Brendan Bordelon, Daily Caller, Sep 27 2013
Libyan militants allied with terrorist groups stole millions of dollars in high-grade US military equipment, including armored Humvees and advanced night-vision goggles, during raids on a US special forces base outside of Tripoli last summer. Fox News reports that anonymous sources in the State Dept and military confirmed the theft, which is far worse than the few guns first assumed stolen earlier this month. In addition to hundreds of M4 automatic rifles and Glock pistols, nearly every set of available night-vision goggles and laser-targeting devices were snatched during two night-time raids on the compound in July and August. 23 heavily-armored Humvees with GPS navigation systems and weapons mounts for grenade launchers are also missing. The military hardware was stored at a US special forces camp set up outside the Libyan capital in the months after the Benghazi attack. The 12-man US team running the camp had two missions: to hunt down those responsible for the Benghazi attack, and to train Libyan government forces in military tactics and weapons use. But US special forces were not there to defend the camp during either of the raids, instead sleeping at a nearby villa. And Libyan government forces tasked with securing the camp proved no match for the militants. After the second raid in August, the State Dept pulled its support and US operators were sent home. On top of that, US forces failed to destroy the US-built training camp before their departure last month, and the compound is now home to a Libyan anti-government militia busy stockpiling weapons. Sources told Fox:
It’s not just equipment. It’s the capability. You are giving these dangerous groups the capability that only a few nations are capable of. All these militias are tied to terrorist organizations and are tied to AQ. The loss of this military equipment is what pulled the plug on the US operation. No one at the State Dept wanted to deal with the situation if any more went wrong, so State pulled its support for the training program and then began to try and get the team moved out of the country.Some diplomats told Fox that all of Libya now appears as unstable as Benghazi in the days before the Benghazi attack, and military sources said that foreign fighters continue to stream through Libya’s porous borders. Spec Ops personnel told Fox:
The theft of these weapons and the open borders are feeding AQ and the MB, and threaten Libya’s neighbors as well. It’s already bad, and now it’s really bad. Already assassinations are picking up in Tripoli and there are major worries that the militias are using this stolen equipment to their advantage. The European ambassador was attacked and we are now commonly seeing robbing and attacking of people in broad daylight. This isn’t perception. This is actually happening.The news comes one week after Obama waived federal law prohibiting the transfer of US weapons to terrorist groups in order to arm Syria’s rebels.
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