On December 28, 2013, Kirkpatrick published a detailed account of the 2012 Benghazi attack titled "A Deadly Mix in Benghazi". Based on extensive interviews with Libyan witnesses and American officials, the article concluded that the attack began as neither a spontaneous protest nor an Al Qaeda plot. It was a planned attack carried out by local Islamist militants, and it was inspired in part by an American-made online video ridiculing Islam.