American killed in Libya was on State Department intelligence operation

One of the four Americans killed in Libya earlier this week when an American diplomatic mission was stormed on September 11 had been deployed by the US State Department on an intelligence gathering operation to find and destroy dangerous weapons.

Glen Doherty, a 42-year-old former Navy SEAL, told ABC News only one month before his death that he had been contracted by the State Department to travel overseas in an effort to locate and eliminate MANPADS shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. The US government had feared that as many as thousands of the high-powered warheads had fallen into the hands of both rebels and regime fighters after former leader Muammar Gaddafi was executed earlier this year amid months of chaos in region.

In Libya, Doherty said, he had been contracted to travel through the region and search for MANPADs, then destroy them by bashing them with a hammer or running them over in his vehicle, ABC reports. He detailed his mission with the network in August while still located in the United States.

Doherty was killed along with three others, including US ambassador Christopher Stevens, on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York eleven years earlier.

Source and full story: Russia Today, 14 Sept 2012