TEARLINE
A U.S. Embassy car rammed into the car of Major General Pecos Kuteesa, a respected Ugandan army general. In real Hollywood gangster style, two U.S. security personnel emerged from their vehicle, beat up the general’s driver, and slashed the car’s tires, alleges a piece in The East African newspaper. The general’s driver, also an army man, was armed, and could have used his gun in defense, but refrained. An embassy statement issued weeks after the event offers a slightly different, and much more tame, take on the matter.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting a former Egyptian Islamic Jihad member imprisoned with Zawahiri’s brother may have been heavily involved in Benghazi, but save for that news reports remain stubbornly elusive as the facts — and identity — of the attackers remains equally so. Meanwhile, Joint Special Operations Command is compiling so-called target packages of detailed information about the suspects, and the command is preparing the dossiers as the first step in anticipation of possible orders from President Obama to take action against those determined to have played a role in the attack on a diplomatic mission in the eastern city of Benghazi that killed Ambassador Stevens and three colleagues three weeks ago. Moving ahead with a roster of potential targets, the military planners in Washington started by culling pre-existing lists of suspects that are continuously updated by the Joint Special Operations Command and the CIA Since the Benghazi attack, Special Operations planners have sharply increased their efforts to track the location and gather information on several members of Ansar al-Shariah as well as other militants with ties to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Since a series of missteps made that almost impossible to do in the days after the attacks, the Joint Interagency Task Force has moved aggressively to determine how best to locate members of the disparate groups.
Meanwhile, an FBI team flown into Libya remains in Tripoli, hundreds of miles from Benghazi. Members of the militant group suspected of playing a primary role in the attack have gone underground, apparently taking their weapons with them. Faraj, a member of the militia that local officials tasked with securing Americans in Benghazi, said he saw the attack nearly from start to finish. But neither American nor Libyan investigators have paid him a visit, even as he fears that the perpetrators know who he is.
Faraj said he wondered whether anyone was trying to find out what happened the evening that Ambassador Stevens was killed. “Since that day, nobody has called, nobody cared,” said Faraj, 28, who lost a tooth in the attack and whose legs are peppered with small wounds from the firefight. “How is it the Americans didn’t anticipate anything?” Witnesses are scattered across Benghazi, a port town where the uprising that toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi began. But many witnesses say they haven’t heard from investigators. The U.S. and Libyan governments have not finalized a deal to allow American investigators to collaborate with Libyans in Benghazi, said Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel Aziz following a meeting in Tripoli with Elizabeth Jones, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.
AROUND THE WORLD
Syria’s approximately 1.7 million Kurds, nearly 10 percent of the population, are the only group with a history of organized opposition to President Bashar al-Assad’s government, but while many towns have seen anti-government protests during the 18-month uprising, they have refrained from joining the armed opposition. As the uprising has evolved, however, the Kurds — largely concentrated in the country’s northeast, which holds a significant portion of Syria’s limited but vital oil reserves — have been quietly preparing for a post-Assad future.
The U.S. government supports U.N. initiatives for Africa that were advanced during recent meetings at the United Nations in New York.
ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF
Marcy Wheeler parses sourced quotes, and examines the who’s who of sources who have contributed to the drip-drip-drip these last three weeks. Meanwhile, CNN’s Arwa was able to walk around uninhibited on the charred consular grounds of Benghzai — even though, three weeks later, the U.S. intelligence community has been unable to do the same.
EVENTS
Modernizing the Army will take place on October 10th.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
