Four US Special Operators from the Benghazi security team are writing a book for $3 million
Four members of the elite security team stationed at the CIA annex in Benghazi are being paid $3 million to write a book about the tragic night of September 11, 2012, Keith Kelly of The New York Post reports.
There are plenty of gaps in America's understanding of what happened when Libyan militants attacked a U.S. mission, leading to the death of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and information management officer Sean Smith.
A subsequent skirmish at the annex claimed the lives of former Navy SEAL and CIA security contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
A Republican-led investigation focused on potential missteps by the White House and came away with nothing significant.
In November The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. mission in Benghazi "was at its heart a CIA operation," and the annex is where the agency set up shop.
And there is circumstantial evidence that suggests the CIA was running heavy weapons from the annex to rebels in Syria.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the CIA was leading a "concerted effort to try to track down and find and recover … MANPADS [man-portable air defense systems]" looted from the stockpiles of toppled Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi.
In October we reported the connection between Stevens and a reported September shipment of SA-7 MANPADs and rocket-propelled grenades from Benghazi to Syria through southern Turkey.
That 400-ton shipment — "the largest consignment of weapons" yet for Syrian rebels — was organized by Abdelhakim Belhadj, who was the newly-appointed head of the Tripoli Military Council.
In March 2011 Stevens, the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan rebels, worked directly with Belhadj while he headed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.
Stevens' last meeting on Sept. 11 was with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi "to negotiate a weapons transfer in an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists."
The book, the authors of which were not named, is scheduled to be released in 2014.
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