Benghazi: Episode 3 - Barefoot

This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human The greatest anti-colonial revolt in history And one greased cartridge that lights the fuse This is the great Indian rebellion of 1857 I'm Anita Arnan and I'm William Durumpal And we host Empire, the World History Podcast, from Gaulhanger We've just released a gripping new series on the uprising that shook the British Empire to its core How did an army mutiny become a national rebellion? And how did it give birth eventually to the British Raj? You can watch now on Spotify, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts Pushkin Hey Leon here. Before we get to this episode I want to let you know that you can binge the entire season of Fiasco Benghazi Right now, ad-free, by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the Fiasco Apple Podcast Show page Or visit pushkin.fm slash plus Now onto the show Please note this episode contains descriptions of violence Some listeners may find disturbing Previously on Fiasco The Arab Spring had arrived in Libya They were saying wake up, wake up Benghazi This is the day you're waiting for It's not usual to send in a diplomat and basically say make your way I was very worried about its security Six months after the uprising, Libya is flooded with weapons and faces of potential power vacuum The country is now at risk of being taken over by extremists You Americans need to watch out because the people who you're dealing with are not your friends Man plus X equals Islamic terrorist Islamic terrorist minus X equals man But what is X? You need to listen You're listening to a scene from a low-budget movie called Innocence of Muslims It's not even really a movie Technically, it's a 14-minute trailer for a movie that was never released The trailer was posted on YouTube in July of 2012 Muhammad is Allah Messenger and the Qawaran is our Constitution The innocence of Muslims video is a crude piece of anti-Islamic propaganda In it, the Islamic prophet Muhammad is played by a boyish white actor And he's depicted as a charlatan, a womanizer and a bloodthirsty tyrant He kills men, captures women and shows men And what's more, he does this all in the name of God What God is this? The video was produced in California by an Egyptian American man named Nikula Baceli Nikula He said he made the film in protest of violence perpetrated around the world by Islamic extremists It was an amateurish production Nikula used his own house as a soundstage He hired the actors to backstage.com and told them they were shooting an epic called Desert Warriors According to the script he gave them, the film wasn't about Muhammad at all But just some guy named George It was only in post-production that the name Muhammad was dubbed in Raised him as one of your slaves if you must What shall I call you? His name is Muhammad, the father unknown Nikula had his 21-year-old son post the video online And for a while, it went virtually unseen Then, about two months later in September of 2012, a new version of the video appeared on YouTube This time translated into Arabic Clips from the video aired an Egyptian television with heated commentary from a pundit who called it unspeakable And asked, how long will I be called a terrorist for growing my beard? The video exploded in Egypt Political leaders and preachers publicly denounced it and pop to her Facebook groups called for protests As tensions continued to rise, the American embassy in Cairo decided to address the video Around noon on September 11th, they released a written statement Saying, quote, the embassy of the United States and Cairo condemns the continuing efforts By misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions The statement did little to quell the outrage in Cairo Within a matter of hours, hundreds of protesters had gathered outside the American embassy Developing story out of Cairo-Egypt to understand that protesters are outside the US embassy there There are about a thousand of them and protesters have from what we understand storm the walls of the embassy and pull down US flags Some of the protesters scaled the walls carrying down an American flag and setting it on fire Egyptian riot police are on the scene and they are trying to protect the walls They are protesting a video, they say, defames the prophet Muhammad Egyptian police Cairo protest was only the latest flare up in a long-running conflict over the depiction of Muhammad Muslim protesters directed more violent anger today against newspapers in Denmark and other European countries that have printed cartoons of Muhammad from Cairo In most Islamic practices, it's considered blasphemous to create any visual representation of Muhammad Over the years, some self-described secularists have made a point of violating that rule in the name of free speech The cartoons portraying the prophet Muhammad as violent, womanizing, first published in Denmark and since in 17 of the countries One of the most dramatic examples occurred back in 2006 after a Danish newspaper published several cartoons of Muhammad and protests broke out across the Arab world They were Muslim protests in at least a dozen countries today Now in Cairo in 2012, it looked like the same thing again with Egyptians rising up against the deliberate provocation that had originated in the West And it was happening on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks when American embassies across the region were on high alert anyway The embassy was closed for business that day as a security measure and we were working from our compound for the most part This is Gregory Hicks. In 2012, he was the deputy chief of the American mission in Libya Chris Stevens is number two at the embassy in Tripoli. On September 11th, Hicks had been left in charge while Stevens took a short trip to Benghazi And I remember texting Chris in Benghazi and asking him, are you watching what's going on in Cairo? Stevens told Hicks he had been unaware of the protests For all the tensions erupting in Egypt over the innocence of Muslims video, Libya was quiet And then when the sun went down, we were kind of relieved, you know, wiping the sweat off our brows that we had not been targeted in Tripoli and they had not been targeted in Benghazi It seemed like the day had passed without incident. Hicks was relieved I had basically said, okay, we're good, we're through the day, 9-11 is going to be over and the only thing that happened was in Cairo And so I went to watch a television program And about 9-45 or thereabouts, John Martinick the RSO ran up to my room He's yelling, Greg, Greg, that consulates under attack Hicks checked his phone and saw missed calls from both Ambassador Stevens and a number he didn't recognize He tried to call back but no one picked up Then Hicks got through to Stevens by dialing the unknown number And he said, Greg, we're under attack, I think I said okay and before I could say anything else he cut the line I'm Leon Nefak. From prologue projects and pushkin industries, this is Viasco and Ghazi I could hear these shots, I could hear the grenades I turned to the Ambassador and said, I'm going to start shooting and when I die, I want you to pick up my rifle and keep on fighting It's taken to a hospital and the government won't tell us where he is We already got the buddy, we got very mains I thought I was alone, I thought everybody else was dead Episode 3, Barefoot, the attack in Benghazi We'll be right back The Greatest Anti-Colonial Revolt in History And one greased cartridge that lights the fuse This is the great Indian rebellion of 1857 I'm Anita Arnan and I'm William Durimple And we host Empire, the World History Podcast from Gaulhanger We've just released a gripping new series on the uprising that shook the British Empire to its core How did an army mutiny become a national rebellion? And how did it give birth eventually to the British Raj? You can watch now on Spotify, on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts Chris arrived to Benghazi Airport Monday morning Monday, this is the day was September 10th So I was there at the airport to World Commun This is Baker Habib Born and raised in Libya, he started working with the State Department when the US reconciled with the Gaddafi regime After the Libyan revolution, Habib became especially close with Chris Stevens When Stevens was posted in Benghazi as an envoy to the anti-Gaddafi opposition Now, with Gaddafi gone, Stevens was coming back to Benghazi to check in with his local contacts And I remember when he told him World Come Back and he said I'm pretty glad to be back home So he considered Benghazi as whole Why exactly Stevens decided to make his trip to Benghazi when he did has never been firmly established But the general reason was that he understood the city's importance as one of Libya's cultural and political centers Benghazi was the seat of the revolution that had toppled Gaddafi If Tripoli was Libya's Washington DC, Benghazi was New York or LA Stevens believed that the US needed a strong presence there While in town, Stevens was going to preside over the opening of a kind of study center at a local school that was owned and operated by Baker Habib It would be called the American Corner The idea was that Libyans could take English classes there, find information on college admissions in the US, and so on It would be an engine of what some might call American soft power When Stevens arrived in Benghazi, he and Habib set about finalizing the details for the opening I spent all day long with him on Monday and Tuesday I went out a little bit and back again Last time at Sohem it was about five-ish They had an appointment with the Turkish council at that time So I would say the last time I saw Chris Stevens that walked with him It was about five, five, ten, something like that After Habib left, Stevens took his last meeting of the day with a Turkish diplomat at the American compound Our compound was in a residential neighborhood And it didn't look unlike any of the other houses in the area So about as long as one of their blocks, like a city block almost It had cement walls all the way around it This is Scott Wickland Trained in the Navy as a specialist in conducting rescue missions In 2012, he was working for the State Department as a DS agent DS short for diplomatic security On September 11th, Wickland was on day 41 of a 70 day posting at the compound in Benghazi We had four buildings on it, a little orchard on it, we had a pool We had a soccer field where the guards would play soccer and sometimes we would go play with them As you heard in episode two, the American compound in Benghazi had been leased by the State Department after the Libyan revolution The four structures on the grounds included a barracks for local Libyan guards, a canteen, and a building known as Villa-C where Stevens slept and met with visitors After Stevens' final meeting of the night, business at the compound began to wind down Stevens retired to his residence in Villa-C One of his State Department colleagues, an IT specialist named Sean Smith, was in his bedroom in the same building In a video game called EVONLINE and chatting with other gamers One DS agent was in the compound security center, Scott Wickland and two other agents were outside At the end of the evening, we were sitting by the pool and talking You know, I was wearing flip-flops, just kind of relaxing Then, a little after 9.30pm, Wickland heard a sound in the distance It sounded like chanting to me, you know, like a crowd chanting something I didn't know what it was, and then the sound kind of came nearer and nearer approaching the compound And when I made out Alhu Akbar with our current risk profile, we need to do something Wickland and the other DS agents snapped into action We're already stressed out because the ambassadors here, it's a dangerous location It's September 11th, we're on this kind of high alert, we don't know if they're armed We don't know if they're peaceful, we just don't know And the automatic response from my end was, I need to go get ready in case So I turned to the other guys and I said, go get your stuff The DS agents who were with Wickland by the pool ran to get their weapons Wickland already had some of his gear with him So he took the role of securing Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith, the IT specialist Both of them were in the living quarters of Villací, which were separated from the main area by what Wickland describes as a metal jail cell door I ran into a villa-sea and locked the building, ran over into kind of our living area And I locked this jail cell door You could like stick your arm through the door, but a person could not crawl through As Wickland secured the villa's living quarters, he could tell that the group he had heard approaching the compound was breaching the main gate outside It appeared that most of the Libyan guards on duty had scattered, allowing the attackers to rush in effectively unopposed Sean Smith tapped out a message to the people he was playing video games with Fuck, he wrote, gunfire Wickland ran into his bedroom and put on body armor and helmet And as soon as I came out of my bedroom, Ambassador Stevens was standing kind of in this common area He was ready for bed, you know, he was wearing shorts and like a white t-shirt He had his body armor with him in his helmet and he was kind of finishing putting that on And right away I told him that we needed to get him in the safe haven Sean Smith came out shortly after that and I put Sean Smith in the safe haven and we sat The safe haven was essentially a big closet surrounded by cement walls Wickland turned off the lights as he ushered Stevens and Smith inside There was a sliding door on it that I had opened and I was kind of kneeling in the entry way of the safe haven And I had a shotgun, a pistol, and an M4 And I think that this is actually where I kicked off my sandals because crouching down on sandals, it just wasn't comfortable Now barefoot, Wickland steadied his M4 rifle in the darkness of the safe haven and waited Around 9.45pm, Chris Stevens' friend Baker Habib got a call from one of the DS agents in the compound He addressed Habib by the nickname Stevens had given him, Bo The diplomatic security agents, one of them he called me and told me hey, Bo was under attack So for me, I couldn't process my reaction or couldn't understand at that time what he meant by attack, it cannot be Habib didn't want to believe that the compound was under attack but he knew what he was hearing I could hear these shots, I can hear the grenades Habib jumped in his car and headed to the compound where he had been with Chris Stevens four hours earlier From his position in the safe haven, Scott Wickland could hear the gunfire too He could also hear the attackers begin to hit the main doors of Villacere trying to break in Then suddenly he could see them He could see through the jail cell door into this entryway into Villacere Which is where I saw all the attackers rush in when they finally blew open the doors I saw him come in the building and I saw that they were carrying weapons I saw AK-47s The RPG I saw grenades I knew that we were in trouble I was immediately on the radio saying where is everybody, where is my backup? Where are you guys? I had to whisper because people were in the building and I said they're in the building I need immediate assistance And I said this over and over and I didn't hear a response There were four other DS agents in the compound but none of them were answering Wickland's calls I was scared wondering if the other guys were okay, were they killed, were they captured? I had no idea As the attackers rushed into the villa, Wickland could hear the commotion they were causing It sounded like they were breaking glass, ripping paintings off the walls and destroying furniture As people started to flood into the building, I started thinking, well this is it I mean it's only a matter of time before they come over and find us And sure enough, two individuals came over to the jail cell door One of the individuals started fumbling with one of his grenades and I thought, you know, he's gonna blow the locks up with his grenades And that's when I turned to the ambassador and said, if they blow the locks, I'm gonna start shooting And when I die, I want you to pick up my rifle and keep on fighting Wickland trained the sight of his rifle on the chest of one of the men standing at the jail cell door But he held his fire, figuring that as soon as he pulled the trigger, he would reveal his location to all the other attackers Instead of using the grenades, one of the guys uses the butt of his rifle and just kind of bangs on the door a little bit But nothing happened after that, they turned and walked away It was a massive sigh of relief for me, I thought, like, gosh, maybe we're going to survive, maybe we're gonna be in the clear Shortly after that, Wickland saw the attackers start to leave the building and he breathed the tentative sigh of relief What I didn't realize was that they had taken some fuel cans and started pouring it on All those broken frames and the furniture and they lit it on fire The compound had recently acquired a new generator It was stored near the main gate next to big jugs of diesel fuel It seemed that before leaving the villa, the attackers had poured the fuel all over the premises I got a hint of that smell and it was smoked And I didn't know how bad it was, I didn't know, you know, I couldn't see any fire, I couldn't tell it, but I could smell it And then I knew, well, now we have a different problem on our hands From his post in Tripoli, 400 miles away, Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was trying to get a hand in the house He had spoken to Stevens just after 9.45pm when Stevens told him the mission was under attack Now, Hicks had to figure out how to help The first thing I'm doing is, okay, track down all of our embassy leadership people, get them to the operations center And say, get on the horn with everybody you know and find out what exactly is going on Hicks and his colleagues in Tripoli developed a kind of phone trip Some were trying to reach the DS agents of the compound Meanwhile, Hicks was communicating with Libyan government officials in hopes of mobilizing some kind of rescue I was calling senior officials in the government in Tripoli and because they are the individuals who have the responsibility to react I mean, this was a criminal attack on a diplomatic facility in Libyan territory But the process was hampered by the reality of telecommunication in Libya Service inside the embassy was so unreliable that Hicks and his team had to go outside to their courtyard We're all walking around, it's dead dark except for the stars overhead And the lights that are on in our compound and we're all walking around Dousing for telephone signal When we got the signal, we would immediately start dialing on our phones Frantically to try to make the next phone call And then we would, Amibla, like, kind of come together and we would share the information that we had gathered And then we would all spread out again, dousing for signal, and then we would be on the phone again He was through these phone calls that Hicks and his State Department colleagues formed a rough understanding of how the attack in Benghazi was playing out We heard, you know, it was dozens of armed individuals that entered the compound Rocket-pelled grenades and rifle fire and automatic fire and it was taking place As Hicks dialed out, he tried Ambassador Stevens again and again I was trying to call him every few minutes and getting no answer He probably had put his phone on silence to not attract attention to their presence I don't know, but he'd never answered the phone again When he wasn't calling Stevens' phone or his phone, he was just trying to call him When he wasn't calling Stevens' phone or his contacts in the Libyan government, Deputy Chief of Mission Greg Hicks was calling the CIA Specifically, he was calling the station chief at the CIA outpost in Benghazi, a facility known internally as the CIA Annex It was located less than a mile from the State Department compound I was in touch with the Annex Chief, so I was talking to him about the security team from the Annex and Benghazi moving expeditiously to rescue our people at our facility The Annex was home-based for about two dozen Americans, including some CIA agents and the team of private security contractors In an agreement between the CIA and the State Department, those contractors could be tapped to respond to an emergency at the diplomatic compound nearby That was why Greg Hicks wanted to talk to the station chief And I asked him quite pointedly, are you going to be able to meet your obligations under our agreement? Separately, the contractors at the CIA Annex heard distress calls from the compound They pulled on their gear, grabbed their weapons, and loaded up into armored cars But before they could leave, they were held up by the Annex Chief He was in charge of directing the contractors, and for reasons that would later be litigated and relitigated in the media and by Congress, he told the contractors to wait I know the Benghazi Annex Chief personally, and he's a decent man He was put in an awful position that night, where he had to make choices to risk the people under his authority in his compound to save our people and the consulate If the station chief were to send the contractors to the compound, he would be leaving the CIA annex largely defenseless So, instead of sending his own people out, he tried to reach the leaders of friendly local militias to ask for their help The contractors got frustrated They knew that the passing minutes were only giving the attackers an edge Eventually, a call came on the radio from one of the DS agents at the compound If you guys don't get here soon, we're going to die With that, the CIA contractors broke protocol 20 minutes after they had first heard about the attack, they left for the compound without the station chiefs go ahead At the compound, Scott Wickland was adjusting to a new threat Fire I turned to the ambassador