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)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Supreme Court on Thursday threw out longtime litigation over education funding in the state, a decision that's likely to keep intact the power to decide how much money to spend and where with the legislature, not judges.

The 4-3 ruling, led by Republican justices on the court, set aside a landmark ruling in 2022 when the court, then with a Democratic majority, ruled that a lower court judge had the authority to order that taxpayer money be directed to state agencies to address longstanding education inequities.

The following year, another trial judge calculated that the state owed $678 million to fulfill two years of an eight-year, multibillion-dollar comprehensive remedial plan in part to improve teacher recruitment and salaries, expand prekindergarten and help students with disabilities.

In Thursday's ruling, Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote that what started as a modest lawsuit over education spending in one county “became a full-scale, facial assault on the entire educational system enacted by the General Assembly.” Since then, Newby said, judicial actions had gone too far.

When the case expanded “the trial court’s authority to hear the case likewise ceased,” Newby wrote while ordering the school funding litigation be dismissed.

The decision came more than two years after the court heard oral arguments. Republicans who control the General Assembly won’t be obligated to comply with the remedial plan as it writes state budgets, including one for this year that’s now several months late.

Democratic Gov. Josh Stein will have to rely more on persuading lawmakers and using his veto stamp to spend more on his favored education programs and initiatives. Stein was North Carolina's attorney general when the 2022 ruling was handed down.

“The Supreme Court simply ignored its own established precedent, enabling the General Assembly to continue to deprive another generation of North Carolina students of the education promised by our constitution,” Stein said in a statement Thursday.

Two Democratic justices and one Republican dissented in Thursday's ruling.

Associate Justice Anita Earls, a Democrat, said the decision seemed more about dealing with how the 2022 decision was reached than what happens to students.

“Allowing the state to escape judicial scrutiny for constitutional rights violations through its behavior during litigation quickly turns constitutional rights into words on paper — morally compelling but functionally useless,” she wrote.

Attention will now turn toward crafting the next state education spending proposal. The General Assembly reconvenes this month. Close to 40% of the state’s more than $30 billion in annual spending to operate government goes to K-12 funding alone.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said in a news release that “liberal education special interests have improperly tried to hijack North Carolina’s constitutional funding process in order to impose their policy preferences via judicial fiat. Today’s decision confirms that the proper pathway for policymaking is the legislative process.”

Critics of GOP education spending have pointed in part to taxpayer-funded scholarships for K-12 students to attend private schools as evidence more could be done for public school children.

The litigation began in 1994, when several school districts in low-income areas and families of children sued and accused the state of violating North Carolina's constitution by not providing adequate education funding.

The case is often referred to as “Leandro” — for the last name of one of the students who sued.

Supreme Court decisions in the case from 1997 and 2004 found the state constitution directs all children must receive the “opportunity to receive a sound basic education,” and that the state remained poorly equipped to comply with that dictate. Many say it's a problem still unresolved.

“The people paying the price for our leaders’ failure are not abstractions. They are the generations of children in rural communities, past and present, who waited for 30 years for a promise never fulfilled,” Tamika Walker Kelly, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said in a news release.

The court’s Democratic majority in 2022 had determined that those Supreme Court decisions along with the constitution’s “right to the privilege of education” and years of inaction by elected officials created an “extraordinary” situation that gave the late Judge David Lee power to order funds be spent without a specific law enacted by the General Assembly.

FILE - North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby addresses the audience at the North Carolina Medal of Valor Ceremony at the Legislative Building, in Raleigh, N.C., July 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Makiya Seminera, File)