http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2012/10/24/benghazi-from-see-no-sharia-to-ansar-al-sharia/
Followers of Ansar al-Sharia and other militias protest on September 21, 2012 in Benghazi
The Obama administration’s wall of mendacity surrounding the murderous 9/11/12 jihadist attack on our Benghazi, Libya diplomatic compound has collapsed under an avalanche of released State Department internal [2] emails [3].
Even the reliable mainstream media Obama sycophants may be compelled to report the story broken by Reuters [2] (Tuesday evening, 10/23/12). Within two hours of the attack, the State Department was aware that the jihadist group Ansar al-Sharia—declared [3] by the State Department itself to be an al Qaeda affiliate—had claimed responsibility for the raid (or more appropriately, “razzia”). These emails were disseminated [3] by the State Department to sundry “redacted national security platforms,” such as the White House Situation room, the Pentagon, the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence and the State Department. An estimated 300-400 national security figures obtained [3] these emails—including persons working directly below the administration’s leading national security, military and diplomatic officials—“in real time almost as the raid was playing out and concluding.”
Who are Ansar al-Sharia? “AL-QAEDA IN LIBYA: A PROFILE [4]” was an August, 2012 report prepared by the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office [5], a Pentagon program office under the aegis of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict. The report emphasized how Al Qaeda Senior Leadership (AQSL), working via a large, powerful, and well-established jihadist infrastructure in Libya—including, prominently, Ansar al-Sharia—sought to capitalize on the US and NATO-supported insurrection which toppled the Libyan despot Qaddafi, and fulfill its goal of making Libya part of an eventual transnational caliphate [6].
A sizable, ominous Ansar al-Sharia public rally during June, 2012 was highlighted in the August, 2012 Pentagon report [4], which also noted the unwillingness of Libya’s Sharia-supporting [7] central government to contend with these ostensibly “more radical” avatars of Sharia [8] supremacism:
In June 2012, Ansar al-Sharia staged a large-scale rally and military show of force involving dozens of military vehicles, with Islamists wearing the Afghan mujahidin’s traditional outfit. Some leaders described themselves as Islamists and called for implementation of sharia similar to that which the Taliban had implemented in Afghanistan or al-Qaeda in Somalia and Yemen. The military show of force consisted of a parade in which some 30 battalions from Benghazi, Darnah, Misrata, Al-Nufilyah, Ajdabiyah, and other Libyan towns took part in the first meeting in support of sharia in Benghazi. Islamist leaders pointed out that the aim of the military parade was to terrorize (Arabic: irhab) those who do not want to be judged by God’s law. Islamist leaders urged the Transitional National Council to clarify the identity of the state as Islamic or secular. Such a system of local affiliates might use neighborhood mosques as a support infrastructure for a religious and popular movement that could frighten politicians attempting to run on a moderate Islamic platform. …A weak Islamist-dominated central government is unlikely to confront such a radical movement, at least in the short term. The minister of religious affairs expressed his government’s weakness when he lamented the “hijacking” of mosques by extremist imams imposed by militiamen. Two of these local Islamist-oriented militias—Ansar al-Sharia and al-A’hrar Libya—are the tip of the iceberg. They broadcast typical al-Qaeda–type propaganda on the Internet, and they have adopted the black flag, which symbolizes commitment to violent jihad promoted by AQSL.