Suspect in U.S. envoy attack killed in raid
In what can be filed under ’Tying Up Loose Ends’, Reuters has reported that a Libyan suspect in the U.S. envoy attack has been killed in Cairo.
A Libyan militant suspected by Egypt of involvement in last month’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya has been killed during a raid by Egyptian security forces in Cairo, a security official said on Thursday.
The Libyan was killed on Wednesday in a raid targeting him and other militants with suspected links to al Qaeda in Cairo’s eastern district of Nasr City, the official said. Four Egyptian militants were detained in the operation, he added.
The Libyan, identified as Karim Ahmed Essam el-Azizi, was killed by a bomb he had tried to use against the security forces during the raid, the security official said.
It was not immediately clear what role Azizi had played in the assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on September 11, in which the ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed.
Reuters has cited an unnamed Egyptian ’security official’ as their source for this report.
This incident reminds of the ’resolution’ death of the alleged Taliban member that fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a Chinook helicopter and brought it down, killing seven Afghan commandos, a civilian interpreter, and 30 US military personnel (including 22 US Navy SEALs, many of whom were part of SEAL Team 6 - involved in the raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011).
An airstrike was launched before the investigation into the chopper crash was even complete, in August of 2011. It took out 13 militants in Afghanistan who were suspected of being involved in the SEAL deaths.
CSMonitor stated at the time: "While the raid is unlikely to have a significant effect on the Taliban, it holds symbolic importance for the US Special Forces community. "
These "we got ’em" killings usually have little to do with the facts of a case. They are largely symbolic acts which placate an enraged population, and temper the anger with the temporary satisfaction of revenge. An outcome is provided that closes the book on questioning the events, or examining the facts.
Once the ’bad guy’ is dead, we can all move on.
These closure events not only bring euphoric reactions (think the celebration and wild patriotic chanting at news of Osama bin Laden’s purported execution), but also they act as triggers that keep the trauma alive, opening and inflaming old wounds.
As for the embassy attack on September 11, 2012, many questions remain, and explanations have been sketchy. Newser reports:
The State Department received plenty of warnings about deteriorating security in Libya before the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate last month, but there was no specific warning that the compound would be a target, the New York Times reports.
But while interviews with officials and a review of State Department documents do not reveal any sign that warnings were overlooked, the security strategy for Libya appears to have been geared toward a different environment than the one that existed at the time of the attacks.
The Obama administration had received warnings that militants linked to al-Qaeda were operating training camps near Benghazi, but officials in Washington do not appear to have paid much attention to security arrangements for American personnel in the city.
"Given the large number of attacks that had occurred in Benghazi that were aimed at Western targets, it is inexplicable to me that security wasn’t increased," says Sen. Susan Collins, the ranking Republican on one of the congressional panels probing the attacks.
In October, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took responsibility "for the deadly security breach at the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying the buck stopped with her and not the White House."
From the Guardian:
The secretary of state took the blame in an interview to CNN on Monday night in what will be seen as an attempt to deflect Republican attacks on Barack Obama over the affair on the eve of the second presidential debate.
"I take responsibility," she said in Lima, Peru, in her first interview about the 11 September attack that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.
"I’m in charge of the state department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world [at] 275 posts. The president and the vice-president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals [who are] the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision."
[...]
In the immediate aftermath of such events there was always "confusion" and "fog of war", Clinton said. She described an "intense, long ordeal" for staffers at the state department on the night of the attack as they struggled to find out what was happening and respond.
Clinton said her mission now was to make sure such an attack never happened again...
"Taking responsibility" is fine, as long as something is actually done with it once you have it. Often, the declaration of ’taking responsibility’ is not met with any action, other than to suggest that everything’s all ’under control’. This too can act as a deflection, smothering any questioning.
In the coming days it will be interesting to see if the ’responsibility’ taken by the Obama administration will connect with any of the ’militants’ that have been arrested by Egyptian authorities regarding the embassy killings.
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By Elizabeth Leafloor, RedIceCreations.com
Source Articles:
Newser.com
Reuters.com
Guardian.co.uk
CSMonitor / Yahoo
AssociatedPress / Yahoo
