TEL AVIV – The final report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi has disclosed publicly for the first time that U.S. personnel at the attacked facilities were rescued the night of the attacks by a secretive force led by former military officers of Muammar Qaddafi’s regime.
The report stresses that “the very individuals the United States had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks.”
Hillary Clinton played a central role in rallying support for the U.S.-led NATO military campaign that toppled Qaddafi and his regime from power.
Perhaps tellingly, the report authors explain that the Qaddafi loyalists were located and brought to the rescue because of the “hard work and ingenuity of a single CIA case officer — a witness no other committee of Congress interviewed and a witness the CIA was reluctant to allow the Committee to interview.”
The report contains movie-worthy details of the rescue mission from the CIA Annex in Benghazi, which came under heavy mortar fire and direct militant assault following the initial attack at the U.S. Special Mission located about 1.2 miles away.
A decision was made to evacuate all CIA personnel following the lethal mortar strikes, the report relates. The problem was there were not enough U.S. fighters or transport vehicles to break the siege and make it to the airport.
“We didn’t have enough shooters and there were too many wounded, and we were definitely going to lose our State Department wounded if we had stayed there much longer,” recalled a team member in testimony to the House Benghazi Committee.
Other issues identified by a team member was that “there was no security vehicle, no gun trucks that would help us get to the airport. And we determined we could probably not make it with the vehicles we had inside the compound.”
The report contains new details, revealing the arrival of a 30-vehicle motorcade of ex-Qaddafi generals backed by 50-heavily armed security vehicles. The former generals were part of a unit called the Libyan Military Intelligence, a grouping so secretive that even the CIA Annex didn’t know it existed.
The report relates:
At 6:16 a.m., a 30-vehicle motorcade arrived at the Annex to provide transport support by the Libyan Military Intelligence. The motorcade, including technical, pick-up trucks retrofitted with mounted machine gun-like weapons, arrived.
The forces that arrived at the Annex shortly after the mortar attacks were able to transport all State Department and CIA personnel safely to the airport. The forces, known as Libyan Military Intelligence, arrived with 50 heavily-armed security vehicles.
Libyan Military Intelligence was not part of the Libyan government, nor affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or State Department had developed a relationship with during the prior 18 months since the Libyan revolution took place.
Instead, Libya Military Intelligence—whom the CIA did not even know existed until the night of the attacks—were comprised of former military officers under the Qaddafi regime who had gone into hiding in fear of being assassinated, and wanted to keep their presence in Benghazi as quiet as possible so as to not attract attention from the militias in control of Benghazi.
In other words, some of the very individuals the United States had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks.
The report explains that Libyan Military Intelligence was called upon by an unidentified CIA employee, “Officer A,” who was contacted after the initial assault by the Martyrs of the February 17 Brigade, the militia hired by the State Department to protect the U.S. facility. The Martyrs told “Officer A” they were unable to protect the U.S. Mission and that they were evacuating.
“Officer A” then contacted the National Police, who were unable to provide assistance. After some convincing, “Officer A” says a police official finally told the officer about a force that might be able to help – Libyan Military Intelligence.
The Benghazi report authors underscored for a third time that U.S. personnel were saved by a group of generals the Obama administration helped remove from power:
The group that ultimately came to the rescue of and facilitated the evacuation of the Americans in Benghazi was not the Libyan Government the State Department had worked tirelessly to appease; nor was it the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, recommended by the Libyan Government and contractually obligated to provide security to the Mission Compound. Instead, the group that came to rescue the Americans that night, the Libyan Military Intelligence, was a group most U.S. government personnel did not even know existed. This group, ironically, had close ties to the former Qaddafi regime—the very regime the United States had helped remove from power. It was also this group, not groups previously given credit by previous investigations, that came to the rescue of the Americans in those early morning hours —likely saving dozens of lives as a result.
With research by Joshua Klein.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
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