9/11, Benghazi and US counterterrorism’s long arm of justice

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the city where a trial by jury took place. We regret the error.

Conventional wisdom in policymaking circles is that the U.S. counterterrorism enterprise is nonpartisan. I agree. I saw firsthand how the Trump administration benefited from continuity grounded in professionalism and threaded to sound counterterrorism policy prescriptions passed on from previous administrations, both Democrat and Republican. 

After years of painstaking counterterrorism work, talking with both former terrorists and victims of terrorism, as well as attending terrorism trials, I’ve come to realize that continuity comes from a long institutional memory between administrations, and justice in these cases is often at the crossroads of law enforcement and counterterrorism operations. 

As FBI Director Christopher Wray noted, it took 34 years of painstaking investigative work to bring the maker of the Lockerbie bomb tied to the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 to justice this year. That effort is the province of foreign partners, the Department of Justice, the FBI and, eventually, a U.S. court. Legal arrows – in terms of investigations, extraditions and trials – can be more potent than simply killing terrorists on battlefields overseas. The rule of law remains an indispensable tool for policymakers. 

This dedication to continuity drives the tenacity of the legal system to finish the work of prior administrations.  

The 2022 declassified version of the Biden administration’s international counterterrorism policy is now available online. The strategy is a reasonably balanced approach to an evolving threat landscape. Perhaps the most important admonition in the document was the explicit message that the U.S. counterterrorism enterprise must take into account lessons learned from prior years of U.S. counterterrorism work. In short, the nation cannot repeat its past mistakes. 

Still, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about the administration’s strategy; it’s reasonable, if restrained. A readthrough provided me with two other takeaways. First, policy continuity across political administrations has kept the nation safe from terrorism. Second, in light of the Lockerbie bomber’s extradition last December, justice and continuity matter deeply and are two sides of the same coin.  

I have reflected a great deal on the idea of justice and counterterrorism, especially when the world reached the 20-year milestone of the 9/11 attacks. Last February, I attended the Sayfullo Saipov trial, where a radicalized, ISIS-inspired terrorist was convicted on a raft of charges by a federal jury and faced the death penalty. He received 10 life sentences and another 260 years in prison for killing eight people on a bike path in Manhattan with a truck on Halloween in 2017.  

Still, in the fading shadows of past acts of terrorism carnage, U.S. counterterrorism practitioners serving in the current and previous administrations demonstrably were the torchbearers of continuity, doggedly pursuing justice. Sometimes this continuity would have to carry on for decades before reaching closure.  

The Christmastime bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, for example, killed 270 passengers, including 190 Americans, on Dec. 21, 1988, and last December, the FBI was finally able to take custody of a suspect for building the explosive device that downed the flight. As a result of the Justice Department’s focus and tenacity in concluding a case that began more than 30 years earlier, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud was then extradited to the United States to face prosecution for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in American history.  

That much can be said, too, for those responsible for pursuing justice for the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic complex in Benghazi, Libya. There, heavily armed militants killed four Americans, including Amb. Christopher Stevens, at the U.S. diplomatic compound. Though Benghazi still triggers acrimony on both sides of the U.S. political divide, as we approach another 9/11 anniversary this month, it’s the conjured-up ghosts of Libya’s troubled terrorism past that ironically underscores the notion that the rule of law  — a nonpartisan pursuit  — matters deeply in counterterrorism work.  

In October 2017, U.S. commandos reportedly captured Mustafa al-Imam in the area of Misurata, Libya. The suspect was identified as being present during the attacks in Benghazi. So, with the full support of White House leadership, I had the vantage point to observe and oversee the entire U.S. counterterrorism enterprise divide its policy attention from other vexing counterterrorism problems, like militants in Niger, hostage-takers in Pakistan and the ongoing campaign to defeat ISIS.  

Was it worth the effort? For my modest role, unquestionably, yes. To put a finer point on it, the long arm of justice, driven by counterterrorism policymakers, and executed quietly by operators on the ground, is emblematic of an important counterterrorism ethos — patience and nonpartisan justice — that this nation deserves.     

In that pursuit of justice, one suspect from the Benghazi attack triggered a range of U.S.-related activities: the repositioning of U.S. Navy ships, diplomatic outreach across the region, operations on the ground, deploying aircraft and arresting and reading a terror suspect’s rights. All of that happened for one detainee who was brought to the United States to face justice from a jury in Washington, D.C.    

In a time of political polarization, we can be sanguine about the professionalism of the U.S. counterterrorism enterprise, and the long memory of United States justice, regardless of administration. Maybe that’s worth reflecting on this Sept. 11 anniversary.

Christopher P. Costa is the executive director of the International Spy Museum and an adjunct associate professor with Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program, Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is a former career intelligence officer and was special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2017 to 2018.