AL QAEDA DEADLY ATTACK ON US CONSULATE IN BENGHAZI LIBYA VOTE FOR ROMNEY DEFEAT BARACK OBAMA

Al  Qaeda said the deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi  Libya was in revenge for the killing of the network's number two Sheikh Abu Yahya al-Libi, SITE Intelligence Group reported Saturday. "The killing of Sheikh Abu Yahya only increased the enthusiasm and determination of the sons of (Libyan independence hero) Omar al-Mokhtar to take revenge upon those who attack our Prophet," Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, quoted by the US-based monitoring group. Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based offshoot did not claim direct responsibility for Tuesday's attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. But it stressed that "the uprising of our people in Libya, Egypt and Yemen against America and its embassies is a sign to notify the United States that its war is not directed against groups and organisations ... but against the Islamic nation that has rebelled against injustice." The statement comes four days after Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri issued a video eulogising Libi, his late deputy and propaganda chief who was killed in a drone strike in June. Mohammed al-Megaryef, the head of Libya's national assembly, said on Saturday that the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was planned and "meticulously executed." Tuesday's attack by armed men in the eastern city of Benghazi came amid a wave of protests in the Muslim world against a US-made amateur Internet film deemed insulting to the Prophet Mohammed. Suspected Islamic militants fired on the consulate with rocket-propelled grenades and set it ablaze on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States claimed by Al-Qaeda. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the "safe house" in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed "safe". Some of the missing papers from the consulate are said to list names of Libyans who are working with Americans, putting them potentially at risk from extremist groups, while some of the other documents are said to relate to oil contracts. According to senior diplomatic sources, the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted, but no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and "lockdown", under which movement is severely restricted. Mr Stevens had been on a visit to Germany, Austria and Sweden and had just returned to Libya when the Benghazi trip took place with the US embassy's security staff deciding that the trip could be undertaken safely. Eight Americans, some from the military, were wounded in the attack which claimed the lives of Mr Stevens, Sean Smith, an information officer, and two US Marines. All staff from Benghazi have now been moved to the capital, Tripoli, and those whose work is deemed to be non-essential may be flown out of Libya. In the meantime a Marine Corps FAST Anti-Terrorism Reaction Team has already arrived in the country from a base in Spain and other personnel are believed to be on the way. Additional units have been put on standby to move to other states where their presence may be needed in the outbreak of anti-American fury triggered by publicity about a film which demeaned the Prophet Mohamed