WORLD
US offering $10 mln reward to find Benghazi attackers
Baku, November 16 (AZERTAC). The State Department revealed Friday it has been quietly offering a $10 million reward to help track down the militants behind last year`s deadly attack on a US mission in Libya.
The reward was not widely publicized when it was first made available, because of what the Department called "security issues and sensitivities surrounding the investigation."
"Since this event happened... we`ve made it clear that we are committed to bringing the people who conducted this attack to justice. And we`re using all the appropriate tools we have to do that," the spokesman said.
The reward on offer "was for anyone who was involved, not for any particular individual," added the official, who asked not to be named.
Hordes of heavily armed militants stormed the mission on September 11 last year and then attacked a nearby CIA compound with mortar shells and rockets.
Ambassador Stevens was killed in the hours-long firestorm along with three other diplomatic and security staff -- Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
Stevens, a popular diplomat and fluent Arabic speaker, was the first US ambassador to be killed while on duty in three decades, and the assault shocked America and the close-knit diplomatic family.
Initially, the sacking of the mission was described by American officials as having been triggered by an anti-Muslim video aired in the United States which sparked protests across the Arab world.
Since its launch in 1984, the Rewards for Justice program run by the Diplomatic Security bureau of the State Department has paid out $125 million to some 80 people for information leading to the capture of terrorists.
Despite the dangers of tipping off American intelligence agencies, the rewards can be tantalizingly huge in impoverished countries. One informant earned $30 million for leading the US to Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who were tracked down in July 2003.