PrairiePundit

Politico: “Systemic failures” and “management deficits” by top U.S. officials are to blame for an inadequate security situation at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi ahead of the attack that killed four Americans, according to an independent review of the September attacks released Tuesday. But the Benghazi advisory review board found that despite lapses in judgment and management, no American official was guilty of neglect or dereliction of duty. The board, led by Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, concluded that the deaths were the result of a planned terrorist attack — not a spontaneous riot, as initially reported. “The Board concluded that there was no protest prior to the attacks, which were unanticipated in their scale and intensity,” the report concludes. “The Board found that certain senior State Department officials within two bureaus demonstrated a lack of proactive leadership and management ability in their responses to securit...

Con Coughlin: The weapons were seized by units attached to the Guards' elite Quds Force, which travelled to Libya from their base in southern Sudan. Acting on orders received from Revolutionary Guards commanders in Iran , they took advantage of the chaos that engulfed  Libya  following the collapse of the regime of former dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to seize "significant quantities" of advanced weaponry, according to military intelligence officers in Libya. They say the weapons stolen by Iran include sophisticated Russian-made SA-24 missiles that were sold to Libya in 2004. The missile can shoot down aircraft flying at 11,000 feet, and is regarded as the Russian equivalent of the American "stinger" missiles that were used by the US-backed mujahideen to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is similar to the weapon used by al-Qaeda in the failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Kenya's Mombasa airp...