What many have suspected since the murders of Ambassador Stevens and three other American officials at the U.S. consulate on Tuesday, is now being echoed by the President of Libya, himself, Mohammed el-Megarif. According to Fox News, the president of the Libyan National Congress has publicly stated that he believes the attackers are connected to Al Qaeda, and that they used the protests at the consulate as a cover to attack the consulate.
Megarif said in an interview with NPR, "We firmly believe that this was a precalculated, preplanned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. Consulate".
The fact that foreigners have been infiltrating Libya in the months since the uprising against the late dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi, makes the Al Qaeda theory even more plausible. On CBS' "Face the Nation", Megarif discussed the fact that "a few" of those who had joined the attack were foreigners who had entered Libya "from different directions, some of them definitely from Mali and Algeria".
In an interview with CBS, Megarif said that Libyan authorities have arrested about 50 people in connection with the attack.
This theory of Al Qaeda being involved in the attack has been bandied about for days. However, Megarif's words add tremendous credence to the suspicion. Megarif's beliefs are a departure from the Obama administration's position, that the attacks were provoked by an anti-Islamic video on the internet.
No one, at this point, can be sure of what sparked this attack and subsequent riots. Whatever the cause, the idea that all of this was the result of an obscure internet video seems a naive concept. If the White House had not pointed to the 'Innocence of Muslims' as the reason behind the attacks, it's doubtful that the vast majority of Americans would have bought this explanation in the first place.
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