U.S. military and Federal Bureau of Investigation personnel have captured a senior suspect in the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, according to U.S. officials.
The suspect, Ahmed Abu Khattalah, is currently in custody outside the U.S. but authorities plan to bring him to federal court in Washington, D.C., where charges have been filed against him. He is the most high-profile of the suspects wanted in the attack on two U.S. compounds, in which four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed. The attack has prompted sharp criticism of the Obamaadministration by Republican lawmakers.
The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi in flames on September 11, 2012. Reuters
Officials said the suspect was captured in the Benghazi area by special operations forces and FBI personnel, none of whom were hurt in the snatch-and-grab operation. He was grabbed in a nighttime raid on Sunday and is now being questioned by a special interrogation unit, an official said. He faces a murder charge that could carry the death penalty, another official said.
President Barack Obama said in a statement that he "recently authorized an operation in Libya to detain an individual charged for his role in these attacks, Ahmed Abu Khatallah. "
Mr. Obama, speaking in Pittsburgh, said Mr. Khatallah's capture sent a clear message to the world: "We will find you."
"When Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those responsible, and we will bring them to justice," the president said. He praised the courage and precision of U.S. special operations forces in the capture of the suspect and said he has remained committed to finding those responsible for killing the four Americans.
U.S. diplomats "need to know that this country has their back and will always go after anybody who goes after us," Mr. Obama said. He said Mr. Khatallah is now being transported to the U.S.
Immediately after he was grabbed, Mr. Khattallah was taken to a U.S. vessel, though his current location is unknown, according to another U.S. official. That U.S. official said Libya wasn't informed of the operation beforehand.
A separate official said Mr. Khattallah is still being interrogated by the high-value interrogation group, a multiagency outfit created by the Obama administration to conduct sensitive intelligence-gathering interrogations before senior terrorism suspects are read their Miranda rights.
A Pentagon spokesman said in a statement that Mr. Khatallah "is in U.S. custody in a secure location outside of Libya. There were no civilian casualties related to this operation, and all U.S. personnel involved in the operation have safely departed Libya."
A criminal complaint filed last July in federal court was unsealed Tuesday, charging Mr. Khatallah with killing a person in the course of an attack on a U.S. facility, providing material support to terrorists, and using a firearm during a crime. While the most serious charge makes Mr. Khatallah potentially eligible for the death penalty, the Justice Department typically takes months to decide whether to seek such a punishment.
Attorney General Eric Holder said more charges could be filed against the suspect in coming days.
U.S. officials describe Mr. Khatallah as the leader of the Benghazi chapter of Ansar al-Shariah, an Islamist militia in the city. He allegedly directed some of the attackers whodescended on the U.S. consulate and a nearby Central Intelligence Agency outpost. U.S. diplomat Sean Smith and security workers and ex-Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were also killed in the attack.
Mr. Khatallah has previously denied the allegations he directed the attack, saying he was present at the consulate the night it happened to try to calm tensions and direct people he described as protesters to go home.
Since the consulate attack, Mr. Khatallah has been protected by a network of loosely affiliated Islamist militias, many of whom have warned their rival factions in city and national politicians in Tripoli that they would react violently should Mr. Khatallah be arrested as a result of his alleged role in the consulate attacks.
However, that network of militias has been targeted in recent weeks in a series of attacks by a rival group of armed units led by a former Gadhafi-era general and political opposition leader named Khalifa al-Hiftar. Mr. Hiftar gathered a coalition of forces to attack the Islamist militants throughout Benghazi, and they have successfully killed and scattered some of the militia ranks that stood with Mr. Khatallah.
Since the incident, Mr. Khatallah has boasted he had nothing to fear and he remained living in his family home, with little outward signs of beefed up personal security. A neighbor of Mr. Khatallah reported seeing him in his garden over the weekend, apparently before the U.S. forces swept in.
Several Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), a longtime critic of the Obama administration's terrorism policies, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), called for Mr. Khattallah to be held at the prison at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Mr. Holder quickly rejected that idea, saying he will be brought to trial by jury. Mr. Holder called the capture of the terrorist suspect "a significant milestone in our efforts to ensure justice is served for the heinous and cowardly attack on our facilities in Benghazi.''
"Even as we begin the process of putting Khattallah on trial and seeking his conviction before a jury, our investigation will remain ongoing as we work to identify and arrest any co-conspirators. This is our pledge; we owe the victims of the Benghazi attack and their loved ones nothing less,'' he said.
Top Republican lawmakers who have been sharply critical of the events in Benghazi said the capture was long overdue and that the U.S. should move quickly to extract intelligence from Mr. Khattallah.
"We should right now be getting from him as much intelligence as possible," House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R., Calif.) said in a statement.
House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), called on the Obama administration to "give our military professionals time to properly gather any useful intelligence he has."
The timing of the arrest couldn't have been better for the U.S., with many hurdles to launching an extraterritorial military operation out of the way in present-day Libya. Since its revolution in 2011, Libya has struggled to stand up its national institutions after decades of one-man rule under Moammar Gadhafi. The mandates of the country's interim authorities, the congress and the prime minister are in question as the nation prepares for elections next week.
Meanwhile, the country's legal codes are also in flux, as a national constitutional committee is currently debating a new foundation document outlining the powers of each branch of government.
The nation's intelligence chief, Salam al-Hassi, who was backed by Washington, tendered his resignation in early June, and the nation's defense minister has never managed to create a unified command-and-control structure over the uniformed armed forces.
"There is literally no one with the authority in government to OK such an operation, and there is no one who legally has an airtight reason not to allow it," said a diplomat in Tripoli.
The complexity of the mission in Benghazi, meanwhile, has also eased in the last couple of weeks.
The capture was first reported by The Washington Post.
—Michael R. Crittenden and Julian Barnes contributed to this article.
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7)-North Carolina
A man in North Carolina had a flat tire, pulled off on the side of the road, and proceeded to put a bouquet of flowers in front of the car and one behind it. Then he got back in the car to wait.

A passerby studied the scene as he drove by, and was so curious he turned around and went back. He asked the fellow what the problem was.The man replied, “I got a flat tahr.”

The passerby asked, “But what’s with the flowers?”
The man responded, “When you break down they tell you to put flares in the front and flares in the back. I never did understand it neither.”
Tennessee
A Tennessee State trooper pulled over a pickup on I-65. The trooper asked, “Got any ID?”
The driver replied, “Bout whut?”
Texas
The Sheriff pulled up next to the guy unloading garbage out of his pick-up into the ditch. The Sheriff asked, “Why are you dumping garbage in the ditch? Don’t you see that sign right over your head.”
“Yep,” he replied. “That’s why I’m dumpin’ it here, ‘cause it says: ‘Fine For Dumping Garbage.’”
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