Aboard The Warship That Carried the Suspected Benghazi Mastermind to American Shores

The U.S.S. New York, a fully armed warship, arrived in New York Harbor early last week to take part in Veterans Day celebrations.

The vessel, which is constructed, in part, from salvaged steel from the Twin Towers, is much more than a symbol of the fight against terrorism.

It is also the ship that that carried Ahmed Abu Khattala, the suspected mastermind behind the the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, to American shores.

A Look Inside the U.S.S. New York:

The U.S.S New York famously went dark in June of 2015 after it took possession of Khattala, who is accused of having coordinated and lead the attack which killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. Publications, including the Washington Post, noted that the vessel's sailors had stopped using social media as the ship sailed from the Mediterranean to the East Coast, where the accused terrorist was eventually charged with taking a role in the attack.

While the U.S.S New York safely delivered its cargo to American shores in 2014 it is not primarily used as a floating prison. Its was designed  is to transport up to 800 marines along with their weaponry, to the fight, wherever that may be.

On the ship's deck, pointed at the skies above Manhattan, sat one of the most advanced missile systems of any in the world, the Rolling Airframe Missile, as well as powerful Browning cannons designed to avert the sort of bombing that damaged the U.S.S. Cole in October 2000.

Below the deck, a number of Marines went about their business, actively maintaining their personal arsenals of rifles and grenade launchers, all while parked just feet from a city that is as restrictive of firearms as any in the world.

The ship was named named the U.S.S New York after community leaders requested that surface warship involved in the fight against terrorism.

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