Fox News is reporting that the leader of the attack on the US consulate in Libya was a detainee at Guantanamo Bay until 2007. Brett Baier and Catherine Herridge just wrapped up her report on this, on Special Report. Some details have already been tweeted out.
According to Fox’s sources, Sufyan Ben Qumu (whose name has also been listed as Sofiane Ibrahim Gammu) may have led the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. That attack led to the deaths of four Americans including US Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Qumu/Gammu is a known al Qaeda operative. He first surfaced in Libya as a leader of the rebellion against dictator Muammar Ghaddafi.
Sufyan Ben Qumu, a Libyan army veteran who worked for Osama bin Laden’s holding company in Sudan and later for an al Qaeda-linked charity in Afghanistan, is training many of the city’s rebel recruits.
Both Messrs. Hasady and Ben Qumu were picked up by Pakistani authorities after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and were turned over to the U.S. Mr. Hasady was released to Libyan custody two months later. Mr. Ben Qumu spent six years at Guantanamo Bay before he was turned over to Libyan custody in 2007.
They were both released from Libyan prisons in 2008 as part of a reconciliation with Islamists in Libya.
Reconciliation with Islamists is impossible.
During his press briefing earlier today, White House spokesman Jay Carney continued to insist that the attack, which included a military-style assault and rocket propelled grenades, was not pre-planned.
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