Fox News reported Wednesday that a man who was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay into Libyan custody may have led the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans dead.
The man, released in 2007 on the condition that he be kept in prison, may have been involved or even led the attack last week that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
U.S. officials confirmed Wednesday that the attack on the consulate is being considered a terrorist action.
"Let me begin by asking you whether you would say that Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans died as a result of a terrorist attack," Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) asked of National Counterterrorism Center director Matthew Olsen, during a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.
"Certainly on that particular question I would say yes," Olsen said. "They were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy."