HispanicBusiness

The White House said Thursday that the Sept. 11 assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was a terrorist attack.

White House spokesman Jay Carney gave the highest-level statement to date that U.S. officials believe the killing of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials was the work of terrorists.

"It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," Carney told reporters. "Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials."

On Wednesday, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, confirmed to a Senate panel that investigators believed it had been a terrorist attack.

He hedged at the suggestion it had been planned for the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., the day the Benghazi attack was carried out.