A top State Department official described Wednesday the "full-scale assault" by dozens of attackers on the US consulate in Benghazi on September 11 that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead, dpa reported.
Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary in the part of the State Department that oversees security, said in written testimony to Congress that the attack was "unprecedented in its size and intensity."
She described to a congressional committee an attack with gunfire and explosions that prompted ambassador Christopher Stevens to take shelter in a safe haven before the attackers set the complex on fire and it filled with smoke.
A security agent attempted to lead Stevens and fellow diplomat Sean Smith out an escape window, but they became separated. Multiple attempts were made to rescue the men, but once Smith was located he was already dead and Stevens could not be located, she said. The ambassador's body was later found at a Benghazi hospital.
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