U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in rocket attack

Intelligence sources tell Fox News they are convinced the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was directly tied to Al Qaeda -- with a former Guantanamo detainee involved.
That revelation comes on the same day a top Obama administration official called last week's deadly assault a "terrorist attack" -- the first time the attack has been described that way by the administration after claims it had been a "spontaneous" act.
"Yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy," Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Olsen echoed administration colleagues in saying U.S. officials have no specific intelligence about "significant advanced planning or coordination" for the attack.
However, his statement goes beyond White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying the Sept. 11 attack on the consulate was spontaneous. He is the first top administration official to call the strike an act of terrorism.
Sufyan Ben Qumu is thought to have been involved and even may have led the attack, Fox News' intelligence sources said. Qumu, a Libyan, was released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2007 and transferred into Libyan custody on the condition he be kept in jail. He was released by the Qaddafi regime as part of its reconciliation effort with Islamists in 2008.
His Guantanamo files also show he has ties to the financiers behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The declassified files also point to ties with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a known Al Qaeda affiliate.
Olson, repeating Wednesday that the FBI is handling the Benghazi investigation, also acknowledged the attack could lead back to Al Qaeda and its affiliates.
"We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda's affiliates, in particular Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb," he said at the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing.
Still, Olsen said "the facts that we have now indicate that this was an opportunistic attack on our embassy, the attack began and evolved and escalated over several hours," Olson said.
Carney said hours earlier that there still is "no evidence of a preplanned or pre-meditated attack," which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
"I made that clear last week, Ambassador Rice made that clear Sunday," Carney said at the daily White House press briefing.
Rice appeared on "Fox News Sunday" and four other morning talk shows to say the attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was "spontaneous" and sparked by an early protest that day outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, over an anti-Islamic video.
"It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States," Rice told Fox News. "The best information and the best assessment we have today is that this was not a pre-planned, pre-meditated attack. What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo."
However, that account clashed with claims by the Libyan president that the attack was in fact premeditated. Other sources, including an intelligence source in Libya who spoke to Fox News, have echoed those claims. The intelligence source even said that, contrary to the suggestion by the Obama administration, there was no major protest in Benghazi before the deadly attack which killed four Americans. A U.S. official did not dispute the claim.
In the face of these conflicting accounts, Carney on Tuesday deferred to the ongoing investigation and opened the door to the possibility of other explanations.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, called Wednesday for an independent review of the attack.
"A State Department Accountability Review Board to look into the Benghazi attack is not sufficient," Collins said. "Given the loss of the lives of four Americans who were serving their country and the serious questions that have been raised about the security at our Consulate in Benghazi, it is imperative that a non-political, no-holds-barred examination be conducted."

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Fox News has obtained a three-page intelligence report showing that two days before the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, a statement incited "sons of Egypt" to pressure America to release the so-called blind sheikh "even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it."
The web statement, apparently posted on Sept. 9, was in reference to the embassy in Egypt. It preceded a throng of demonstrators breaching the U.S. Embassy wall in Cairo, supposedly in protest over an anti-Islam film. Obama administration officials claim that attackers in Libya then took their cue from Cairo and seized the opportunity to attack the consulate in Benghazi.
Though the administration's version of events is still evolving, the three-page Department of Homeland Security intelligence report further highlights potential threats that were being picked up before last week's attack.
The DHS report, released on Sept. 11, said an "unidentified user" on an Arabic-language forum posted the statement "inciting Egyptians to target the U.S. Embassy, indicating the U.S. Embassy shouldn't remain in Egypt" until Omar Abdel-Rahman, also known as the blind sheikh, is released. Abdel-Rahman, who played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other attacks, is serving a life sentence in U.S. prison.
The DHS document described the source of the warning as "fairly reliable."
The Sept. 9 statement said "the time has come for a strong movement from you, O sons of Egypt, to release the detained" sheikh. "Let your slogan be: No to the American Embassy in Egypt until our detained sheikh is released."
It continued: "Starting now, let the faithful among you form follow-up committees in charge of taking the necessary measures to force America to release the sheikh -- even if it requires burning the embassy down with everyone in it."
In addition to the threat over the sheikh, Reuters reported earlier this week that a U.S. cable on Sept. 10 warned the U.S. Embassy in Cairo of possible violence over the anti-Islam film.
Asked about that alleged warning, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney stressed Tuesday that everything is "under investigation in terms of what precipitated the attacks."
Meanwhile, lawmakers raised concern Wednesday that the Obama administration might actually be considering the sheikh's release. Several Republican chairmen of top House committees wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referencing a Breitbart.com report claiming the State Department was "actively negotiating" with Egypt's president about transferring the blind sheikh to Egyptian custody.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland denied the report.
"Let me say as clearly as I can there is no plan to release the blind sheikh, there is no plan. To my knowledge we have not been approached about it recently by any senior Egyptians," she said Wednesday.
But House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King and others wrote to Holder and Clinton saying they were "concerned" about the reports.
"If these reports are true, such considerations would be extremely disconcerting as release of this convicted terrorist should not happen for any reason," they wrote. "The blind sheikh inspired the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, ordered the 1997 massacre of Western tourists at Luxor, Egypt, and issued the Islamic religious ruling that Osama bin Laden relied upon to justify the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. ...
"While considerations regarding the blind sheikh's release would be disturbing in any context, they are particularly alarming given recent events. The 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks was marked by the assassination of America's ambassador to Libya and an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Egypt. The violence in Egypt has been attributed, in part, to that government's demands for the blind sheikh's release. Succumbing to the demands of a country whose citizens threaten our embassy and the Americans serving in it would send a clear message that acts of violence will be responded to with appeasement rather than strength."
They urged the administration to keep Abdel-Rahman in the U.S., warning that releasing him would be seen as "a sign of weakness."

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