Libya: US Ambassador Killed by Gunmen

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed

by Jamie Dettmer Sep 12, 2012 7:29 AM EDT

The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three State Department officials were killed last night in a targeted rocket attack, after riots over a U.S. film depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. Jamie Dettmer reports.

TRIPOLI—The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three State Department officials were killed last night in a targeted rocket attack, after riots over a U.S. film depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud. The assault came as the envoy sought to reach safety during a vicious Salafist assault on the American consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, leading to a fierce five-hour fight that saw Libyan security withdraw under the intensity of the gunfire, according to Libyan officials. President Obama confirmed the deaths, calling them "outrageous."

U.S. envoy Chris Stevens (center) speaks to Council member for Misrata Dr. Suleiman Fortia at the Tibesty Hotel, where an African Union delegation was meeting with opposition leaders in Benghazi, Libya, April 11, 2011. (Ben Curtis, File / AP Photo)

Libyan officials say Stevens was killed when his car was targeted deliberately as he and some staffers tried to move to safety following the initial attacks on the consulate. He is only the sixth serving U.S. ambassador ever to be killed while on duty. The attack involving dozens of gunmen from the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia group as well as other militants saw fierce clashes between them and U.S. guards and Libyan security units.

One of the American State Department employees may have died of smoke inhalation from the fire at the consulate, according to U.S officials. Another appears to have been killed in the exchange of gunfire. Gunmen, armed with semiautomatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, shot at the building and threw handmade bombs into the compound. They eventually took over the building when Libyan security units and police withdrew under the intensity of the attack, according to Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya's Supreme Security Committee.

European missions in Libya were put on high alert today, ramping up their security arrangements and ordering staff to avoid all but essential travel, and several U.S. and European NGOs and other international missions considered whether they should evacuate staff from Libya following the killings, which have emphasized how unstable and lawless the country is becoming with the central government unable to enforce its will.

The violence in Benghazi coincided with furious protests in neighboring Egypt. About 2,000 protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, tearing down an American flag and burning it. Yesterday was also the 11th anniversary of 9/11 and, while the focus of the attacks in Benghazi and Cairo was on a U.S. movie ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad, the demonstrators railed also against the U.S. generally, decrying the post-9/11 U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and American support for Israel.