Ahmed Abu Khattala (born 1971) was a leader of the Ansar al-Sharia in Libya (ASL) and the mastermind of 2012 Benghazi attack.
Biography[]
Ahmed Abu Khattala was born in Libya in 1971, and was jailed for most of his early life for his Islamist views by Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. During the 2011 Libyan Civil War, he formed a small group of 24 fighters, and later joined the Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, an offshoot of al-Qaeda. Khattala became an activist against the United States' involvement in his country, and on 11 September 2012 he led an attack on the US embassy in Benghazi which killed 2 American politicians (including the ambassador) and 2 former Navy SEALs. On 15 June 2014, he was captured by Delta Force on a covert mission to Libya, and he claimed that the assault on the embassy was in response to an offensive video, "The Innocence of Muslims".