Libyan women's rights activist and attorney Salwa Bughaigis was assassinated June 25 by five gunmen who broke into her home in Benghazi's Hawari district and shot her in the head. Her husband, Essam al-Ghariani, recently elected to Benghazi's Municipal Council, is missing, and presumed kidnapped. A gardener was also shot and wounded in the attack. Bughaigis had just returned home after voting in Libya's second general election since the 2011 revolution, and posted pictures on her Facebook page of herself casting her vote. She was also on local TV earlier in the day, speaking about ongoing clashes in the city, which she said she could see from her house. She urged people to go out and vote in spite of the violence.

US military forces conducted a secret operation in Libya June 15, capturing Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the alleged mastermind behind the September 2012 attacks on US facilities in Benghazi that killed four Americans including US Ambassador Chris Stevens. Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm John Kirby released a statement June 17 saying, "There were no civilian casualties related to this operation, and all US personnel involved in the operation have safely departed Libya." According to the US State Department, Abu Khatallah is a senior leader in Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia [BBC backgrounder]. According to the BBC, he has been charged in a federal court in Washington, DC, with killing a person in the course of an attack on a federal facility, providing material support to terrorists and weapons charges.

At least 14 people and possibly up to 10 more are reported to have been killed in fighting in Benghazi May 16 as forces led by Gen. Khalifa Hafter attacked an alliance of Islamist militias made up of the February 17 Brigade, Libya Shield No. 1 Brigade and Ansar al-Sharia. Gen. Hafter's attack on the militias was apparently not approved by the central government in Tripoli, which has disavowed it. Acting Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni condemned the operation as "a coup against the revolution." The fighting is the heaviest in Libya since the 2011 revolution. Eye-witnesses describe a city in chaos, with warplanes streaking low over rooftops, tanks on the streets, aerial bombardments and door-to-door combat. The February 17 Brigade claims to have shot down a helicopter used in the attacks. Fighting continues, with with all shops shut and the city virtually closed down—including the internet for much of the day, supposedly due to a short circuit. (Shabab Libya, Libya Herald, BBC News, May 16)

Republicans are continuing to bleed "Benghazigate" dry, shamelessly exploiting the four men who died at the consulate in the Libyan city on Sept. 11, 2012 for political ends, even as they accuse the White House of having betrayed them to their deaths. The House of Representatuves has now authorized creation of a select committee to investigate the already exhaustively investigated affair, seizing upon the release of supposedly damning e-mails from a White House aide. As the LA Times notes in an editorial: "The administration should have released the Sept. 14, 2012, email from deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes long ago. That said, it's anything but a smoking gun. Referring to protests over the video throughout the Muslim world, Rhodes suggested that [then-US ambassador the UN Susan] Rice stress that 'these protests were rooted in an Internet video and not a broader failure of policy.'" The video in question is of course the notorious Innocence of Muslims pseudo-film, produced as a provocation by Islamophobes. That the White House sought to "spin" the consulate attack as a protest against the video that got out of hand, rather than a pre-planned act of "terrorism" that the administration failed to stop, is plausible. (Although the distinction also points to the elastic nature of the word "terrorism.") Now, all too predictably, right-wing commentators like American Thinker are arguing that the video had nothing to do with the attack, while lefty outlets like Mother Jones are insisting that yes it did after all. (The question of whether the attackers were linked to al-Qaeda has been similarly politicized.)

A Dec. 28 New York Times feature by David D. Kirkpatrick purports to categorically dismiss a role for al-Qaeda in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, sure to win cheers from Democrats and jeers from Republicans. But the notion of any objectivity on this highly politicized question is dubious at best. In the paragraph where he attempts to define terms, Kirkpatrick poses it as an either/or:

Libya's ongoing internal chaos briefly made world news Dec. 5 as a US national, a teacher at the Benghazi International School named Ronald Smith, was shot to death under circumstances that are still unclear. Whoever was behind it, it will be a headache for Obama, whose opponents are still milking the "Benghazigate" scandal. (CNN, Dec. 5) Other than when a US citizen dies, the world media take little note the near-daily violence in the city. On the same day Smith was killed, a member of Libya's Special Forces and a young cadet were gunned down in Benghazi. And the head of the Presidential Guards of the city, Anwar al-Dous, lost a leg when an explosive device detonated under his car. (Libya Herald, Dec. 5) Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou, speaking at a Franco-African summit in Paris, responded by implying that Libya could be next for intervention:  "Our fear is that Libya falls into the hands of Salafist terrorists and that the state becomes like Somalia... Sadly, we're seeing that the terrorists are there and that armed Salafist militia are in Benghazi, with people being killed almost every day. We must stabilize Libya." (Reuters, Dec. 6)

A Tunisian court on Jan. 7 unconditionally released the only suspect held in custody over the deadly attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Ali Harzi, was ordered freed for lack of evidence, but must remain in the greater Tunis area pending further investigations. Harzi had been detained in Turkey and deported to Tunisia, where he had been held for months. The FBI was first granted access to Harzi for questioning in December. Shortly after the FBI interviewed Harzi for three hours, the Tunisian wing of the militant group Ansar al-Sharia released pictures of the three investigating FBI agents online. 

Talk of former Republican Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel's imminent nomination as Obama's new Secreaty of Defense has sparked all the predictable reactions—but they don't neatly break down along lines of right and left. MondoWeiss says the pick is "setting up a battle between the left and right flanks of the Israel lobby and between realist supporters of Hagel and his neoconservative detractors." We have, of course, pointed out that "realist" or "pragmatist" is  a euphemism for what is more properly termed "paleocon." While the neocons harbor hubristic dreams of re-making the Middle East (and the rest of the world) along lines favorable to the US and Israel, the paleocons favor stability under authoritarian regimes. Neither position is even remotely progressive, and it is frustrating to see ostensible leftists get caught up in a Beltway intrigue between rival currents within the political right.