The Obama administration may have provided the weapons used by some Islamist extremists to kill four Americans at the United States’ compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, according to a Libyan source who told Breitbart News he witnessed the attack first hand.

Breitbart News’s Tera Dahl spoke to the witness, whose identity cannot be revealed due to threats against his life, but lives near the former U.S. compound in Benghazi and was present when the attack took place.

Libya’s al-Qaeda-linked militia group known as the February 17th Martyrs Brigade was reportedly hired by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department to provide security at the Benghazi compound, but failed to so the whole day of the attack, according to the witness.

It was unusual that in the morning of September 11, the brigade was not providing the typical level of security around the U.S. consulate and the ambassador himself, a sign that something was off from the start and a major red flag that there was something suspicious in the works, he added.

Terrorists carried out at least three separate attacks against the Benghazi compound, starting at night on September 11 and carrying into the wee hours of the following day.

Those extremists may be the same ones who were allegedly armed by the Obama administration during the U.S. and NATO-backed uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown and executed in October 2011. Libya has been in a state of chaos since, with jihadist groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) filling a power and security vacuum left by the dissolution of the government.

It was evident from the beginning of the first attack on that fateful September night in 2012 that it was not a protest, the witness told Breitbart News.

About 40 armed extremists, most likely affiliated with al-Qaeda, approached the embassy, he added.

He noted that four or more Americans were evacuated from the compound, “minutes before the first attack,” because they saw the “extremists” coming towards them.

The witness sounded extremely surprised to hear that Amb. Stevens was left behind.

“I didn’t think there was an American left in the embassy,” he said, adding, “I didn’t think for a second that the ambassador was still inside.”

“Sometimes it feels like a cheesy, cheap movie…something like the United States intended for the ambassador to die,” added the Benghazi resident. “They sacrificed him as a scapegoat.”

Consistent with secret intelligence reports obtained by The Washington Times early this year, the Libyan witness said the Obama administration armed Islamist extremists and rebels in 2011 as then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to overthrow Gaddafi.

The United States government and Congress, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), was then-working with Islamist extremists and rebels, including the February 17th Brigade, and “even gave them weapons.”

“Libyan officials were deeply concerned in 2011, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to remove Moammar Gadhafi from power, that weapons were being funneled to NATO-backed rebels with ties to al Qaeda, fearing that well-armed insurgents could create a safe haven for terrorists,” the reports obtained by The Washington Times revealed.

Top senior Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat lawmaker distrusted Secretary Clinton’s push for military intervention in Libya so much that they decided to meet with Gaddafi-regime officials themselves.

“In the documents and separately recorded conversations with U.S. emissaries, Libyan officials expressed particular concern that the weapons and training given the rebels would spread throughout the region, in particular turning the city of Benghazi into a future terrorist haven,” noted The Washington Times.

It continued, “Those fears would be realized a little over a year later when a band of jihadist insurgents attacked the State Department diplomatic post in Benghazi and a related CIA compound, killing four Americans…”

According to the witness who spoke to Breitbart News, it was a poorly-kept secret among locals  that the U.S. was working with the extremists to take down the Libyan strongman.

“The U.S. thought Gaddafi was a greater threat than the extremists,” he said.

The attacks would eventually result in the deaths of four Americans. U.S. Amb. J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in the attack.

President Obama and his team initially blamed the attack on individuals protesting a film that offended Islam’s Mohammed. Moreover, the Obama administration continued to insist the Benghazi attack was not pre-planned.

The administration was slow to concede that it was a premeditated terrorist attack that had nothing to do with the video, downplaying statements to that effect, sometimes from members of their own team, for months.