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DOJ court documents again show Benghazi jihad attack was not motivated by Muhammad video

Jul 5, 2014 4:37 am By Robert Spencer

KhattalaThe most ominous aspect of the Benghazi jihad attack for the long term health of the United States as a free society was the Obama Administration’s desire to blame it all on our freedom  of speech. Obama’s declaration that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” is essentially a call for the U.S. to censor itself and voluntarily restrict our freedom of speech so as not to say anything that offends Muslims. Restriction of the freedom of speech creates a protected class (whichever group cannot be criticized), thereby destroying the principle of equality of rights for all people before the law, and paves the way for tyranny by making it possible to criminalize dissent.

“DOJ court documents in Benghazi suspect case put video narrative to rest,” FoxNews.com, July 4, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

Court documents filed by the U.S. Justice Department in the criminal case against Benghazi attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khatallah provide unprecedented details about the evolution of the assault and further shatter the Obama administration’s initial claim that it sprouted from protests over an anti-Islam film.

The narrative that the video played a role continues to live on, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying recently that some of the attackers may indeed have been influenced by the online video.

But the Justice Department’s court filings make clear that at least those spearheading the attack were part of a “conspiracy,” one that involved several members of the Ansar al-Sharia “Islamic extremist militia.”

A government motion filed Tuesday seeking Khatallah’s detention provides some of the greatest detail to date on the suspect’s alleged role.

The motion says that in the days preceding the attack, the defendant “voiced concern and opposition to the presence of an American facility in Benghazi.” According to the motion, a group of 20 or more “armed men,” including militia members, assembled outside the U.S. compound at 9:45 p.m. the night of Sept. 11, 2012, and “aggressively breached” the gate.

They carried rifles, handguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

After breaching the gate, they stole a U.S. vehicle, “forcibly entered” buildings and stole U.S. property.

“During this initial attack, buildings within the Mission were set on fire,” the court document says, noting that the fires “ultimately led to the deaths” of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and Information Management Officer Sean Smith.

U.S. personnel who were able to escape fled to the nearby annex, according to the document, and shortly afterward Khatallah entered the compound “and supervised the exploitation of material from the scene.” After they were through, he and other Ansar al-Sharia members allegedly returned to a local camp and prepared for the next assault on the annex — where two other Americans, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, would later die.

The government motion went on to describe how Khatallah spent the days following the attack obtaining weapons and other equipment to defend himself “from feared American retaliation” and capture. According to the document, “he increased his personal security.”

The documents are part of the case the U.S. government is building against him as the defendant is prosecuted in federal civilian court. More details and evidence can be expected in the weeks ahead.

In the meantime, the defendant is being held at a detention center outside Washington, D.C. At a hearing on Wednesday, a Khatallah defense attorney complained that the defense team had limited access to the Justice Department’s evidence.

The details in even the few U.S. court documents that have been filed are a far cry from the Obama administration’s initial narrative.

A host of administration officials pointed to an anti-Islam video in the days after the attack as the likely impetus.

“This was the result of opportunism, taking advantage of and exploiting what was happening as a result of reaction to the video that was found to be offensive,” then-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said on Sept. 20, 2012.

Then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice infamously cited the video on several Sunday shows after the attack.

The Obama administration has since acknowledged that there was no protest leading up to the attack, as there had been in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report concluded “there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity.”

Administration officials have said repeatedly that the video explanation was based on the best-available intelligence at the time, though many Republican lawmakers question those claims.

But nearly two years removed from the attack, the motivation of the attackers is still an open debate.

Clinton, in her new book “Hard Choices,” argued that it is “inaccurate” to say no one was influenced by the video, just as it is inaccurate to say all were influenced by it.

She echoed the comments in an interview with Fox News last month.

“I was trying to make sense of it. I think that the investigations that have been carried out basically conclude we can’t say that everybody was influenced [by the video], and we can’t say everybody wasn’t,” she said.

