It appears that Ansar al-Sharia organized the "protest"
Between all the various reports, it seems like there was an ostensible movie protest that was camouflage for a substantial paramilitary attack group with some number of jeeps. Whether the protest was knowing participants or human shields of convenience is uncertain—but either way they put a civilian face on the front of the crowd. I don't doubt that most in the 200+ crowd were not expecting what happened. CNN and others say the protest was organized by Ansar Al-Sharia, a Yemen-based al-Qaida affiliate with a presense in Benghazi.
Ansar Al-Sharia issued a later statement saying it "didn't participate as a sole entity." Ansar al Shariah then claimed that the attack "was a spontaneous popular uprising" to a video released on YouTube that denigrated the Prophet Mohammed.
Nobody believes that. Whether other groups like The Brigades of the Imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman were involved it seems that Ansar Al-Sharia organized the "protest" as an assault, and given the level of planning with inside men and such, Nobody believes Ansar Al-Sharia was suddenly inspired by a video they saw the previous day. The major theory is that they were avenging the drone death of Abu Faraj al-Libi.
(Did al-Qiadi know in advance that Al Nas TV was going to be ginning up the youtube story on 9/11? Did Ansar al-Sharia have vewiing parties on the 11th?
I would like to observe that when Ayman al-Zawahiri said on a tape released 9/11 that al-Libi would be avenged he probably already knew that he would be, and soon. So this lots like a for real al-Qaida deal with knowledge at the top.
The mass of people goes to the gate of the compound and some group of people comes forward saying they are there to deliver a letter of protest of the movie to the Ambassador and asks that the security forces inside open the gate. (This is according to Libyan deputy interior minister Wanis el-Sharef) So the security people open the gate for the letter bearer(s) and some element of the crowd rushes the gate.
Wanis el-Sharef agrees with most observers that some Libyan security forces in the compound were involved.
I would note that I don't think anybody in that crowd should have known the Ambassador was there, but I might be wrong about that. I thought his presence in Benghazi was not a public thing.
And any security guard who would open the gate for a crowd of 200 people to deliver a letter... sounds like an odd security protocol. So the gate was probably opened in Trojan Horse fashion, by a confederate inside.
The dead Americans were smoke inhalation deaths and there was apparently some mystery as to their fate at first, so it appars they were in a panic room of some sort and were not found by attackers, but suffocated when the building was torched. (Making the rape story absurd)
The estimate of Libyan security killed ranges from 10 to 15, so the disloyal security personnel were probably only a few. (Though if we found their bodies we wouldn't know which were which... but the fact a lot of security people died suggests some active resistance. They were surely not all in on it.)
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