Hillary Clinton emails reveal Benghazi attack fear

Washington: One day after a deadly 2012 attack on a US mission in Libya, then secretary of state Hillary Clinton was told confidentially al-Qaeda linked militants were likely behind the assault, a US daily said on Thursday, publishing some of her emails. Yet it took several days for the White House to admit it was probing whether al-Qaeda had any links to the storming of the mission in Benghazi in which US Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed.

Some of her correspondence obtained by the NYT gave an insight into Clinton’s early concerns in 2011 about the disintegration of Libya, as well as casting light on the shadowy world of intelligence gathering. Most of the emails were sent to Clinton by her advisor Sidney Blumenthal, quoting “sensitive” sources with direct access to top Libyan officials. On September 12, 2012, in the chaotic aftermath of the September 11 attack, Blumenthal sent Clinton a memo by email marked “confidential” in which he said then Libyan president Mohammed Megaryef had been told the attacks were “inspired by what many devout Libyans viewed as a sacrilegious internet video.”