Mother of ambassador killed in consulate attack said son wanted to be in Libya
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The mother of U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, who died Tuesday at the hands of Libyan militants, said the turbulent nation was where her son wanted to be, the New York Daily News reported.
“He did love what he did, and did a very good job with it,” Mary Commanday told the newspaper. “He could have done a lot of other things, but this was his passion.
“I have a hole in my heart,” said Commanday, who is flying Wednesday from her home in Northern California to Washington, D.C., to collect her son’s body.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“I sure do feel animosity toward those nuts who got in there and did this, (but) it had nothing to do with the politics of Libya. They were not insurgents, they were Islamic fanatics,” she told the newspaper.
Stevens, 52, and three other Americans, were killed during an attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya on Tuesday.
A career diplomat who spoke Arabic and French, Stevens served two tours in Libya, including running the office in Benghazi during the revolt against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. He also brokered tribal disputes and conducted U.S. outreach efforts in Jerusalem, Cairo, Damascus and Riyadh.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.