Special to WorldTribune.com

Bill Gertz, Washington Free Beacon

The CIA was spying on arms shipments from Libya to Syrian rebels at the time of the 2011 attack on its Benghazi facility, according to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

But a controversial Committee report asserts the CIA did not make “unauthorized” arms shipments to the Syrian rebels, further confusing what the two dozen officers and contractors were doing at the Libyan port city. …

Critics have said the report failed to answer several key questions, such as what role the CIA played in facilitating the transfer of weapons from Libya to Syria using intermediaries from Turkey and Qatar. Also, the CIA’s relationship with many of the militia groups in Benghazi also was omitted from the report. …

A former senior intelligence official knowledgeable about Libya operations said the CIA, through the NATO alliance, was directly involved in arming and training Libyan militias that overthrew Moammar Gadhafi during the period between March and August 2011. The official said the full role of the agency in Benghazi has not been made clear by the House report. …

“They were clearly gun running from Libya to Syria,” the former official said, adding the operation was conducted out of the White House and that the State Department and CIA not directly involved. “But the United States was involved.”

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  Critics of Benghazi report say it concealed U.S. role in ‘gun running from Libya to Syria’, LIFE, WorldTribune.com