Notable
Soleimani tied to Benghazi attacks
The Distraction
I learned what actually happened from two former Iranian intelligence officers. Each has his own active network of contacts inside Iran, some of whom continue to work in senior positions in the Iranian regime.
I corroborated their initial information with multiple Western intelligence sources that are not in contact with them.
The CIA chief of base was correct that the Red Crescent team included undercover Quds Force officers who had been sent to carry out a terrorist attack against the United States.
In fact, my Iranian sources said, their orders were to kidnap or kill the US ambassador to Libya, to send a message to the United States that they could act against them at will anywhere and at any time in the Middle East.
But, as they were getting ready to set the plan in motion, the resident Quds Force team in Benghazi learned from its own intercepts of the Annex tactical coms that the Red Crescent cover had been blown and the CIA was onto them.
So they decided to take the entire group off the streets — stage a kidnapping — in order to convince the chief of base that the danger was over.
“The team in operational command in Benghazi were Qassem Suleymani’s people,” the former Baghdad deputy chief of station, John Maguire, told me. “They were a mature, experienced, operational element from Iran. These guys are the first-string varsity squad.” And they were playing for keeps.
Maguire had matched wits with Suleymani, the Quds Force commander, for two years in Iraq and came away with a healthy respect for his capabilities. “He is talented, charismatic. His people are competent and well trained. They have all the operational traits we used to value. And they are committed to this fight for the long haul.”
Suleymani and his Quds Force operators were so successful at killing Americans in Iraq because they had penetrated US operations.
They didn’t just randomly place an IED on a roadside, Maguire said. They placed the IED where and when they knew an American convoy was going to pass.
“They were into our coms. They were into our operational planning. That’s how they were able to kill so many Americans,” Maguire said.
The faked kidnapping in Benghazi was a typical Quds Force op. They used a local militia that on the surface detested Shias, just as they used the Taliban in Afghanistan and manipulated al Qaeda.
“They are very good at deception operations,” Maguire told me.
And our side didn’t have a clue. The CIA chief of base and his deputy fell for it hook, line and sinker.