Libyans express shame, regret over deadly attack
(CBS News) Libyans reacted with shock, sadness and a sense of shame to the possible terror attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, CBS News correspondent Charlie D'Agata reported on "CBS This Morning" Thursday from the city where the attack took place.
In the wake of Tuesday's killings of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith and two Marines at the U.S. Consulate in the port city of Benghazi, Libyans held a pro-American rally Wednesday.
"When you talk to Libyans here you hear the same thing: Everybody is heartbroken. They're saddened, they're shocked by what's happened," D'Agata told Norah O'Donnell and Charlie Rose. "They say that they're ashamed of what's happened. They say the ambassador is a personal friend to the Libyans."
A closer look at U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens
New questions about makers of anti-Muslim film
Romney's Libya gibes aimed to show contrasts with Obama
Libyan officials told D'Agata that they would work with the FBI team investigating the attack. U.S. officials increasingly believe that the attackers may have had terrorist links and were not solely members of a spontaneous mob demonstrating at the consulate against an online video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Eyewitnesses told D'Agata the protest against the American-made video was largely peaceful and that the deadly violence that followed the demonstration was guided and wasn't out of anger.
"The Libyans tell me this was directed by al Qaeda," D'Agata said. "This could not have come out of anger from the Libyan people."
(At left, watch D'Agata tour the damaged consulate)
U.S. officials believe the militants were using the demonstration against the video as a cover to get into the consulate and then take as much revenge as they could on Americans, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported Wednesday.
D'Agata reports after visiting the destroyed consulate that every single room was torched and everything inside it was either smashed to pieces or removed.
Above, watch D'Agata's full report from Benghazi, Libya, on the aftermath of the deadly attack against a U.S. Consulate