Libya, J. Christopher Stevens | featured news

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday vowed to pursue a full accounting of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi "wherever that leads," but cautioned that it could take time for a complete picture to emerge.

The detailed information being prepared could be used to kill or capture some of the militants suspected in the deadly attack on the American mission in Benghazi.

Leaders of a House committee said Tuesday that U.S. diplomats in Libya made repeated requests for increased security for the consulate in Benghazi and were turned down by officials in Washington.

The presidential campaigns and their allies began the week with aggressive attacks on the candidates’ records ahead of the first presidential debate on Wednesday. In an opinion article published Monday in The Wall Street Journal, Mitt Romney accused President Obama of foreign policy failures, saying that the president had allowed the nation’s influence to atrophy by “stepping away” from American allies overseas.

The White House Thursday accused Republicans of using the deaths of four Americans in Libya for political gain as questions mount about the administration's evolving account of the attack. White House spokesman Jay Carney hit back in a row sparked by complaints by presidential candidate Mitt Romney and other Republicans that top officials have been unwilling to categorize the killings as terrorism.

Libyan President Mohammed Magarief said on Sunday that about 50 people have been arrested in connection with the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last week, which he said was planned by foreigners linked to al Qaeda.

The U.S. is sending more spies, Marines and drones to Libya, trying to speed the search for those who killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, but the investigation is complicated by a chaotic security picture in the post-revolutionary country, and limited American and Libyan intelligence resources....

President Obama today honored slain ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans killed in this week's attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya. "Chris Stevens was everything America could want in an ambassador, as the whole country has come to see," Obama said as the bodies of the slain men were returned to the United States.

Wanis el-Sharef, eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, said Thursday the attacks were suspected to have been timed to mark the 9/11 anniversary and that the militants used protesting civilians as cover. He said an unspecified number of militants suspected of taking part in the attack have been arrested and that others were being closely monitored by police to see whether they are linked to a group.

The attack that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, may have been planned and organized in advance, U.S. government officials said on Wednesday.