The United States said on Tuesday it had captured a suspected ringleader of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans including the U.S. ambassador and ignited a political firestorm in Washington, according to The Associated Press.
President Barack Obama said in a statement he had authorized the operation in which U.S. special operations forces captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah in Libya on Sunday, the AP reported. He told an audience later in Pittsburgh that Khatallah was being transported to the United States.
Khatallah was grabbed on the outskirts of Benghazi in an operation carried out by U.S. special operations forces, including some members of the Army's Delta Force, another U.S. official said, according to the AP.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. troops had acted with "extraordinary skill, courage and precision" and that the complex operation resulted in no casualties, the AP reported.
"Since the deadly attacks on our facilities in Benghazi, I have made it a priority to find and bring to justice those responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans," Obama said in a statement, adding Khatallah would "face the full weight of the American justice system," according to the AP.
A U.S. official said Khatallah would be charged and prosecuted through the U.S. court system and would not be sent to the prison for suspected al Qaeda militants in Guantanamo, Cuba, the AP reported.
The move coincides with Obama's policy of prosecuting suspected militants caught abroad through the U.S. justice system rather than trying them in the military tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay prison, which he is trying to close, according to the AP.
A criminal complaint released by the U.S. district court for Washington, D.C., accused Khatallah of killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility, providing material support to terrorists and using a firearm in commission of a crime of violence.
