Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — An Al Qaida-aligned militia linked to the attack on a
U.S. consulate in Libya is said to have acquired hundreds of surface-to-air
missiles.

A former senior Justice Department official said the U.S. military was
searching for Ansar Al Sharia in eastern Libya since the attack on the U.S.
consulate in Benghazi in September 2012.

Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. Attorney, said Ansar could have up to 400 SAMs, many of them stolen from the consulate.

“This information comes from former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the special ops and intelligence community,”
DiGenova said.

DiGenova has been representing a U.S. official, Mark Thompson, who leaked information on the Ansar attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. The attorney said the search for Ansar was focused on the SAMs, stolen from
Libyan military arsenals.

“And it is pretty clear that the biggest concern right now are the 400 missiles which have been diverted in Libya and have gotten into the hands of some very ugly people,” DiGenova said in a radio interview on Aug. 12. “And
they worried specifically, according to theses sources, about an attempt to shoot down an airliner.”

DiGenova said the CIA might have obtained some of the SAMs and stored
them in the U.S. consulate. He said the CIA annex in Benghazi was
believed to have procured the SAMs from regional militias.

“But it is clear that the annex was somehow involved in the process of
the distribution of those missiles,” DiGenova told the Washington-based WMAL
radio.

In 2011, the U.S. intelligence community determined that at least 20,000
SAMs were stolen from Libyan military arsenals during the overthrow of the
regime of Col. Moammar Gadhafi. Months later, officials said 5,000 of the
missiles were recovered.

“This is why we shut down the 19 embassies recently,” DiGenova said.
“They were afraid that there was going to be a missile attack on one of the
embassies. Remember, you can take a shoulder-held missile and shoot it into
an embassy, not just into the sky.”

  Ansar Al Sharia, CIA, Joseph diGenova, SAMs stolen from Benghazi consulate may be in Al Qaida hands