Libyan authorities have singled out Ahmed
Abu Khattala, a leader of the Benghazi-based Islamist group Ansar al-Shariah,
as a commander in the attack that killed the American ambassador to Libya, J.
Christopher Stevens, last month, Libyans involved in the investigation said
Wednesday.
Witnesses at the scene of the attack on the
American Mission in Benghazi have said they saw Mr. Abu Khattala leading the
assault, and his personal involvement is the latest link between the attack and
his brigade, Ansar al-Shariah, a puritanical militant group that wants to
advance Islamic law in Libya.
The identity and motivation of the
assailants have become an intense point of contention in the American
presidential campaign. Republicans have sought to tie the attack to Al Qaeda to
counter President Obama’s assertion that by killing Osama bin Laden and other
leaders his administration had crippled the group; Mr. Abu Khattala and Ansar
al-Shariah share Al Qaeda’s puritanism and militancy, but operate independently
and focus only on Libya rather than on a global jihad against the West.
But Mr. Abu Khattala’s exact role, or how
much of the leadership he shared with others, is not yet clear. His leadership
would not rule out participation or encouragement by militants connected to Al
Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, an Algerian Islamic insurgency that adopted the
name of Bin Laden’s group a few years ago to bolster its image, but has so far
avoided attacks on Western interests.
Like the other leaders of the brigade or
fighters seen in the attack, Mr. Abu Khattala remains at large and has not yet
been questioned.
The authorities in Tripoli do not yet
command an effective army or police force, and members of the recently elected
Parliament have acknowledged with frustration that their government’s limited
power has shackled their ability to pursue the attackers.
The government typically relies on
self-formed local militias to act as law enforcement, and the Benghazi-area
militias appear reluctant to enter a potentially bloody fight against another
local group, like Ansar al-Shariah, to track down Mr. Abu Khattala.
Asked last week about Mr. Abu Khattala’s
role, an American official involved in a separate United States investigation
declined to comment on any particular suspects, but he indicated that the
United States was tracking Mr. Abu Khattala and cautioned that the leadership
of the attack might have been broader than a single man.
“Ansar al-Shariah is not only a shadowy group, it’s also quite
factionalized,” the official said. “There isn’t necessarily one overall
military commander of the group.”
It was not immediately clear if that
assessment might have changed with new information from Libyan witnesses. The
New York Times reported Tuesday that Mr. Abu Khattala was a leader of the
brigade, but withheld accounts of his specific role in the attack to protect
witnesses. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that three witnesses
had seen him during the Sept. 11 attack on the mission and that the Libyan
authorities were focused on his role.
The Journal reported that Mr. Abu Khattala
had been seen at large in the Leithi neighborhood of Benghazi, known for a high
concentration of Islamists. But his exact whereabouts is unclear. Libyan border
security is loose, so it is possible that he will flee or has already left the
country.
Mr. Abu Khattala was a member of the Islamist
opposition under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and was imprisoned in his notorious
Abu Salim prison. Unlike most of the other Islamist prisoners, however, Mr. Abu
Khattala never renounced violence as a means for seeking political change. He
was let out of prison only last year, along with a batch of other political
prisoners released in a futile bid by the government to appease the nascent
uprising.
Mr. Abu Khattala fought Colonel Qaddafi
along with the rest of the Libyan opposition and the current leaders of the big
militias in eastern Libya. But as those groups lined up behind the transitional
government and the democratic process, Mr. Abu Khattala and a small core of
like-minded Islamists formed Ansar al-Shariah, which now includes 100 to 200
fighters. Its name means “supporters of Islamic law,” and it opposes electoral
democracy as a substitute.
It has staged displays of armed might
intended to deter Western-style secular liberals whom it suspects of moving to
liberalize Libya, where alcohol is currently banned, polygamy is legal and a
vast majority of women wear an Islamic head covering.
But Ansar al-Shariah also guarded a local
hospital and engaged in preaching and charitable work, before popular anger at
the group for its role in the mission attack forced it to scatter and hide out
of sight.
Suliman Ali Zway contributed reporting from
Tripoli, Libya, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.
This article has been revised to reflect
the following correction:
Correction: October 17, 2012
The headline with an earlier version of
this article misidentified the source of the identification of Ahmed Abu
Khattala as a commander in the attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher
Stevens. Libya has named Mr. Abu Khattala, not the United States.
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