(CBS News) We are getting our first inside look at one of the buildings that came under fire in Tuesday evening's deadly attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya. A CBS News crew was the first to reach the supposed safe house and this is what they found.
The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was just the beginning of a terrifying night for the Americans inside. Libyan officials told us their forces helped evacuate 32 Americans out of the consulate as the attackers torched and stormed the compound.
A Libyan commander told CBS News that a convoy of 22 vehicles, two of them armored, raced from the U.S. consulate down this road to a safe house a mile and a half away.
But the safe house they fled to -- which was supposed to be in a secret location -- had become a target.
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Just as the U.S. extraction team of commandos arrived to take the Americans to the airport, the house came under heavy fire. It was intense, deadly and accurate.
Everywhere you look on this rooftop, there's evidence of what must have been a ferocious fight. There's damage from automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades, and even mortars.
The precise mortar strikes on the house suggest those who launched them knew exactly where to aim.
Clearly Americans fighting back from this rooftop were hit. Our escort, Libyan commander Abdu Salam, gathered two bloodstained American flak jackets and a helmet to handover to U.S. investigators for evidence.
Libyan officials say it's clear from the second assault on the safe house that those behind the attack were determined that no Americans made it out alive.
CBS asked the deputy interior minister how the attackers knew where the safe house was. His answer: "There are spies everywhere." When we asked him if one of his own men could have tipped the attackers off, he said: Yes that was a possibility, but to be fair, 22 vehicles speeding through Bengahzi at that time of the night would not have gone unnoticed."
