Sean Smith, one of the American diplomats killed in the siege at the Libyan embassy last night, sent out a message that may have foreshadowed his death, and the death of three others during the attack.
Via Wired:
On Tuesday, Sean Smith, a Foreign Service Information Management Officer assigned to the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, typed a message to the director of his online gaming guild: ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.” The consulate was under siege, and within hours, a mob would attack, killing Smith along with three others, including the U.S. ambassador.
In his professional and personal life, Smith was a husband and father of two, and a 10-year veteran of the Foreign Service who had served in Baghdad, Pretoria, Montreal and The Hague. But when gaming with EVE Online guild Goonswarm, he was a popular figure known as “Vile Rat,” and alternately as “Vilerat” while volunteering as a moderator at the internet community Something Awful. Smith’s death was confirmed on Wednesday morning by the State Department and reported widely in the news media. But the first people to report Smith’s death were his friends. Their reaction was shock and mourning.
Smith not only sensed something was wrong, but he points to a setup when discussing the suspicious actions of somebody charged with protecting the embassy.
Rick Moran also wonders about a possible setup:
US Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other embassy employees were assassinated as their car was ambushed by gunmen while fleeing the US consulate in Benghazi, which was under attack by armed Islamists.
…
The fact that the ambassador and the other three Americans were killed while fleeing the consulate raises the question of whether he was specifically targeted for death. The attack on the consulate may have been a ruse to flush the ambassador from the compound where the gunmen, armed with RPG’s, lay in wait. But this is speculation.
Indeed, this is all merely speculation. But the fact that one of the victims worried of an attack based on a suspicious ‘policeman’ taking pictures, does call into question the possiblity that these Americans were setup and marked for murder.