(Reuters) Hadeel Al Shalchi - A squad of U.S. troops dispatched by helicopter to rescue besieged diplomats from Benghazi on Wednesday ran into a fierce ambush that left a further two Americans dead, Libyan officials said. Libyan Captain Fathi al-Obeidi, whose special operations unit met the U.S. troops at Benghazi airport, said that after his men and the U.S. squad had found the American survivors who had evacuated the blazing consulate, their ostensibly secret location in an isolated villa came under an intense and highly accurate mortar barrage. "I really believe that this attack was planned," he said. "The accuracy with which the mortars hit us was too good for any regular revolutionaries." Libyan Deputy Interior Minister Wanis al-Sharif estimated that a dozen or more Americans were hurt.
2012-09-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive