After the downfall and killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in late 2011, Libya's restive east has become a safe haven to longstanding pockets of Islamist extremism especially in the two cities of Darnah and Benghazi. The US State Department has announced it was designating the Islamist group Ansar al-Shari'ah in Libya and its local versions in Tunisia as separate Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs). It also announced that it was naming three individuals, Ahmed Abu Khattalah, Sufian bin Qumu, and Seifallah Ben Hassine, as 'Specially Designated Global Terrorists'. The designations, which had been leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post several days before the January 10 announcement, mark the first time the US had publicly named certain groups and individuals as being involved in the September, 2012, attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi. The attack left the US Ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans dead. But the designation is not an assertion that Ansar al-Shari'ah in the two eastern cities of Benghazi and Darnah were the only two organisations whose members were involved in the embassy attack, that those organisations pre-planned the attack well in advance, or that the organizations are somehow more responsible than any others involved. US officials said that other groups and individuals were not designated as terrorist, because there wasn't any new information that points to what happened in Benghazi in 2012. Witnesses have told US investigators that Khattalah was seen in the consulate compound during the evening of the attack in 2012. Other witnesses reported that Qumu and some of his fighters were in Benghazi the same evening, but it is not known if this was a coincidence or as the result of a plan. Khattalah was initially charged in the incident by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in August, 2013 in a sealed indictment. He has, however, continued to insist on his innocence in several interviews with Western journalists. When confronted with proof that he was in the compound the night of the attack, Khattalah has admitted that he was there, but only to help Libyan security forces defend the area and to rescue those trapped by the fighting. Khattalah's interviews have frustrated US officials because of their inability to capture him. A mission by US special forces to seize him, similar to the one that lead to the death of Osama bin Laden, was called off over concerns it would endanger the fragile Libyan government. Qumu is very familiar to US intelligence services. A former inmate at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, he was sent back to Libya in 2007 and got released the following year during a general amnesty of militants. In a 2005 New York Times article, he was described as "a US ally of sorts" because of his role in leading his troops against then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. But the same article quoted an assessment of Qumu made in 2005 when he was still at Gitmo, saying he is a "medium to high risk, as he is likely to post a threat to the US and its allies", and that he is a "dangerous man with no qualms about committing terrorist acts". The Tunisian group, which had already been labelled a terrorist organisation by the Tunisian government, is suspected of being involved in attacks in September 2012 on the US Embassy and the American School in the country. It has also been involved in attacks on Tunisian security forces, political figures and tourist sites. American intelligence sources say that Hassine is the leader of Ansar al-Sharia'ah in Tunisia. The death of Ambassador Stevens and other Americans, has been a political firestorm between President Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who will probably run for president in 2016), ass well as both Democrats, and Republicans in Congress. Republicans accuse Obama and Clinton of not responding quickly enough to the attack and then trying to cover it up. Taking advantage of the rumours that were circulating around Washington last week about the designations, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Republican Rep. Ed Royce, issued a statement welcoming reports of Ansar al-Shari'ah's imminent designation, adding, "Sixteen months after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, the administration is confirming what it has long known – that Ansar al-Shari'ah carried out an attack against the United States that killed four Americans." Royce added thats the Obama administration is still not doing enough to apprehend those involved in the attacks. North African states like Libya and Tunisia have been battling to contain Islamist militants since secular regimes were ousted in recent years. The militants - many of them linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) - easily cross the region's porous borders.
