Accused militant is taken into custody in the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack, Justice Department says

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man described as a key participant in the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, has been taken into custody to face prosecution in connection with the rampage that killed four Americans and emerged as a divisive political issue, the Justice Department said Friday.

Zubayar Al-Bakoush, identified by officials as a member of an extremist militia in Libya, had been wanted by the United States for more than a decade. He is accused in a newly unsealed indictment of joining a mob that crashed the front gates of the diplomatic mission with assault rifles and explosives, setting off hours of violence that also included deadly fires.

Al-Bakoush arrived early Friday at an airfield in Virginia after what FBI Director Kash Patel described as a “transfer of custody” and will face charges in Washington, including murder, attempted murder, arson and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Al-Bakoush was to appear Friday afternoon in federal court.

The arrest is the first by President Donald Trump's current administration arising from the attack, but it is not the first time that the Justice Department as an institution has attempted to hold to account the militants believed responsible for the killings of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Another Libyan militant alleged to be a ringleader of the attack was captured by U.S. special forces more than a decade ago and later convicted and sentenced to prison.

“We have never stopped seeking justice for that crime against our nation,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi, who announced the arrest at a news conference with Patel and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in Washington, whose office will be handling the case.

The attack almost immediately became a political flashpoint in Washington as Republicans challenged President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on security at the facility, the military response to the violence and the Democratic administration’s changing narrative about who was responsible and why.

A final report by a Republican-led congressional panel faulted the Obama administration for security deficiencies at the Libyan outpost and a slow response to the attack. The report, however, found no wrongdoing by Clinton. Clinton at the time dismissed the report as an echo of previous probes with no new discoveries, saying it was “time to move on.” Other Democrats denounced the Republicans’ report as “a conspiracy theory on steroids."

On the night of Sept. 11, 2012, U.S. officials have said, at least 20 militants armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers breached the gate of the consulate compound and set buildings on fire. The fire led to the deaths of Stevens, the ambassador, and State Department employee Sean Smith.

Other State Department personnel escaped to a nearby U.S. facility known as the annex.

A large group assembled for an attack on the annex. That attack, including a precision mortar barrage, resulted in the deaths of security officers Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

The indictment accuses Al-Bakoush of being part of the armed group that traveled to the mission. It also says he conducted surveillance and attempted to break into cars of diplomatic mission staff.

The case will be the latest prosecution in Washington to focus attention on the Benghazi attacks. Ahmed Abu Khattala, who was captured in Libya in 2014, was convicted in a jury trial and sentenced to more than two decades in prison. His attorneys argued that the evidence was inconclusive and that he was singled out because of his ultra-conservative Muslim beliefs.

Another Libyan national, Mustafa al-Imam, was captured in 2017 and was convicted two years later for his role. His attorneys argued that he had been suffering from mental trauma and seasickness when he agreed to speak with American officials aboard a U.S. Navy vessel days after his abduction.

“The Benghazi saga was a painful one for Americans,” Pirro said. “It has stayed with all of us. And let me be very clear: There are more of them out there. Time will not stop us from going after these predators no matter how long it takes in order to fulfill our obligation to those families who suffered horrific pain at the hands of these violent terrorists.”

This story has been corrected to show the suspect arrived at an airfield in Virginia, not at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as Bondi announced.

Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Washington contributed to this report.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, center, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, appears before reporters at the Justice Department, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, in Washington, to announce the capture of a key participant in the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - A burnt car sits in front of the U.S. consulate on Sept. 13, 2012, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, on the night of Sept. 11, in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon, File)

FILE - Bloodstains, believed to be from one of the American staff members of the U.S. Consulate, are seen Sept. 13, 2012, at the main gate after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon, File)

FILE - Libyan military guards check one of the U.S. Consulate's burnt-out buildings, Sept. 14, 2012, during a visit by Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, not pictured, to the U.S. Consulate to express sympathy for the death of American ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues after the deadly attack on the Consulate on Sept. 11, in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon, File)

FILE - The U.S. Department of Justice logo is seen on a podium before a press conference, May 6, 2025, at the Justice Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

FILE - Glass, debris and overturned furniture are strewn inside a room in the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens., Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri, File)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Kuwait briefly shut its main airport Wednesday after Iranian drones heavily damaged a passenger terminal building, killed one person and wounded dozens — the latest in back-and-forth attacks by Tehran and Washington that have tested a fragile ceasefire.

