low-rent film made in the u.s. that mocks the prophet muhammad. in neighboring libya, ambassador christopher stevens is in benghazi, a city known for upheaval. stevens knew benghazi well. during the civil war that ousted moammar gadhafi, he lived there. he was in at the beginning when secretary clinton sent him over there to talk to the rebels and find out who are these people, what are they up to, should we be supporting them? stevens parents were proud that he helped the rebel-led coalition. my name is chris stevens and i m the new u.s. ambassador to libya. his job? to bring stability to a hot zone. gadhafi s weapons stockpiles had been raided and weapons were everywhere.
coalition. my name is chris stevens and i m the new u.s. ambassador to libya. his job? to bring stability to a hot zone. gadhafi s weapons stockpiles had been raided and weapons were everywhere. so one of the things that the u.s. was interested in doing, and in particular the cia, was collecting weapons. that mission brought stevens to benghazi on september 11. when he opened a cultural center and met with officials. ambassador stevens had met with a turkish official and the consulate there in benghazi and everything was quiet for them. that all changed when darkness fell. at 9:42 p.m., gunfire is heard outside the benghazi consulate. then a loud explosion.
there it is right there. and go to hamas and get at israel that way. well, again in the past we know that iran has tried to supply weapons to hamas, the radical palestinian group. so basically what iran wants is to have weapons stockpiles on israel s southern and northern borders with these very radical groups. if israel is going to attack iran for any reason, to do with its nuclear program, or israel gets involved in the syrian conflict then these groups can be ordered to fire their missiles at israel. and there are enough missiles being fired at israel it would be very difficult for israel to stop them coming into the country. heather: far more serious threat is iran and nuclear weapons but does this serve to kind of take israel s eye off the ball where they may be focusing on these other groups, closer to the home front than iran? well, heather, this is all about putting pressure on israel. basically putting pressure on israel to stay out of the
syrian conflict and putting pressure on israel not to attack iran s nuclear facility. how can israel stay out of that if in fact weapons are going to hezbollah and could end up hurting israeli citizens? that is a very good question. in the past of course israel used military action to stop this happening. israel went to war with hezbollah in 2006. it is more recently invaded gaza to take out hamas s weapons stockpiles. no sooner have you gotten rid of them they re built up again. it is a very difficult game. all i can say that the israelies are monitoring this very carefully. this has all the ingredients of making the situation in syria a lot worse. heather: oh absolutely. and there is a major i have did rens between now and the war in 2006. that is, iran as we believe it, is further along in its push to get nuclear weapons. yeah. i think most western intelligence agencies are
damascus. the rebels gained some strategic high ground so they can fire down into some of assad s strongholds into damascus. it may be now or never for president assad to husband his heavy tanks and artillery and air power to hit rebel positions to push them back or if the rebels will march all the way there intoward his power base. right now, recent reports over weekend added hundreds if not a thousand people to the death toll that is now over 45,000. the other thing we re seeing on a larger scale there inside of syria is the influence of foreign fighters and islamist who have come in. these are hardcore islamists who are much more interested turning syria into something like an islamic state or taking control of their chemical weapons stockpiles, their heavy weapons stockpiles than they are bringing democratic syria into fruition the next several months. that is the real concern for the international community.