Suspected Benghazi Attackers Designated as Terrorist Groups
Published at
STR/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The State Department has designated two groups — both suspected to have been involved in the Benghazi, Libya attack, and one of them led by a former Guantanamo Bay detainee — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
The move will allow the State Department to freeze assets and ban material support for the groups and their leaders.
Earlier this week, the State Department acknowledged it believes Ansar al-Sharia in Darnah and Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi were involved in the attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility on Sept. 11, 2012. It was the first time the agency had said so publicly, and it reiterated that belief on Friday.
“Created separately after the fall of the Qadhafi regime, Ansar al-Shari’a in Benghazi and Ansar al-Shari’a in Darnah have been involved in terrorist attacks against civilian targets, frequent assassinations, and attempted assassinations of security officials and political actors in eastern Libya, and the September 11, 2012 attacks against the U.S. Special Mission and Annex in Benghazi, Libya,” the State Department said Friday.
Ansar al-Sharia in Darnah is led by former Guantanamo Bay detainee Abu Sufian bin Qumu, according to the State Department. Qumu is a former Libyan tank driver who served 10 years in a Libyan prison before fleeing to Afghanistan, training in an Osama bin Laden camp, fighting with the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and being arrested in Pakistan. He was detained at Guantanamo, then repatriated to Libya in 2007, where he was imprisoned and then reportedly released.
The State Department, which has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrests of the attackers, on Friday designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations those two groups and another, Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia, and designated their leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists. They are separate groups that share the name Ansar al-Sharia — not three branches of one singular group called Ansar al-Sharia, the State Department noted on Friday.
On Dec. 30, Tunisia’s state news agency reported that the leader of the third group, Seifallah Ben Hassine, was captured by U.S. and Libyan forces. The Pentagon said no U.S. forces were involved in any such mission and would not confirm whether Ben Hassine was in Libyan custody.
Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio