Classified United States military units are
operating in the region near Libya since the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S.
diplomatic compound in Benghazi, according to the director of
operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
The disclosure that secret U.S. military forces
were dispatched to Libya recently was revealed in a letter sent
Wednesday to the House Armed Services Committee by Vice Adm. Kurt Tidd,
director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
Tidd said that after the attack in Benghazi, the
U.S. European Command sent a Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST)
platoon to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.
“Additional classified capabilities were deployed
to the region,” Tidd said, in what other defense officials said was a
reference to the deployment of special operations commandos.
Tidd was responding to a letter
from Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R., Calif.) about whether the
military recommended bolstering security in Libya prior to the Sept. 11
attack that killed U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three
other Americans.
A U.S. official would not provide details on the
classified unit in the region but said it includes elite U.S. special
operations commandos trained for counterterrorism missions, like the
Navy’s Seal Team Six, known formally as the Naval Special Warfare
Development Group.
The CIA also is said to be secretly setting up covert armed aerial drone units in the country.
The U.S. military also has been working with the
remnants of the Libyan military’s special operations forces as the new
provisional government seeks to set up a central military and reduce the
control of the large number of heavily armed militias, many of them
Islamist-run, around the country.
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