One of the personnel killed in Benghazi — Sean Smith — was an avid online gamer and posted this message before the attack to a group of online friends (Smith’s handle is “vile_rat”):
“(12:54:09 PM) vile_rat: assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”
Now couple the above with the latest from Reuters. Emphasis mine:
The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed in an attack on the Benghazi consulate and a safe house refuge, stormed by Islamist gunmen blaming America for a film they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.
Gunmen had attacked and set fire to the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of last year’s uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, late on Tuesday evening as another assault was mounted on the U.S. embassy in Cairo.
California-born ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed in the assault, but it was not clear how or where he died. U.S. consular staff were rushed to a safe house after the initial attack, Libya’s Deputy Interior Minister Wanis Al-Sharif said.
An evacuation plane with U.S. commandos units then arrived from Tripoli to evacuate them from the house.
“It was supposed to be a secret place and we were surprised the armed groups knew about it. There was shooting,” Sharif said. Two U.S. personnel were killed there, he said. Two other people were killed at the main consular building and between 12 and 17 wounded.
How did the Libyan know where the “safe house” was? Well, why don’t we start with Mr. Kodak-Moment and ask him? Second, it doesn’t sound like there were any U.S. forces protecting the ambassador at the time of the attack. They “arrived from Tripoli.” Was there a deliberate decision made to limit America’s security footprint in the region? If so, why?
These are all questions the MSM better start asking.