US may have overstated security of Libyan embassy compound

An effective response by newly trained Libyan security guards to a small bombing outside the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi in June may have led United States officials to underestimate the security threat to personnel there, according to counterterrorism and State Department officials, even as threat warnings grew in the weeks before the recent attack that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The guards' aggressive action in June came after the mission's defences and training were strengthened at the recommendation of a small team of Special Forces soldiers who augmented the mission's security force for several weeks in April while assessing the compound's vulnerabilities, American officials said.

"That the local security did so well back in June probably gave us a false sense of security," said one American official who has served in Libya, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the F.B.I. is investigating the attack. "We may have fooled ourselves," the New York Times reported him as saying.

The presence of the Special Forces team and the conclusions reached about the role of the Libyan guards offer new insight into the kind of security concerns that American officials had before the attack on Sept. 11.

Security at the mission has become a major issue as the Obama administration struggles to explain what happened during the attack, who was responsible and how the ambassador ended up alone.

Just how much American and Libyan officials misread the threat has become even more evident as they analyse the skill with which the mortar attack at an annex a half mile away was carried out by the attackers. That assault, nearly three hours after the initial attack on the main diplomatic mission, killed two former Navy SEALs who were defending the compound.

With as few as four armed Americans and three armed Libyans guarding the mission as the attack began, Stevens's own bodyguard was so far away that he needed to sprint across the compound under gunfire to reach the building where the ambassador was working at the time. But the bodyguard ultimately left without Stevens, who died of smoke inhalation.

And even after eight additional American security officers arrived from Tripoli, the roughly 30 Americans were surprised and outgunned again in the second attack, dependent on an ad hoc collection of Libyan militiamen to protect their retreat and avoid greater casualties, Libyan officials said.

American counterterrorism officials and Libyans on the scene say the mortar attack was most likely carried out by the same group of assailants who had attacked the mission and then followed the convoy of American survivors retreating to what they thought was a safe house.

The first mortar shell fell short, but the next two hit their mark in rapid succession with deadly precision, according to an account that David Ubben, one of Mr. Stevens's security guards, told his father, Rex Ubben, which was supported by other American and Libyan officials.

"There are three villas inside and the walls are high, and the only house that got hit was the house we were in," said Fathi el-Obeidi, a Libyan militia commander who came to help evacuate the Americans.

This indicated that many of the assailants were practiced at aiming their mortars, skills they learned in fighting Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's army.

The Sept. 11 attack culminated several weeks of growing violence against Western and other diplomatic posts in Benghazi. State Department officials said they were aware of the worsening climate and took precautions. One American official who worked in the mission said the Americans there were able to get around with "appropriate prudence."

One American official, who said he traded e-mails with Stevens three days before his death, said the ambassador did not mention any heightened security concerns. CNN, however, has reported that Stevens did express such worries in a diary that one of the network's correspondents found at the ransacked mission.