US, Libya accounts differ on attack that killed ambassador

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Top US and Libyan officials have offered starkly different accounts about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead.

The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, said on Sunday it began with a spontaneous protest over the anti-Islamic video that had already set off similar protests in Egypt, leading to the storming of the US embassy there.

"People gathered outside the embassy (consulate) and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya and that then spun out of control," Rice told Fox News Sunday.

"But we don't see at this point signs this was a coordinated plan, premeditated attack. Obviously, we will wait for the results of the (FBI) investigation and we don't want to jump to conclusions before then."

Announcing the arrest of 50 suspects, Libya's parliament chief, however, blamed the attack on a few foreign extremists who he said entered Libya from Mali and Algeria and pre-planned it with local "affiliates and sympathizers".

"The way these perpetrators acted and moved ... leaves us with no doubt that this was pre-planned, determined, predetermined," Mohammed al-Megaryef, president of the Libyan National Congress, told CBS News.

"It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago. And they were planning this criminal act since their arrival," he added.

Ambassador Chris Stevens is believed to have died from smoke inhalation after being trapped in the blazing diplomatic compound in Benghazi, which came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and small arms.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed the attack was revenge for the killing of the terror network's deputy leader Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi in a drone strike in June, but there is no clear evidence to support this claim.

About the broadcaster:

Rosie Tuck is a copy editor at the China Daily website. She was born in New Zealand and graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Communications studies majoring in journalism and television. In New Zealand she was working as a junior reporter for the New Zealand state broadcaster TVNZ. She is in Beijing on a 2017 Pacific Media Centre international internship with the AUT/China Daily Exchange Programme, in partnership with the Asia New Zealand Foundation. She is working as a journalist in the English news department at the China Daily website.