Al-Qaeda said the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya was in revenge for the killing of the network’s number two Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, SITE Intelligence Group reported today.
The killing of Sheikh Abu Yahya only increased the enthusiasm and determination of the sons of (Libyan
independence hero) Omar al-Mokhtar to take revenge,” Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, quoted by the US-based monitoring group.
Al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based offshoot did not claim direct responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on the US consulate in
Benghazi that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans.
But it stressed that “the uprising of our people in Libya, Egypt and Yemen against America and its embassies is a sign to notify the United States that its war is not directed against groups and organisations … but against the Islamic nation that has rebelled against injustice.”
The statement comes four days after al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a video eulogising Libi, his late deputy
and propaganda chief who was killed in a drone strike in June.
Mohammed al-Megaryef, the head of Libya’s national assembly, said today that the attack on the US consulate in
Benghazi was planned and “meticulously executed.” (
———————–AFP