Middle East: Discussion

[Husky]

How it's all related to the "war on terror". For some reason, the US - with its war on "terror" - keeps giving power to jihadist everywhere while toppling dictatorship. Everything going according to plan of course: islam is christowest's Best Friend. It's a bromance.





1. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wor...6129019587

Documents reveal Western spy agencies' ties to Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi

From: AP

September 04, 2011 7:49AM



[color="#0000FF"]THE CIA and other Western intelligence agencies worked closely with the ousted regime of Muammar Gaddafi, sharing tips and cooperating in handing over terror suspects for interrogation to a regime known to use torture, according to a trove of security documents discovered after the fall of Tripoli.

The revelations provide new details on the West's efforts to turn Libya's mercurial leader from foe to ally and provide an embarrassing example of the US administration's collaboration with authoritarian regimes in the war on terror.[/color]



The documents, among tens of thousands found in an External Security building in Tripoli, show an increasingly warm relationship, with CIA agents proposing to set up a permanent Tripoli office, addressing their Libyan counterparts by their first names and giving them advice. In one memo, a British agent even sends Christmas greetings.



The agencies were known to cooperate as the longtime Libyan ruler worked to overcome his pariah status by stopping his quest for weapons of mass destruction and renouncing support for terrorism. But the new details show a more extensive relationship than was previously known, with Western agencies offering lists of questions for specific detainees and apparently the text for a Gaddafi speech.



They also offer a glimpse into the inner workings of the now-defunct CIA program of extraordinary rendition, through which terror suspects were secretly detained, sent to third countries and sometimes underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation tactics like waterboarding.



The documents mention a half dozen names of people targeted for rendition, including Tripoli's new rebel military commander, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj.



Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, which helped find the documents, called the ties between Washington and Gaddafi's regime “A very dark chapter in American intelligence history.”



“It remains a stain on the record of the American intelligence services that they cooperated with these very abusive intelligence services,” he said.

[color="#800080"](Oh puh-leese. They're only sorry they got caught at it.

With the rest of the world laughing - as ever - at US claims to being a great humane country.)[/color]



[color="#0000FF"]The findings could cloud relations between the West and Libya's new leaders, although Belhaj said he holds no grudge. NATO airstrikes have helped the rebels advance throughout the six-month civil war and continue to target regime forces as rebels hunt for Gaddafi.



Belhaj is the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a now-dissolved militant organisation that sought to assassinate Gaddafi.



Belhaj says CIA agents tortured him in a secret prison in Thailand before he was returned to Libya and locked in the notorious Abu Salim prison. He insists he was never a terrorist and believes his arrest was in reaction to what he called the “tragic events of 9/11.”



Two documents from March 2004 show American and Libyan officials arranging Belhaj's rendition.[/color]



Referring to him by his nom de guerre, Abdullah al-Sadiq, the documents said he and his pregnant wife were due to travel to Thailand, where they would be detained.



“We are planning to arrange to take control of the pair in Bangkok and place them on our aircraft for a flight to your country,” they tell the Libyans. The memo also requested that Libya, a country known for decades for torture and ill-treatment of prisoners: “Please be advised that we must be assured that al-Sadiq will be treated humanely and that his human rights will be respected.”



The documents coincide with efforts by the Gaddafi regime over the last decade to emerge from international isolation, even agreeing to pay compensation to relatives of each of the 270 victims of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland.



The documents show the CIA and MI6 advising the regime on how to work to rescind its designation as a state sponsor of terror - a move the Bush administration made in 2006. Both agencies received intelligence benefits in return.



The validity of the documents, not written on official letterhead, could not be independently verified, but their content seems consistent with what has been previously reported about intelligence activities during the period.



Later correspondence deals with technical visits to Libya to track the regime's progress in dismantling its weapons programs.



In one undated memo, the CIA proposes establishing a permanent presence in Libya.



“I propose that our services take an additional step in cooperation with the establishment of a permanent CIA presence in Libya,” it says. It is signed by hand “Steve.”



Another memo is a follow-up query to an apparent Libyan warning of terror plots against American interests abroad.



One document is a draft statement for Gaddafi about his country's decision to give up weapons of mass destruction.



