Report Implicates Iran in 2011 Attacks on US Consulate in Benghazi

A protester reacts as the US Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the US September 11, 2012. (Reuters)
A protester reacts as the US Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the US September 11, 2012. (Reuters)
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Report Implicates Iran in 2011 Attacks on US Consulate in Benghazi

A protester reacts as the US Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the US September 11, 2012. (Reuters)
A protester reacts as the US Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the US September 11, 2012. (Reuters)

US intelligence agencies are sitting on a treasure trove of documents that detail Iran’s direct, material involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that cost the lives of four Americans. But until now, deep state bureaucrats have buried them under layers of classification, often without reason, reported the New York Post.

From CIA officers, military contractors, and sources within US Special Forces, the writer of the report, Kenneth R. Timmerman, learned of the existence of at least 50 briefing documents that warned of Iranian intelligence operations in Benghazi. Some specifically predicted an Iranian attack on US diplomats and US facilities. Those documents have remained inaccessible, including to the Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by former US Representative Trey Gowdy.

The CIA, the NSA, and Joint Special Forces Operations Command operatives in Benghazi and in Tripoli were actively monitoring Iranian operations in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attacks. Indeed, according to a private military contractor who contacted Timmerman from Benghazi in February 2011, Quds Force operatives were openly walking the streets of Benghazi in the early days of the anti-Gaddafi uprising. At the time, their presence was an open secret.

By the summer of 2012, US intelligence and security officers in Benghazi and Tripoli warned their chain of command — including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens — that the Iranians were preparing a terrorist attack on the US compound in Benghazi. These increased Iranian preparations prompted the head of security for Stevens, Green Beret Colonel Andy Wood, to send a cable to his commanding officer in June 2012 that the Iranian-backed militia — Ansar al-Sharia — had received their funding from Iran and were now sending their wives and children to Benghazi.

Until now, the government has released just a handful of heavily redacted documents relating to Iran’s Benghazi operations. Throughout the Obama administration, officials with knowledge of the Quds Force presence in Benghazi, including security contractors who defended the CIA Annex in a 13-hour battle with the extremists, were repeatedly threatened with prosecution if they revealed what they knew. Among them was the then-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Flynn.

But financial documents provided by an Iranian source, and thus not subject to US classification efforts, shed significant new light on the extent of Iranian government involvement in the attacks.

The documents, which include a wire transfer for 1.9 million euros from a known Quds Force money-laundering operation in Malaysia, have never before been made public. Only recently did the Iranian source give Timmerman permission to release the documents, which clearly show how Iran used the international financial system to funnel money to its Benghazi operations.

The person the Iranians put in charge of recruiting, training and equipping the Ansar al-Sharia was a Lebanese man named Khalil Harb. He was a senior Hezbollah operative, well-known to Western intelligence agencies. Not long after the Benghazi attacks, the State Department issued a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture — not because of his role in Benghazi, but for what seemed like plain vanilla terrorist operations in Lebanon.

Early on, Harb set out to identify and recruit Libyan extremists. Timmerman’s Iranian source says that a courier arrived in Benghazi carrying the equivalent of $8 million to $10 million in 500 euro notes around three weeks before the attacks. The money came from Quds Force accounts in Malaysia at the First Islamic Investment Bank, an IRGC front proudly operated by Babak Zanjani, a 41-year-old billionaire who called himself a “financial bassiji” [militiaman].

In interviews with Iranian and Western reporters, Zanjani boasted that he was laundering oil money for the regime so they could slip the noose of international financial sanctions. He claimed to be worth $13.5 billion, and bragged that he was blending Iranian oil on the high seas with oil from Iraq then selling it as non-Iran origin.

New York Post

New York Times best-selling author Kenneth R. Timmerman has published two books on the Benghazi attacks.



International Criminal Court Refers Hungary to Its Oversight Body for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, shake hands after a press statement at the Carmelite Monastery in the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. (AP) 
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, shake hands after a press statement at the Carmelite Monastery in the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. (AP) 
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International Criminal Court Refers Hungary to Its Oversight Body for Failing to Arrest Netanyahu 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, shake hands after a press statement at the Carmelite Monastery in the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. (AP) 
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, shake hands after a press statement at the Carmelite Monastery in the Buda Castle in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. (AP) 

A panel of judges at the International Criminal Court reported Hungary to the court’s oversight organization for failing to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest in April, saying the move undercut the court's ability to bring suspects to justice.

The Israeli leader received a red carpet welcome from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a state visit, in defiance of an ICC arrest warrant. Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are accused of crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

Israel is not a member of the court and staunchly rejects the charges.

In a filing released late Thursday, the three-judge panel wrote that “the obligation to cooperate was sufficiently clear to Hungary” and the failure to arrest Netanyahu “severely undermines the Court’s ability to carry out its mandate.”

The ICC has no police force and relies on countries around the world to execute arrest warrants.

The court's oversight body, the Assembly of States Parties has limited powers to sanction Hungary. It will consider the next steps during its annual meeting in December.

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, has defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu. During the visit, Orbán said his country’s commitment to the ICC was “ half-hearted ” and began the process to withdraw Hungary from the court.

Orbán signed the Rome Statute, the treaty which created the court, in 2001 during his first term as prime minister.

The court dismissed arguments from Hungary that Parliament never incorporated the court’s statute into Hungarian law, writing “it was Hungary’s responsibility to ensure that such legislation was in place.”

The decision comes as Gaza’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians is in a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, now relying largely on the limited aid allowed into the territory.

Netanyahu and Gallant are accused of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid, and of intentionally targeting civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza.