleading as the real fact was that the consul was under attack by terrorists. According to Joe Bide, the Director of National Intelligence must have had a shred of integrity remaining, and his community was accused of concealing leadership failures (Judy 172).
Works cited
Burton, Fred, and Samuel M. Katz. Under Fire: The Untold Story of the Attack in
Benghazi. Macmillan, 2013.
Byman, Daniel. “Terrorism in North Africa: Before and After Benghazi.” Foreign
Affairs (2013).
Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck, and Nazir Nader Harb. “Post-9/11: making Islam an
American religion.” Religions 5.2 (2014): 477-501.
Hubbard, Ben. “The franchising of Al-Qaeda.” New York Times, Sunday Review 4 (2014).
Judy, Michael E. “Benghazi: Deception, Denial, and Fatal Diplomacy.” Global
Security Studies 5.4 (2014).