By David Martosko in Washington: 400 US surface-to-air missiles were "Stolen"

from Libya during the Benghazi attack and are 'now in the hands of Al Qaeda', claims whistle-blower. As the Benghazi compound went up in flames, says Joe diGenova, 400 missiles capable of bringing down jetliners were 'stolen' from U.S. control, possibly at the nearby CIA annex. Four hundred American surface-to-air missiles were 'taken from Libya' during the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, a former U.S. Attorney who represents whistle-blowers claimed on Monday. He added that the U.S. intelligence community is terrified they might be used to shoot downn airliners. Joe diGenova, whose wife Victoria Toeansing, a former deputy assistant general, also represents Benghazi witnesses and others with knowledge of the terror attack, told WMAL radio that the loss of those missiles is also one of the reason the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week. 'A lot of people have come forward to share information with us,' he said during the radio station's 'Mornings On The Mall' program Monday morning. 'We have learned that one of the reasons the administration is so deeply concerned' is that 'there were 400 surface-to-air missiles stolen, and that they are in the hands of many people, and that the biggest fear in the U.S. intelligence community is that one of these missiles will be used to shoot down an airliner. 400 missiles, surface-to-air missiles, taken from Libya.' Asked if the missiles are now 'in the hands of al-Qaeda operatives, DiGenova replied, 'That is what these people are telling us'. DiGenova said his sources are 'former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the Special Ops and intelligence community.' 'And it's pretty clear that the biggest concern right now are 400 missiles which have been diverted in Libya and have gotten in the hands of some very ugly people.' diGenova said that while he was uncertain whether the stolen weapons were being kept at the U.S. Consulate CIA annex, 'it is clear that the annex was somehow involved in the process of the distribution of those missiles.' A longtime legal fixture inside the beltway, diGenova was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for four years beginning in 1983. and later was an Independent Counsel appointed to investigate a State Department official who ordered politically embarrassing searches of the passport files of Bill Clinton, Clinton's mother and Ross Perot before the 1992 presidential election. In 2007 the New York State Senate retained him too investigate then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer over allegations that he ordered the State Police to track the whereabouts of Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno when he used police escorts to travel to and around New York City. President Obama and then-Secretary of State Clinton originally maintained that the terror attack was the product of a spontaneous protest, a line that diGenova thinks was calculated to conceal the loss of so much military hardware to enemies of the United States.