but first arwa damon broke the story. arwa you've been talking to eyewitnesss on the ground there.nderstand one eyewitness heard an extremist talking about hitting a second location. is that true? what does that tell you? >> reporter: first of all we do know that a second location was attacked, that was supposed to be the safe house where embassy personnel were evacuated to. this other eyewitness a young man, arrived on the scene saying he saw at least two dozen bearded men, part of a known extremist militia here he said just on the outskirts, just outside the consulate compound. they briefly detained him because he said he did not share the same ideology. they heard him celebrating hit and talking about needing to get ready to go out and attack a second compound. all of this of course raising the question as to whether or not this was a pre-planned assault as some members, senior members of the libyan government are claiming or whether or not it was quite simply a demonstration that turned violent. >> arwa you're hearing that the u.s. should've known about this, that they were war

first, i just wanted to ask you about what arwa damon is reporting.he's saying that libyan government now says it cannot, it's not able to provide security for u.s. interests and in fact, that the government there saying they had warned the united states about the situation in benghazi and that it waseteriorating. were those warnings unheeded? >> well, i'm not sure how verifiable that view is. i think they would have been heeded had they actually been given. and it is not acceptable to have any country say they cannot protect the embassies of any given country including the united states. >> doesn't this make you think twice if they're saying that? you're someone who wanted us to support a no fly zone. do you look ck and say -- >> we had the slaughter of individuals every day in libya. the course of events was going to lead to change there as it led in egypt. the question is are you see ago standing on the side of those whose aspirations is you know, going to create an opportunity for movement towards democracy. so you think it was -- >> look, there's

we'll get back to arwa.nt anti-american protests erupting across the middle east today from morocco in the west to india in the east. you'll see what is happening. that is next. ♪ ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] at&t. the nation's largest 4g network. covering 2,000 more 4g cities and towns than verizon. at&t. rethink possible. humans -- sometimes life trips us up. and sometimes, we trip ourselves up, but that's okay. at liberty mutual insurance we can "untrip" you as you go through your life with personalized policies and discounts when you need them most. just call... and speak with a licensed representative about saving on your policy when you get married, move into a new house... [crash!] or add a car to your policy. don't forget to ask about saving up to 10% when you combine your auto and home insurance with liberty mutual. security, coverage, and savings. all the things humans need to make our beautifully imperfect world a little less imperfect. call... and lock in your rate for 12 months. liberty mutual insuran

joining us arwa damon and ben wedeman. arwa, what's going on in benghazi right now? >> reporter: well, the situation is pretty tense. just about every single libyan that we have been speaking to of course expressing their horror, their outrage about tuesday's attack, saying this most certainly is not indicative of how libyans themselves feel but also really wanting to see their own government begin to take control, begin to rein in these various militias. the government for its part now does believe, says it's 100% confident that tuesday's attack was carried out by extremist group or groups. they say they detained four people, not disclosing which group they were affiliated with but they were also say they go believe this attack was preplanned, intended to inflict damage to drive an irrepairable wedge between the libyans and americans. >> arwa, earlier you walked through what remains of that u.s. consulate in benghazi where ambassador stevens and the three other americans were killed in tuesday's attack and you sent us dramatic video. walk us through what you saw. >>

arwa, there is still a disagreement between the libyan and u.s.ernments on whether the attacks were replanned. you interviewed the libyan prime minister earlier today. what can you tell us? >> the prime minister was telling us they do believe this was a preplanned attack, this was not a spontaneous event that did take place. they are saying so far, eight people are in custody who were directly linked to this attack and that they are in pursuit of others, especially in pursuit of the leadership. however, those individuals are a -- are not linked to one particular group, rather they are something of a coalition of individuals with different affiliati affiliations, all of them having this extremist vein running within them but they are individuals who are loosely banded together. the government in hot pursuit at this time, telling us they are determined to bring them to justice. >> arwa, is there anyone there saying the attack could have been prevented? >> at this point in time, the libyan government, the prime minister himself is saying no, this cou

arwa and i were just talking about this. take, for example, this. was the attack planned, or was it spontaneous? the story's different on either side of the ocean. was it just the result of the anti-islam film? or the rapid rise of islamic extremists following the revolution of the arab spring? was there a total breakdown in security, and do we have warnings? yesterday the secretary of state hillary clinton discussed some of these issues in a closed-door, classified set of briefings on capitol hill, at least one lawmaker who was there, though, not impressed and had this to say. >> i will just tell you that briefing today was an absolute nonevent. it was almost a one-hour filibuster. there was no new information. as a matter of fact what you just carried on cnn regarding the interview with the prime minister there is information that certainly was not shared during this briefing. that was a republican senator. and the interview that arwa and i were speaking of an cnn interview an exus clive with the libyan prime minister. he said he believes that the