Semiofficial Iranian news agencies have said Tehran had stopped communicating with mediators about extending the ceasefire in the war with the U.S. and Israel. A regional official said Iran wanted a separate ceasefire in Lebanon enforced before returning to talks. U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that negotiations continued.

The talks have dragged on for weeks, and exchanges of strikes in the Gulf region and Israel’s broadening war with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon are further strains.

Iran maintains its hold on the Strait of Hormuz — a crucial waterway for the world’s oil and natural gas and related products like fertilizer — and the U.S. continues its blockade of Iranian ports. Global fuel prices remain high, and the effects of the conflict are felt well beyond the region.

Defense Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Saud Abdulaziz Al-Otaibi said “a number of hostile drones” targeted a passenger building at Kuwait International Airport, which had opened only Monday after a months-long closure because of the war, which began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran.

Authorities said one person was killed and 63 were wounded, including passengers and workers. Health Ministry spokesman Abdullah Al Sanad said some suffered serious injuries. India’s embassy said the person killed was an Indian national.

Kuwait's Defense Ministry said it destroyed over a dozen missiles and a similar number of drones from Iran. The Foreign Ministry said Kuwait reserves the right to respond to Iran and will “neither accept nor tolerate” the attacks.

The airport partially reopened later, with Kuwait Airways flights resuming at a different terminal, according to civil aviation authorities. No other flights were operating.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said two Iranian missiles fell apart en route to Kuwait and that it “downed multiple drones” targeting American forces in the country.

The military also said U.S. and Bahraini forces intercepted missiles aimed at the Gulf kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th fleet. Bahrain’s Defense Ministry said its military intercepted and destroyed three missiles and a number of drones fired by Iran.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that it targeted the headquarters of the 5th Fleet and U.S. military facilities in another country, but did not name Kuwait.

Both the U.S. and Iran said they were retaliating for earlier attacks or attempted attacks.

The U.S. military also said it launched strikes on an Iranian military ground control station on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's Foreign Ministry condemned the U.S. strikes on the island, where it said a telecommunications tower was struck, and other previous strikes. It called them “acts of aggression” that it said violated the ceasefire.

A senior Emirati diplomat called for “a firm, unified, and cohesive Gulf position” against Iran following the attacks. “This aggression does not target a specific state, but rather all of us,” Anwar Gargash wrote on X.

Iran’s Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to the Guard, on Tuesday reported that Iran’s negotiators have stopped communicating with ceasefire mediators as tensions flare in Israel’s separate but related fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

A regional official involved in the mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, told The Associated Press that Iran had not communicated on Tuesday after saying a ceasefire needed to be enforced in Lebanon for negotiations to continue.

Trump called reports of a cessation in talks “false and erroneous.”

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago and today,” Trump said in a social media post Tuesday.

Israeli forces have moved deeper into Lebanon than at any time in over a quarter-century, while Hezbollah has launched rocket and drone attacks. The declared ceasefire in Lebanon is officially in place and no side has formally withdrawn or declared it over even as attacks continue.

Lebanon has emerged as a sticking point in Trump’s efforts to sign a ceasefire deal with Iran. Tehran insists that any larger potential truce must quell the fighting in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to keep the issues separate and is under domestic pressure to strike Hezbollah as he prepares for elections this fall.

The fighting has exposed a rift between close allies Israel and the U.S., with the U.S. pushing for restraint.

In a podcast interview released Wednesday, Trump confirmed a report that he had called Netanyahu “crazy” Monday in a phone call peppered with an expletive. Trump told The New York Post’s “Pod Force One” that he was “a little bit perturbed” that Israel's fight with Hezbollah was holding back talks with Iran.

Still, Trump said his relationship with Netanyahu was solid, and “we’ve worked very well together."

Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Elena Becatoros in Athens, Greece, Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi, Sam Mednick in Jerusalem, and Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

People swim on a public beach as smoke, background, rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit the Qlaileh village, seen from the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike that hit Burj al-Shamali village near the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

A woman holds a poster of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei during a pro-government gathering at Islamic Revolution Square in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, May 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People gather on paddleboards in shallow water as cargo and service vessels are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday, June 1, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)