Libya says arrests 50 over US deathsBy BBC | Monday, September 17   2012 at  08:49

Libyan authorities have arrested some 50 people in connection with last week's deadly attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, the president of Libya's interim assembly says.

Mohamed Magarief told CBS News he had "no doubt" the attack was pre-planned.

That appears to contradict US envoy to the UN Susan Rice who told ABC that the evidence suggested it had been part of "spontaneous" protests.

US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other US consulate staff were killed.

They died when the consulate in Benghazi was set ablaze, in protests apparently inspired by demonstrations at the US embassy in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

It was part of a wave of violent protests in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film made in the US.

'Planned by foreigners'

Some of the suspects in last Tuesday's violence in Benghazi were from outside Libya, Mr Magarief told CBS News.

"It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival," he said.

He said the suspects were connected to Al-Qaeda, or its "affiliates and maybe sympathisers".

"We don't know what are the real intentions of these perpetrators," he said. "They entered Libya from different directions. Some of them definitely from Mali and Algeria."

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has said in a statement the attack avenged the killing of Abu Yahya al-Libi - a Libyan-born Al-Qaeda commander killed in June by a US drone strike in the North Waziristan-Afghan borderlands.