arwa damon has been fighting for answers. it's been hard.benghazi, and a few moments ago, i asked her how the investigation is going. >> reporter: it's been incredibly frustrating to try to get a straight answer from the government, because even within the government itself, we're still continuing to hear these conflicting accounts. how many people have actually been arrested? how many of them were associated with the attack? what sort of leads has the government come across? at this point in time, you still have the head of libya's general national congress effectively the country's president, saying that amongst those detained, there were some foreigners that are believed to have links to al qaeda. that this was a preplanned attack carried out by these extremist entities. and yet you have other senior officials saying there really is no concrete evidence pointing to any of that. and it's been a week since that horrific attack took place. >> and arwa, as you say, it's been a week. and people would think we would have answers on something as

arwa damon is joining us once again. arwa, i think you are on the phone.e united states and around the world what's going on in benghazi. >> reporter: wolf, we are literally witnessing pro-democracy demonstrators, pro-democracy residents of benghazi taking their city back. they just in the last few minutes marched on the headquarters of the militant islamist organization. and they have managed to take it back. they say without firing a single shot. hundreds of them converging on this militia's headquarters. they say that the militia members fled fairly quickly. they stormed inside. they set a vehicle on fire. they say they freed at least 20 prisoners. one man who we walked passed said the rebel -- everyone's very exuberant cheering saying these are the real people of libya. this is what libyans really want. they don't want these extremist militias. and now they're trying to capitalize on this momentum, wolf. they plan on storming other known headquarters of islamist militi militias. one thing that's been very striking is we have seen very few people with w

let's start with you, arwa. you went to the scene at the u.s. consulate.ou're also getting reports about a possible leak of information to the terrorists, the militants that carried out this attack. what have you learned? >> reporter: we are hearing details about a second attack that took place at a different location. this is coming from the spokesman of one of the battalions here that is part of the february 17th brigade. this is a brigade, according to this spokesman, that actually helped evacuate personnel from the location of the consulate to what was supposed to have been a safe house but a few hours after all of this took place, in the early hours of the morning, a unit of security personnel arrived at the benghazi airport from tripoli, these were americans tasked with evacuating. we are being told those who were hiding out at the safe house. as the convoy was approaching the safe house, they came under yet another intense but very short lived attack and this is where many questions are being asked as to was somehow -- was there some sort of infiltr

you just hard our arwa damon report. she had more details tonight, but that there had been warnings of a deteriorating security situation. perhaps not of a specific attack, but other attacks and warnings. how could this happen in a country that the libyan government said it was unable to defend, even the u.s. consulate. how could it happen that our consulate was unguarded to the degree it was on september 11th in a country like that? >> we had gotten threat streams over time. months, many in fact. al-qaeda in northern africa was seeking to attack targets. we know all of those things in fact happened, but here's what we need to be careful. it was a bit expeditionary, to go to dangerous places and try to forge ahead a u.s. establishment there. so we have to be careful. we asked him to do dangerous things knowing it was ex expeditio expeditious. we don't want to take unnecessary risks. but we asking them to take what we say are thes risks. was this a necessary risk were were they just ignoring the signs around them that cau

and of course, how easily manipulated. >> arwa damon in benghazi, be careful. fran, thank you very much. on wednesday we reported that a source familiar with ambassador stevens' thinking said in the months bore his death, ambassador stevens talked about being worried about what he called the never-ending security threats in benghazi. we also reported that the ambassador specifically mentioned the rise in islamic extremism, the growing al qaeda presence in libya and said he was on an al qaeda hit list. the information for that report like all of cnn's reporting was carefully vetted. some of that information was found in a personal journal of ambassador stevens in his handwriting. we came upon the journal through our reporting and notified the family. at their request, we returned that journal to them. we reported what we found newsworthy in the ambassador's writings. a reporter followed up on what we found newsworthy in the ambassador's writings. let us know what you think. we're on facebook, follow me on twitter. i'm tweeting tonight. >>> up next, the attack's

we'll talk with arwa damon, and, first of all, what do we know about these suspects?> well, what the government is saying is that they do now believe that these attacks were carried out by extremist groups. they're not going so far as to identify which ones, but they are also saying that they believe that the attacks were preplanned and the intept was to inflict maximum damage on westerns, specifically u.s. interests. the motive of the attack, to drive apart libyans and americans and try to sabotage their relationship, but this attack really goes to underscore just how volatile this country is. these armed groups, and there are many of them, operate with near impunity, especially in benghazi, and all the libyans we have been talking to first and foremost express their anguish over what took place. really want the world, especially americans, to know that these actions are not supported by the majority of the population, but are also demanding of their government to somehow reign in these various extremist arm groups and set this revolution or the outcome of this revol