by John Rosenthal
September 9, 2011 at 4:15 am
September 9, 2011 at 4:15 am
When, at the outset of the unrest that would eventually lead to his downfall, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi asserted that al-Qaeda was behind the challenge to his regime, Western commentators treated his claims with widespread derision and dismissed them out of hand. If it was not already clear from earlier revelations about al-Qaeda-linked rebels, it is now unmistakably clear that such derision was misplaced.
The commander of the rebel forces that have taken control of Tripoli is none other than Abdul-Hakim Belhadj, the historical leader of Libya's al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).As MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, has reported, the LIFG was recognized as an al-Qaeda affiliate by no less an authority than Ayman al-Zawahiri, the longtime chief ideologist of al-Qaeda and its current leader. According to MEMRI, in 2007, al-Zawahiri announced the incorporation of the LIFG into the al-Qaeda network and personally named Belhadj the "Emir of the Mujahideen." The LIFG has been listed as a terrorist organization by both the U.S. State Department and the United Nations Security Council.
A 2008 U.S. State Department report on terrorism states that the LIFG "merged" with al-Qaeda in November 2007. The same State Department report notes that according to Spanish media, an LIFG "emir" by the name of Abdallah al-Sadeq had links to "Tunisian Islamist Serhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, the suspected ringleader in the 2004 Madrid attacks." "Abdallah al-Sadeq" is the nom de guerre of Abdul-Hakim Belhadj.
Whereas the role of Belhadj in the Libyan rebellion was kept under wraps until the fall of Tripoli, the presence of other Qaeda-linked militants was known much earlier. The most prominent of these is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi. The American news media has somewhat minimized al-Hasadi's role, limiting it to the "defense" of his hometown of Darnah. Many European press reports, however, have identified him as a leading commander of rebel forces conducting offensive operations on the eastern front in the Libyan war. Read the rest :
No comments:
Post a Comment