A Libyan security guard who said he was outside the U.S. consulate here when it was attacked Tuesday night has provided new evidence that the assault on the compound that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was a planned attack by armed Islamists and not the result of anger over an online video mocking Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
The guard, interviewed Thursday in the hospital where he is being treated for five shrapnel wounds in one leg and two bullet wounds in the other, said the consulate area was quiet -- "there wasn't a single ant outside," he said -- until about 9:35 p.m., when as many as 125 armed men descended on the compound from all directions.
The men lobbed grenades into the compound, wounding the guard and knocking him to the ground, then stormed through the facility's main gate, shouting "God is great" and moving to one of the many villas that make up the consulate compound. He said there had been no warning that an attack was imminent. |