Benghazi Case Demonstrates Perils of Administration's Deferential Approach to Fighting Terrorism

Statement

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is pressing the State Department and Justice Department for details on how a known terrorist involved in an attack on American officials was able to remain outside the reach of U.S. authorities. The terrorist continued to recruit for and plot future attacks, despite assurances from the State Department that he was being monitored by a foreign government.

Shortly after the September 11, 2012, attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Turkish authorities detained Ali Awni al Harzi, a suspect in the attacks. He was then transferred to his home country of Tunisia to face terrorism charges. The FBI, reportedly with the assistance of the State Department, was allowed to interview al Harzi in Tunisia about his role in the Benghazi attacks. However, rather than standing trial or being transferred to U.S. custody, al Harzi was released by Tunisian authorities in January of 2013.

In congressional hearings later that month, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton responded to congressional concerns about the terrorist's release, testifying that the Tunisian government promised that al Harzi would be surveilled and prohibited from leaving Tunis. Clinton also assured the congressional panels that the State Department would hold the Tunisians to that pledge. Yet, al Harzi was able to leave Tunisia and join ISIS, where he reportedly recruited more foreign fighters, plotted hundreds of suicide attacks and helped ISIS expand from a regional terrorist group into a more globalized one. In June 2015, the Defense Department announced that al Harzi was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike against ISIS targets in Mosul, Iraq.

Grassley's inquiry seeks to determine whether U.S. officials exhausted every available resource and authority to take custody of al Harzi and prevent him from returning to the battlefield. Grassley has been an outspoken critic of the Obama Administration's attempts to treat terrorists as common criminals rather than enemy combatants. In a letter last year to the Attorney General, Grassley and nine other senators stated, "... we fear the potential loss of intelligence when the Administration elects to outsource the detention and interrogation of terrorists to foreign governments, perhaps due to a political aversion to the U.S. detaining them at Guantanamo."

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