The secret war behind Benghazi A stealth campaign of assassinations, run by CIA nominee John Brennan, resulted in the death of the US ambassador, a new book claims

The secret war behind Benghazi

A stealth campaign of assassinations, run by CIA nominee John Brennan, resulted in the death of the US ambassador, a new book claims

• By KYLE SMITH
• Last Updated: 8:49 AM, February 10, 2013
• Posted: 10:27 PM, February 9, 2013

Kyle Smith

Blog: Movies

What really happened in Benghazi?
Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the attack on the US consulate because of a secret low-level war in which American hit squads took out leaders of al Qaeda militias, which retaliated in Benghazi. There was never a protest at the consulate over the infamous anti-Islamist YouTube video.
So says the new 80-page e-book, “Benghazi: The Definitive Report” (William Morrow) by Jack Murphy and Brandon Webb, two military veterans who specialize in reporting about clandestine operations at the website SOFREP.com. Their book, which they say is based on interviews with well-placed security types but contains virtually no checkable sourcing, is loaded with explosive allegations.

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John Brennan was given free rein in North Africa by Obama, a book says.

The fall of Moammar Khadafy presented a tricky situation for us: Khadafy, though a despot to his own people, had nevertheless been cooperating with the US, which among other favors was granted the right to use Libyan territory for CIA black sites.
Moreover, the opposition to Khadafy wasn’t exactly led by a gang of Libyan George Washingtons. Many of the rebel leaders were sharia-loving members of al Qaeda who had come from jihadist strongholds in the cities of Derna and Benghazi, which are so tied up in Islamist fundamentalism that they were major exporters of guerilla warriors who fought the US in Iraq.
Having helped to engineer the ouster of Khadafy with air strikes left Obama with the problem of a revitalized al Qaeda springing up to fill the void.
Obama gave his chief counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, who is now the nominee to be the next leader of the CIA, a blank check. Brennan could do just about whatever he needed to do in North Africa and the Mideast, contend Murphy and Webb. Brennan chose to conduct a dangerous classified war without looping in Stevens, who paid with his life for his ignorance, according to the book.
The Joint Special Operations Command, which Brennan controls, is a collection of special forces outside of the regular military command originally formed as a hostage-rescue team. But in the middle of last summer, say Murphy and Webb, troops operating clandestinely under JSOC began infiltrating Libya.
“With the first phase of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) all but over,” say Murphy and Webb, “JSOC was starting in on ‘GWOT Season 2,’ as it were, where North Africa was seen as the most dangerous hub of terrorist activity.”
Murphy and Webb go on to make a shocking charge: “The nature of these operations remains highly classified. They were never intended to be known to anyone outside a very small circle in the Special Operations community and within Obama’s National Security Council. Ambassador Stevens, the CIA chief of station in Tripoli and then-director of the CIA, Gen. [David] Petraeus, had little if any knowledge about these JSOC missions.”