and Sean Smith, and I was like, hey, we gotta get to the bathroom now The idea behind moving to the bathroom was that Wickland, Stevens, and Smith would have access to water there They could wet a towel and shove it under the base of the door, then open the small window vent and wait out the fire Wickland figured the villa was made of concrete The stuff inside of it might catch fire, but the structure itself would not I mean, outside there are attackers inside, there's fire I'm more likely to survive fire if I'm in the bathroom than I am to survive attackers who are outside I knew that going outside was not an option at all, and so we started crawling It was eight meters from the safe haven to the bathroom, about the length of two cars Wickland strapped his rifle across his chest and began to guide Stevens in a crawl with his left hand holding the body armor on Stevens's back Sean Smith followed behind them By the time we reached the corner, so two meters, the smoke was super thick I mean, that's how quickly it filled up with smoke And it wasn't smoke like a campfire This was smoke like it just entered your eyeballs, it went in your mouth, and it was just putrid It was black, thick, smoke that's a mixture of burning rubber and plastic and caustic fumes that just choke you Could you see it all? No, nothing There was no breathable air from like the ceiling all the way down to, you know, the floor And so I was like kind of cupping my hands on the floor and breathing, you know, the last inch of air that was left And that's how I was still talking, and so I was still saying, follow me, follow me, and I was hitting the floor So it would make like a popping noise, and so they could hear me where I was, where to go, and I was just saying, Come on, we can make it, come on, we can make it, come on You know, I went at a slow pace, and I could feel embass or seawans on my left side, and then I didn't You know, I thought, well, he's right there, he's right behind me anyway No big deal, like he can still hear my voice, he can hear my hands, and I was still saying, come on, we can make it, come on, follow me, follow the sound of my voice Follow me, follow me, and I made it to the bathroom, and they didn't show up So I started feeling out into the hallway that led to the bathroom to see if I could feel them and pull them in And I didn't feel anything I searched until I was like about to pass out, like I could feel the light headness and like my body, like losing motor skills And I was really getting scared At that point, I realized, oh, it's either I die here, or I go outside Wickland knew he could get outside through his bedroom window, he just had to get there In a darkness, Wickland's rifle had somehow gotten tangled or stuck on the bathroom sink So he left it behind, stood upright, and ran to his room Once inside, he felt his way to the window and cranked it open And I kind of collapsed onto this little patio area that I have, and shortly after, it was just gunfire I mean, I believed it, you know, it was right on my position Wickland took cover behind a knee-high wall that surrounded the patio area outside his bedroom He could feel shard of cement hitting his face from where bullets were making contact around him It was just like getting blasted in the face by a shotgun And so I turned around and went back into the building to search for a master's savings and Sean Smith I went back in the window, and I was just yelling and screaming, hoping that one of the two of them could hear me And keep fighting, like, keep crawling towards my bedroom, I was yelling, I'm in my bedroom, I'm in my bedroom, follow my voice, follow me There was like a desk right by my doorway, and I was slamming that thing, hitting it Like, follow me, come to this noise, come to my voice Wickland stayed inside, until once again, he felt like he was going to pass out Then he turned around, climbed out the window, caught his breath, and went back in to try again I thought, if I turn my lamp on, maybe I'll be able to see it And so I went over, I feel, found my lamp on the side of my bed, turned it on, and I held it up to my face Because I couldn't see it, and I remember feeling the heat from the light bulb And I could just barely make out a light, that's how thick the smoke was Wickland says that each time he went back into the villa, he could only stay for about a minute Eventually, he knew he couldn't go back in at all He was also certain that by this point, after spending so much time inside the burning building, Chris Stevens and Sean Smith had to be dead My body didn't have any energy left, and I had been breathing in that smoke Oh man, it just makes me sick thinking about it I knew that if I went in one more time, that would have been it, I wouldn't have been coming back out I wouldn't be able to help out anybody if I was another casualty So I made the decision to climb up the ladder from the patio up to the roof It's worth underscoring that in that moment, climbing up onto the roof of a burning building felt like Wickland's best option It was like a frying pan, it was so hot Wickland pulled the aluminum ladder up behind him and took stock of his surroundings Perched up on the roof, he now had a slightly better sense of what was going on around him He tried again to reach the other DS agents who had been in the compound with him when the attack started The first thing that I did was I got on the radio and I was like, where the fuck is everybody? And I said, Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith are still in the burning building I needed immediate assistance and there wasn't a response Nobody got over the radio and said, yeah, we're coming to help you out It was just silence I thought I was alone, I thought everybody else was dead I thought the other agents were dead And I had blisters in my throat and in my mouth My feet were pretty messed up My breathing was pretty bad And so I developed a plan and my plan was that I was going to jump off the roof without shoes And I was going to run to the edge of Benghazi, I was going to steal a car and drive it to Egypt And that was my real plan While Wichland imagined ways of getting away from the compound, Baker Habib, Kristi-Mens's friend and colleague was desperate to get in I want to be inside the compound by Hoko Bay Krok, this is my aim at that time, I just want to be there As Habib drew closer to the front gates, he was stopped by a group of armed men So there, I found two cars, two trucks with heavy machine guns And it told them he just wanted to go in, they said no way you can't Habib didn't know who these men were or whether they were working with the attackers Either way, they had closed off the street So Habib turned his car around and drove to the back of the compound Which looked out onto a lively street where people had been dining when the attack began Habib got out of his car and tried to get a sense of the scene I could hear clearly, grenades and number of shots and grenades again The camp between the grenades I will say one to a minute's maximum As Habib stood near the back of the compound, a man carrying a missile launcher approached him and asked if he was a civilian Habib told him that he was and said I need to go to the building, I have to be there He said it's danger, I said no, let me do it Eventually, Habib left his car and began to walk back around to the front of the compound What is so is people with guns, people without guns And many people, you cannot imagine This was like a flow, it's like a three people getting in the gate It's unbelievable, the scene was unbelievable And no one knows what was going on at that time The flood of people Habib was seeing had shown up at the compound after word of the attack spread around Benghazi Through text messages, Facebook pages and phone calls It was hard to tell who was an attacker and who was just a rubber-necker trying to see what was going on at the American mission Later, this ambiguity would determine almost everything about how the attack in Benghazi was initially misunderstood in the United States Up on the roof, Scott Wickland didn't know what time it was Or how long it had been since he gave up on trying to find Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith After a while though, it seemed like the attackers had moved away from his position creating an opportunity for him to escape And I thought, well this might be my time pretty soon to carry out my plan Then I got a call over the radio and it was Dave Ubbin Dave Ubbin was another DS agent and Wickland's friend from training The two of them had been out by the pool together when the attackers first arrived at the compound They hadn't seen each other or spoken since Dave called and basically said, you know, Scott are you alive? I called back and I was like, yes, I'm still alive, I'm still here Where are you guys? I need some help And they said we're coming Wickland says the other DS agents came to the side of Villacere where he was hiding and signaled to him Wickland, still barefoot, climbed down the ladder and told them he thought Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith were still inside the building When I see them, it's like, oh my gosh, I might survive I might survive this because I now have my teammates, I'm not alone anymore That was the big thing for me was I thought I was alone like this entire time I thought it was just me Right away they were jumping in the burning building to try and find Ambassador Stevens and Sean Smith As the other DS agents took turns entering the building They were joined by the team of private contractors from the CIA annex After a firefight on their way into the compound The CIA contractors had managed to scare off some of the attackers, at least temporarily Now they joined in the desperate search for Stevens and Smith Entering the villa through the window, Scott Wickland had identified, doing a lap inside as long as they could stand it and circling back out again Finally, one of the DS agents found Sean Smith He was dead, apparently of smoke and elation, and the agent pulled his body out of the villa It wasn't long after that it seemed like the fighting might start up again We start feeling pressure from attackers again There's people who are kind of hiding out at one of the gates And so we're starting to feel like we have to get moving We have to get out of here before there's a second attack Though they still hadn't found Stevens The DS agents and the contractors decided it was time to evacuate to the nearby CIA base The DS agents went first, packing into one of the armored vehicles that was kept at the compound Despite his condition, Wickland got into the driver's seat He had been in Benghazi the longest, and he knew the way to the annex Meanwhile, the CIA contractors loaded Sean Smith's body into the car they'd arrived in After beating back another advance from the attackers, they pulled out of the compound too It was 11.17pm, about an hour and a half after the attack first started Wherever Ambassador Stevens was now, it wasn't with the Americans Baker Habib worried that his friend had been kidnapped At that time I was in contact with those people who got Sean Smith's body I thought Chris was out of the compound at that time So you see, just came to my mind that the Chris would be tortured first, then he killed by them And everything just in my mind, so that time was terrible At the Embassy in Tripoli, Greg Hicks had been trying to solicit some kind of help from somewhere before another wave of attacks could hit the Americans At what point were you told that basically there wasn't any help coming from outside of Libya? That was Africom telling the defense attaché that they had nothing available to send And that happened at about 11.17pm Africom is part of the Department of Defense It's responsible for American military activity in Africa On the night of the attack, Africom told Hicks that the nearest military resources were fighter planes stationed in Aviano, Italy That was at least a two or three hour flight from Benghazi On top of that, there were no tankers available for the planes to refuel Essentially that's why there was no military response because the military wasn't ready for any eventuality on 9.11 It appeared that the Americans only option was to launch a rescue mission from Tripoli So a team of private security contractors based in the capital boarded a flight to Benghazi We'll be right back The greatest anti-colonial revolt in history And one greased cartridge that lights the fuse This is the great Indian rebellion of 1857 I'm Anita Arnan and I'm William Durimple And we host Empire, the World History Podcast from Gaulhanger We've just released a gripping new series on the uprising that shook the British Empire to its core How did an army mutiny become a national rebellion? And how did it give birth eventually to the British Raj? You can watch now on Spotify, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts Even after the Americans evacuated the Benghazi compound The large crowd of Libyans, Baker Habib, had seen nearby, continued to grow So you see, many people just coming and keep coming to the American mission Because people were curious to know what was going on at that time and what happened Many of them just was to be there with their cell phone to just record what was going on What you're hearing is a cell phone video recorded by a man named Fad Al-Bakush Who later shared his footage with American news networks Some people looted the compound, taking everything from television sets to coils of rope One guy even picked up a container of chocolate syrup and walked through the compound squirting it into his mouth Then, around 1 o'clock in the morning, someone found a man in Villa C He was unresponsive and covered in soot In the cell phone video, you can see a group of people pull the man's body out of the villa You can hear them yelling in Arabic, he's alive, he's alive Later, some American commentators would say the Libyans dragged the man through the streets In reality, they immediately brought him to the Benghazi Medical Center And within 15 minutes, he was in a hospital bed Soon after, the American embassy in Tripoli received a call from Scott Wickland's phone It was the same number that Greg Hicks had reached Chris Stevens on earlier in the night But this time, it wasn't Stevens on the other line It was a man speaking Arabic, saying he was at the hospital with someone who looked like the ambassador Hicks and his colleagues pressed the man for something more concrete But he would not provide a photograph or any other confirmation We were very, very focused on asking the kinds of questions that would reveal whether we were talking to a friend or an enemy The Americans felt like they couldn't take any information at face value It was more than possible that Wickland's cell phone had been stolen from the compound And that the attackers were now trying to lure them into a trap Then this whole confusing conversation begins where we understand he's taken to a hospital And the government keeps telling us, well, we know he's safe And we keep going, where is he? And they won't tell us where he is So our view is that he's a prisoner and not in a safe place Baker Habib, who was in touch with State Department officials Volunteer to go to the hospital and see for himself if the man was Chris Stevens But he was told he couldn't go It turned out there was intelligence saying that because of his close association with the Americans, Habib might be a target too So it told them how about sending someone I trust and someone in you, Chris Stevens very well He could go there without any problem So that plan was set in motion And after a while, Habib's friend called him from the hospital So he called me back and told me that I'm next to him Yes, his Chris Stevens was 100% Stevens was dead Habib's friend said someone needed to come get his body from the hospital And Habib told him he was on his way Chris Stevens was reported killed in action at 4.15am By that time, the Americans would gather at the CIA base, including Scott Wickland, his fellow DS agents, and the CIA contractors Had all spent hours bracing themselves for another attack Though locals didn't officially know where the CIA annex was, it was possible that someone had tracked the Americans as they made their way there from the compound There had been several moments while Wickland was driving to the annex when he thought someone was following him When he got there, the tail was gone, but he and the other Americans wanted to be ready for the worst We prepared by putting