Evening Update From The Epicenter

The afternoon news is starting to become as robust as the morning news. Just today we see the following:

Israel Angered By Clinton's Kid-Glove Approach To Iran

Israeli officials were taken aback on Monday when the Obama Administration, which had previously vowed to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, insisted that it would set no deadlines for Iranian compliance with international demands.

"We're not setting deadlines," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters after being asked how Washington would respond to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence that the West must do more to halt Iran's defiant nuclear program.

"Without a firm and clear red line, Iran won't stop its race for a nuclear weapon," an unnamed Israeli government official told The Times of Israel. "Words like these don't only not deter Iran, they calm it."

The official's remarks echoed Netanyahu's warning earlier this week that the lack of international determination was only encouraging Iran to continue its quest for nuclear arms.

Speaking to Israel's Arutz Sheva radio station, former Israeli ambassador to the US Zalman Shoval said it was time for Israel to realize that, "as usual, we are alone" in dealing with this new threat.

PM Continuing Pressing For Red Lines On Iran

Even after the public dust-up with Washington over setting red lines for Iran, and a middle of the night telephone conversation Wednesday with US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will continue to push the world to set benchmarks for the Islamic Republic, The Jerusalem Post learned Wednesday.

Al-Qaeda Linked Terror Group Now Thought To Be Behind Killing

The attack on an American consulate building in Libya that left the ambassador and three other Americans dead may have been a planned operation by a group linked to al-Qaeda timed to coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, sources in the US and Libya said Wednesday.

Sources in Libya told CNN that al-Qaeda operatives carried out the attack in revenge for a slain terrorist operative, using the release of an anti-Islam movie as a pretext for the chaos.

Protesters stormed the US Consulate in Benghazi late Tuesday night, setting fire to the building and killing Ambassador Chris Stevens as well as three other staffers.

The four were reportedly killed when fired at by a rocket-propelled grenade, part of a planned attack on the compound by two waves of gunmen.

According to Israel’s Channel 2 news analyst Ehud Yaari, the attack was planned to coincide with September 11, the anniversary of al-Qaeda’s attack on the US 11 years earlier, and was carried out in revenge for the killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi by US forces in June.

Hours before the attack, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video confirming Libi’s death and calling for his blood to be avenged. Yaari added that Zawahiri’s brother Mohammed, recently released from an Egyptian prison, may have had a hand in planning the attack as well.

"Muslim Brotherhood Rising": Jihadists Coordinating Attacks

Terrorism analyst and Act for America President Brigitte Gabriel says the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya and an apparent mob riot at the U.S. property in Egypt actually were coordinated, and more may be coming.

“Jihadists are organizing together and they’re communicating with one another through the Internet. They have their own websites. So basically, through their networks, we are seeing the Muslim Brotherhood rising all across the Middle East. The Muslim Brotherhood has had an active presence for the last 30 years,” she told WND today following the murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Libya.

Further, a report by the WTOP broadcast outlet agreed, explaining the news outlet’s sources were talking about other operations, including that the attacks did not “appear to be a random mob scene, but rather an opportunity that militants seized.”

“The attackers used a rocket-propelled grenade, a weapon not traditionally carried by protesters, but commonly used by terrorists,” the report. said.

An Egyptian citizen who lives in Cairo and who asked not to be named for security reasons agrees that the attack was not spontaneous.

“It was orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the MB youth and Salafists,” the Cairo resident told WND. “There were about 1,000 protesters during the height of the protest.”

“Planning for this attack has been going on for a while,” Shoebat added. He said an attack on an embassy on September 11 was more than a coincidence.

“They chose 9/11 to basically insult America. ‘We are all al-Qaida,’ is what was chanted. The object is to force the American government to create law to stop anyone who criticizes Islam,” Shoebat said.

Al Zawahri Personally Ordered Al Qaeda To Murder U.S. Ambassador Stevens

Barak To Meet With Officials In U.S. Next Week

Defense Minister Ehud Barak will travel to the United States next week to meet with officials about Iran.

According to a Wednesday night report on Channel 10 news, Barak will visit the US to participate in a conference hosted by former US president Bill Clinton. While there, the minister will meet with officials to discuss strategies for dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

The report did not say with whom Barak will meet, or when the meetings were first scheduled.

FM: Libya Lynch Attack An Attack On The West

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Wednesday that the murderous attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt were "criminalterrorist attacks directed against the free world and the entire Western world."

"The United States, the leader of the free world, is at the forefront of the battle against radical Islamic terrorism which did not begin today," he wrote on his Facebook page. "The fact these attacks occurred the day after the eleventh anniversary of the September 11th attacks proves that this is a long and difficult battle against people who sow death and destruction as an ideology, only the excuse changes each time."

"The rioters who attacked the U.S. embassies are people who want to impose their opinions and beliefs at any cost. Freedom of speech and thought are concepts which they hope will disappear from the world along with Western culture as a whole."

"The State of Israel shares the grief of the American people on the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the other embassy employees, and stands beside the United States in its struggle to protect the free world against terrorism," he concluded.