Clinton cites al-Qaida link

In Libya attack, she points at terrorists’ N.Africa ally

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius chat before a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius chat before a U.N. Security Council meeting Wednesday at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

— Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Wednesday that there was a link between the al-Qaida franchise in North Africa and the attack at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three others.

Clinton was the highestranking Obama administration official to publicly make the connection, and her comments intensified what is becoming a fiercely partisan fight over whether the attack could have been prevented.

Clinton did not offer any new evidence of an al-Qaida link, and administration officials later said the question would be officially settled only after the FBI completed a criminal inquiry, which could take months. But they said they had not ruled out the involvement of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb — an affiliate of the international terrorist group with origins in Algeria — in an attack the administration initially described as a spontaneous protest turned violent.

Clinton made her remarks at a special U.N. meeting on the political and security crisis in the swath of North Africa known as the Maghreb and the Sahel, a crisis that is particularly affecting northern Mali, which has been overrun by Islamic extremists since a military coup divided that country earlier this year.

She said al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which originated in Algeria, is using the region as a haven to support extremism and terrorist violence in countries like Libya.

“Now, with a larger safe haven and increased freedom to maneuver, terrorists are seeking to extend their reach and their networks in multiple directions,” Clinton told world leaders assembled at the U.N. meeting. “And they are working with other violent extremists to undermine the democratic transitions under way in North Africa, as we tragically saw in Benghazi.”

She did not detail any new evidence of the linkage. Some Republican critics in Washington have argued that the administration played down the possibility of any connection to al-Qaida, especially with President Barack Obama in the midst of a re-election campaign in which the killing of Osama bin Laden is a major talking point.

“The United States is stepping up our counterterrorism efforts across the Maghreb and the Sahel,” Clinton added, “and we’re working with the Libyan government and other partners to find those responsible for the attack on our diplomatic post in Benghazi and bring them to justice.”

A senior administration official said Clinton intended to underscore the rising threat the al-Qaida affiliate and other extremist organizations pose to the emerging democratic governments, adding that the group clearly intended to make contact with extremists in Benghazi and elsewhere. The final determination of the group’s role, the official said, would await the investigation by the FBI.

Clinton also has ordered a review of diplomatic security that is being led by Thomas Pickering, a veteran diplomat and former undersecretary of state.

Libya’s president, Mohamed Magariaf, who met Monday with Clinton and other U.S. officials, also attributed the attack to what he called “al-Qaida elements who are hiding in Libya,” citing the sophistication of the attack on the mission in Benghazi and the date, Sept. 11, the anniversary of the attacks in New York and near Washington in 2001.

He also did not disclose any evidence, saying he did not want to interfere with the investigations under way. From the start, however, Libyan officials have sought to shift the blame to foreigners, even as they move to crack down on extremist militias that took part in the armed uprising against Moammar Gadhafi last year and clearly had a role in the attack.

Last week, Matthew Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said intelligence analysts were investigating ties between local Libyan militias and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, but had not yet come to any conclusions.

“We are looking at indications that individuals involved in the attack may have had connections to al-Qaida or al-Qaida’s affiliates, in particular, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb,” Olsen told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Sept. 19.

When asked which group or groups were involved in the attack, Olsen said, “The picture that is emerging is one where a number of different individuals were involved, so it’s not necessarily an either/ or proposition.”

At that same hearing, Olsen said the assault on the U.S. mission and a nearby annex in Benghazi was a “terrorist attack,” the first time the administration had ascribed the attack to terrorists.

The next day, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said on Air Force One, “It is self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.” He added, “Our embassy was attacked violently, and the result was four deaths of American officials.”

Clinton’s comments Wednesday caught intelligence and other administration officials off guard, with some saying there was not yet conclusive evidence that the operatives from the al-Qaida affiliate were involved in the attacks.

Meanwhile, eight House chairmen wrote to Obama on Wednesday seeking information on the intelligence U.S. officials had before the Libyan attack. In the letter, circulated by Rep. Howard McKeon, RCalif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, they suggested the Obama administration had “a pre-9/11 mind-set — treating an act of war solely as a criminal matter, rather than also prioritizing the gathering of intelligence to prevent future attacks.”

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that in the days after the attack he and many others on Capitol Hill believed that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was probably behind the attack because it has such a stronghold in eastern Libya.

“Understandably, there was a lot of uncertainty in the days immediately following the attacks in Benghazi,” he said. “And while the administration was saying definitively it wasn’t a terrorist attack, those of us who believed there had to be significant terrorist involvement believed it was almost certainly AQIM because they are such a major force, the major force, in that part of Libya. If it was terrorism, which we believed had to have played a role, it almost certainly had to be them.”

King, said some reports had indicated that smaller elements of Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan rebel brigade, played a role in the attack, although he described the group as a “grab bag of jihadists” that is far less organized and sophisticated than the al-Qaida affiliate.

“It was very irresponsible for the administration to say in the days after the attack that it wasn’t a terrorist attack when all the information was not in,” he said.

Information for this article was contributed by David D. Kirkpatrick and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 09/27/2012