people up on the roof and making sure that they were armed You know, we had people monitoring to make sure that we could see these people And I stayed inside just trying to kind of recuperate a little bit Were you able to get medical attention at that point? I mean, there wasn't a whole lot that we could do for me I got some shoes which was great Soon enough, it turned out Wickland and the others had been right to worry Whoever was trying to expel them from Benghazi had figured out where they were Aided by night vision goggles, the Americans prevailed in two brief firefights But everyone was dreading the sunrise When light would give the attackers a clearer view of the CIA base At 5am, reinforcements finally arrived from Tripoli Among them was a CIA contractor named Glenn Doherty Who joined a number of others including a contractor named Tyrone Woods on the roof of the main building As the sky began to turn from black to deep blue The plan was to get every American out of Benghazi as soon as humanly possible But then You know, was I expecting mortars? No, I was not expecting mortars And I definitely wasn't expecting the accuracy of the mortars In the space of 90 seconds, six mortars hit the Benghazi CIA base Three of them exploded on the roof of the main building where most of the Americans were hiding You know, I was standing right below the ceiling of where they were impacting But I think the heaviest part of the entire experience was knowing that You know, I've... I have some friends up on that roof And I don't know why they're not answering the radio call I don't know how they're doing Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods were both killed in the explosions Another CIA contractor, Mark Geist and Scott Wickman's friend Dave Ubbin were critically injured After that, the attackers seemed to withdraw And the Americans prepared to leave Benghazi At the airport, the plane of the triply team had used to get to Benghazi with still sitting on the tarmac It was too small to fit everyone who needed to evacuate Which meant that those needing immediate medical attention, including Scott Wickland, were sent ahead In the meantime, one of Wickland's fellow DS agents called Baker Habib to update him on the situation A group of Libyans, the Americans trusted, had gone to the Benghazi Medical Center to retrieve Steven's body I wasn't my way to the hospital, then I received a call from one of the DS And he said, Bo, don't go to a hospital He said, why? He said, we already got the buddy We got the remains, just come straight forward to the airport When Habib arrived at the airport, he said goodbye to his friend He was there, the airport, he's in front of me, lifeless And he was there, in the city he loved to support, to back up and to open their gate to the United States So he spoke to him I told him, we could rest Whatever it takes, I would do my best To bring those cramers to justice Other Libyans who had known Chris Stevens during his time in Benghazi came to the Tarmac as well Many of them were in tears Aware that the American evacuation probably meant the end of the US presence in Benghazi Greg Hicks was aware of it too I distinctly remember arguing that if we leave then we've lost They went, that was the purpose of the attack, it was to chase us out of the country So my view was that we needed to take some time, regroup, rebuild, and then continue our job The Libyan Air Force provided a cargo plane for the remaining Americans The bodies of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glenn Doherty were loaded in as well After a stop in Tripoli, Scott Wickland and the others boarded a plane for Europe We loaded up on the plane and there were four coffins I've really been looking at these coffins and these people And silently trying to figure out what just happened On the next episode of The Asco, the attack in Benghazi enters the bloodstream of American politics It took the President 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi, an active chair For a list of books, articles, and documentaries we used in our research Follow the link in our show notes The Asco is a production of Prologue Projects and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries The show is produced by Andrew Parsons, Ula Kulpa, Sam Lee, and me, Leon Mayfunk With editorial support from Sam Graham Felsen and Madeline Kaplan Our researcher was Francis Carr Our score was composed by Dan English, Joe Valley, and Noah Hecht Additional music by Nick Silvester, Joel St. Julian, Billy Libby, and Little Cheddar Studios Our theme song is by Spatial Relations, Audio Mix by Rob Buyers, Michael Rayfield, and Johnny Vinc Evans Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips & Y Copyright Council provided by Peter Yassi at Yassi Butler, PLLC Thanks to Archive.org, Julianne Himelstein, Mike Clark, David Croupatrick, Fad Albacouche, Angela Giroudani, and Mitch Suckoff Special thanks to Lubinary, and thank you for listening The Greatest Anti-Colonial Revolt in History And one greased cartridge that lights the fuse This is the great Indian Rebellion of 1857 I'm Anita Arnan, and I'm William Durimple And we host Empire, the World History Podcast, from Gaul Hanger We've just released a gripping news story On the uprising that shook the British Empire to its core How did an army mutiny become a national rebellion? And how did it give birth eventually to the British Raj? You can watch now on Spotify, on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts This is an I Heart Podcast Guaranteed Human