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The Quds and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Benghazi connection
[Wash Times] In the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn tasked the intelligence community for information on Iran’s involvement in the attack.Until now, government officials have refused to acknowledge any Iranian involvement in Benghazi. But the Flynn memo indicates that at least some in the U.S. intelligence community suspected Tehran from the very beginning. A top secret Sept. 21 memo responding to the director’s inquiry and disclosed as the result of a Freedom of Information Act request from the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch includes fragmentary information on al Qaeda affiliates. But its conclusions regarding Iran’s notorious Quds Force, a deadly hybrid of intelligence and special operations, have been totally redacted. Now retired, Gen. Flynn told The Washington Times that, for classification reasons, he could not discuss the memo’s redacted contents or talk about his four hours of secret testimony for the House Special Benghazi committee. He did note, however, that a recently declassified trove of letters from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden reveal that Shiite Iran was willing to help Sunni militants if the common foe was the United States. The U.S. military has crossed swords with Iran’s Quds Force in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen where the Quds Force used a similar tactic to what sources believe they use in Benghazi: infiltrating a paramilitary operations team into a hostile environment under cover of humanitarian aide workers for the Red Crescent Society, the Muslim equivalent of the Red Cross. A Red Crescent team from Iran arrived in Benghazi, Libya on July 30, 2012, ostensibly to provide humanitarian aide to the post-Gadhafi revolutionary regime. The secret CIA Annex operating in Benghazi had been tipped off and dispatched local "watchers" to track their movements, according to Dylan Davies, a British security contractor in charge of the local guards protecting the Benghazi facility. "Everyone knew the Iranians were in Benghazi," former CIA security officer Kris "Tanto" Paranto said in an interview. "Especially once the Red Cross [Red Crescent] team from Iran was ‘kidnapped’ by Ansar al-Shariah, we knew about them and were tracking them." Posted by: Besoeker 2016-03-22 |
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