US ‘had no actionable intelligence’ of attack on Libya consulate

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Washington, Oct 10: The Obama administration has that it had no actionable intelligence about plans for the deadly attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

The September 11 Benghazi attack, in which the US envoy and three other Americans died, was unprecedented in recent diplomatic history, the US State Department officials added.

Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, had earlier described the attack as a “spontaneous” one that arose out of a protest against the anti-Islam film, that had outraged the Muslim world.

But in Tuesday’s briefing, unnamed officials from the State Department said it had never concluded that the attack was motivated by the US-made video, the BBC reports.

“That was not our conclusion,” the report quoted an official, as saying.

They said it was instead a co-ordinated assault involving several groups of men armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades over an expanse of more than a mile.

“There was no actionable intelligence of any planned or imminent attack,” a top State Department official said.

“It would be very, very hard to find a precedent for an attack like that in recent diplomatic history,” the official added. (ANI)