A suspect in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi has been detained in Libya, according to multiple press outlets.
CNN reports
that, according to one source, Faraj al Chalabi (or al Shibli) "was
detained within the past two days and had recently returned from a trip
to Pakistan."
Reuters reports that al Chalabi "fled to Pakistan after the attacks and only recently returned to Libya."
Both
CNN and
Reuters note that the precise role al Chalabi is suspected of playing in the Benghazi attack is "unclear."
Al Chalabi was first fingered as a suspected terrorist in 1998. At
the time, Muammar Qaddafi's regime said that he was involved in the
murder of two Germans, an intelligence official named Silvan Becker and
his wife. The German couple had been killed under mysterious
circumstances in 1994.
The Libyan regime's intelligence led to an Interpol arrest warrant in
March 1998. In addition to al Chalabi, two other Libyans and Osama bin
Laden were named as the alleged perpetrators of the attack. The Libyans
were accused of being members of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group (LIFG).
In June 2004, the Libyan government reiterated its allegations
against al Chalabi, his fellow Libyans, and bin Laden in a filing with
the United Nations Security Council. "It is worth noting that the
elements that carried out that act and Osama bin Laden's arrangements
are still wanted and that their organizational connection to the Al
Qaeda organization has been confirmed," Qaddafi's regime claimed. Al
Chalabi was specifically listed as one of the suspected terrorists tied
to al Qaeda.
According to some accounts, the Libyan regime's claims were not taken
all that seriously at first. Perhaps this was because of Qaddafi's own
prolific role in sponsoring terrorism and his ruthless suppression of
the opposition.
CNN notes that "some analysts have cast doubt on the
[Qaddafi] regime's assertion that Libyan Islamist Fighting Group members
carried out the attack on the German couple."
In late 2001, however, the German press linked al Qaeda to the murder
of Becker and his wife. According to those accounts, the FBI itself
discovered the link after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Citing a report by
Focus, a German weekly news magazine,
Agence France Presse
(AFP) reported in October 2001 that the FBI "had come across the bin
Laden links to the murder of the two Germans...in the course of its
probe into the September 11 assault on the United States."
AFP
continued: "The magazine said that one of the chief suspects in the case
belonged to a bin Laden terrorist cell and was involved in the 1998
bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which US authorities
have linked to bin Laden's al Qaeda movement."
The FBI reportedly gave the details of al Qaeda's involvement to German authorities.
In November 2001, the German newspaper
Die Welt followed up
with its own brief account of al Qaeda's ties to the attack. The account
was headlined, "Bin Laden allegedly implicated in murder of German
agent." Germany's criminal investigators had no further information at
the time,
Die Welt reported, but this "may be related to the fact that this mystery has an intelligence services context."
Die Welt also cited the FBI as the source of information on one of the suspects, who was purportedly tied to the 1998 embassy bombings.
The FBI is leading the investigation into the Benghazi attack. If the
German accounts from 2001 are accurate, then the Bureau may already
have a dossier on al Chalabi.
In his 2002 book,
Inside Al Qaeda, Rohan Gunaratna reported that Becker's death hampered Germany's efforts to track bin Laden's operatives.
"According to the German secret service," Gunaratna wrote, "Becker
was their Arabist and his untimely death gravely affected Germany's
ability to effectively monitor the growing Al Qaeda infrastructure in
Germany."
Washington Time
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