North Africa: White House widening covert war

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the US ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three US counterterror officials and a former intelligence official.