Career intel officers: Obama's not telling you how far Al Qaeda has penetrated into Libya and Egypt

I don’t get it. Why would the Foreign Policy President, who supported the revolutions in Libya and Egypt, not want to talk about that?

I thought he likes talking about foreign policy.

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Weeks before the presidential election, President Barack Obama’s administration faces mounting opposition from within the ranks of U.S. intelligence agencies over what career officers say is a “cover up” of intelligence information about terrorism in North Africa.

Intelligence held back from senior officials and the public includes numerous classified reports revealing clear Iranian support for jihadists throughout the tumultuous North Africa and Middle East region, as well as notably widespread al Qaeda penetration into Egypt and Libya in the months before the deadly Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…

Officials with access to intelligence reports, based on both technical spying and human agents, said specific reporting revealed an alarming surge in clandestine al Qaeda activity months before the attack in Benghazi…

“The Obama Administration is afraid to admit al Qaeda is running rampant throughout the region because it would expose the truth instead of what President Obama so pompously spouted during the Democratic Convention” said the official.

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Follow the link for allegations that AQ is coordinating in Egypt via Al-Azhar University with the help of Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of you-know-who and, until this year, a prisoner of the Egyptian government. That was news to me, but the possibility of Al Qaeda setting up shop in Libya was not. Two reports prepared for Congress and released in August — before the attack in Benghazi — warned explicitly that the power vacuum in Libya combined with easy access to heavy weapons stolen from Qaddafi’s stockpiles made the country a natural draw for jihadists. One of those reports claimed that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan had dispatched top operatives to Libya with orders to start setting up a new network there under a different name. All of this was an entirely foreseeable consequence of toppling Mubarak and Qaddafi, and arguably a price worth paying in order to set those countries on track to democracy and, maybe someday, more liberal societies. But note: Entirely foreseeable. If you’re going to up-end the political table in these countries in the name of ousting autocrats, then you need to plan for an inevitable period of chaos — and terror — in the aftermath. Did we do that in Benghazi? Based on what we know right now, it looks like we did the opposite: Less security, not more, even when more was requested. Watch the new clip below from ABC and Jake Tapper for the latest on that. Madness.

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I’d love to hear the Foreign Policy President explain why his State Department didn’t think to ramp up protection for Chris Stevens in Al Qaeda’s new backyard, but I think we all know what his “public statement” about the situation is going to be. No explanations forthcoming.

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Beege Welborn 5:00 PM | December 24, 2024
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