Even a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report released in January said: “Some intelligence suggests the attacks were likely put together in short order, following that day’s violent protests in Cairo against an inflammatory video.”

But the information that has been released by the Justice Department indicates that at least the major players in the attack were operating on their own agenda.

The motion filed this week said Khatallah “was motivated by his extremist ideology.”

The indictment itself claims the defendant “did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with other conspirators … to provide material support and resources to terrorists,” knowing they’d be used “in preparation for and in carrying out” the attack.

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, free speech, Libya Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Reality Check says

    Jul 5, 2014 at 9:21 am

    “Obama’s declaration that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam” is essentially a call for the U.S. to censor itself and voluntarily restrict our freedom of speech so as not to say anything that offends Muslims.”

    If this doesn’t give Obama away as a closet Muslim, I don’t know what will.

  2. Dave says

    Jul 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm

    Reality Check is 100% right. This man MUST be a Muslim. His behaviour since he was given this job of President has resulted in an escalation of Islamic extemist groups around the globe and violence not seen before in any time in recent history.
    Former PM Blair is partially correct when he stated that he and GWB weren’t to blame for the crisis in Iraq – Obama must take most of the blame here. After all, it is claimed that he armed ISIS.
    The very sad thing is also that those American statesmen/women in Obama’s administration are going along with him as thoug it is the right thing to do. Not one Admin. member has stood up and said “Now hold on, this is wrong!”

    • Reality Check says

      Jul 5, 2014 at 3:14 pm

      Thank you, Dave. I think my thoughts are just plain common sense.

      Firstly, here is someone who is the son of a Muslim man, so, in the eyes of the Muslim world, he is automatically a Muslim man. Had he ever said the opposite, this would have made him an apostate and the target of every Muslim around the world.

      Now, Obama’s feelings on his religious identity are unknown but … secondly, actions speak louder than words and he wrote that nostalgic booklet entitled “Dreams from My Father”. A booklet about a father who was frankly a good-for-nothing Muslim pen-pusher and skirt-chaser making kids with different women right and left … yet he seems to be Barack’s hero. God knows how screwed up Barack Jr is about this but that’s something only he can admit to himself if he has enough conscience left.

      But what he said above is the absolute height of intolerance. “The future must not belong to those who SLANDER the prophet of Islam.” What, does this mean that all of us, who think that the prophet of Islam was the worst person who ever lived have to be herded like cattle on the trains and given a one-way ticket to the concentration camps and incinerators? What the hell was he thinking when he spouted that horrible nonsense? His words sound like the “Final Solution” without stating the methods, though. Very Nazi. Very Mohammedan. Very You-Name-It!

      But I guess that’s what happens when you are surrounded by spineless yes-people all the time and a compliant press that does not dare to criticize!

      And let me remind all Jihad Watchers (including those who have read “Reliance of the Traveller”) that SLANDER is in the eye of the beholder. According to ROT (what an apt acronym!), SLANDER is any truth another person may find offensive. By this logic, it’s impossible to talk to a Muslim without “slandering” ANY aspect of his life.

      It seems that one of the many things we need to defend with vigour against Islam is our untainted and much more logical understanding of “slander”! And that’s a long list to follow but our lives and the future of all the freedoms we hold dear depend on it!

  3. Jay Boo says

    Jul 5, 2014 at 3:39 pm

    “the defendant is being held at a detention center outside Washington, D.C.”

    Here, he can be prepped and coached by Bill & Hillary for a Diane Sawyer interview to say.
    “that yes the attack was because of a film and that, as a Muslim, isn’t he the ‘real’ victim after all”

  4. Jay Boo says

    Jul 5, 2014 at 7:34 pm

    Jailed Benghazi suspect “compliant but not cooperative” with U.S. interrogators.
    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/jailed-benghazi-suspect-not-cooperative-says-congressman-n143831

    Does this mean that he claims the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ film had nothing to do with the attack.

    Hillary and Obama must be so pissed.

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