“Our belief is that an arms race does not serve the security of Libya or the security of the region and contradicts Libya's great keenness for world peace and security,” it suggests as wording.



But much of the correspondence deals with arrangements to render terror suspects to Libya from South Africa, Hong Kong and elsewhere. One CIA memo from April 2004 tells Libyan authorities that the agency can deliver a suspect known as “Shaykh Musa.”



“We respectfully request an expression of interest from your service regarding taking custody of Musa,” the memo says.



CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood declined to comment on specific allegations related to the documents.



“It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats,” Youngblood said. “That is exactly what we are expected to do.”

[color="#800080"](Yes, like it's the CIA's business to set up jihadi outposts everywhere. Yugoslavia, Kashmir, all of the ME now... Where tyrannical secular - a.o.t. shariah - govts keep getting replaced by jihadi ones and the jihadi war-cry has gone up: to retake the islamic world ruled by seculars for allah. Praise US.

See #2 below.)[/color]



British Foreign Secretary William Hague also declined to comment on intelligence matters.



In Tripoli, Anes Sherif, an aide to Belhaj, said the documents provided little new information: “We have known for a long time that (the British and U.S. governments) had very close relations with Gaddafi's regime.”



Amid the shared intelligence and names of terror suspects are traces of personal relationships.



In one letter from December 24, 2003, a British official thanks Gadhafi's spy chief Moussa Koussa - who later became foreign minister and defected early in the uprising - for a “very large quantity of dates and oranges” and encourages him to continue with reforms.



“Your achievement realizing the Leader's initiative has been enormous and of huge importance,” the British official says. “At this time sacred to peace, I offer you my admiration and every congratulation.



AP

Of course, like "Saadaam" (Saddam), Gaddafi didn't last long in US good books. They were never all that close - in public anyway. It may have had its moments, but it seems to have been an on-off relationship.





2. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fea...6044640098

Libya ripe for jihad's rallying cries Sally Neighbour

From: The Australian

April 26, 2011 12:00AM



AS the military and humanitarian quagmire in Libya deepens, a clarion call has gone out to followers of the global jihadist movement in the West.

"Who wants to join the mujahidin? The gates of jihad are open in Libya!" declares a message posted on a pro al-Qa'ida internet forum monitored by Western analysts.



[color="#0000FF"]The message - and countless others like it - has set off alarms in counter-terrorism circles in the West, as al-Qa'ida and its allies move to exploit the foment in the Arab world, seizing on the conflict in Libya as a new cause celebre for Islamic militants. And as yesterday's WikiLeaks release shows, al-Qa'ida suspects freed from Guantanamo Bay are at work in Libya.

[color="#800080"](Guessing that the particular wikileak being referred to is 2011 Sep 2 news: Media organisations condemn WikiLeaks' disclosure?)[/color]



A report from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation says internet jihadists are portraying Libya as the newest front in the global jihad against the West, in a policy dictated by al-Qa'ida's top leaders.



"Senior leadership figures, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, have given a number of sermons concentrating almost solely on Libya and portraying it as the most fertile ground for their global movement," says the report's author, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a research fellow at ICSR. He says Zawahiri's call has been echoed on English-language jihadist forums.



"The Western Salafi-jihadi movement is attempting to take ownership of the rebellion on behalf of the global jihad, and is portraying anti-Gaddafi forces as mujahidin, while also encouraging Western Muslims to do all they can to reach the country and take part in a supposed jihad."[/color]

[color="#800080"](Sounds a bit like the history of islam, nah?)[/color]



The ICSR has monitored a stream of communications on al-Qa'ida run and backed websites and forums since the Arab spring began. A typical post says: "My brothers and sisters, we are facing a global change, Alhamdulillah [praise God]! We will see this uprising continuing in all Muslim countries and soon we will see the banner of Allah everywhere!"



The forums are full of news of the exploits of jihadist fighters who have joined "Islamic battalions" in Libya under names such as the Thunderbolt Battalion and the Islamic Army of Benghazi, and so-called exclusive pictures of fighters purporting to be mujahidin on the front lines, accompanied by messages urging new recruits to join them. They provide directions on how best to travel to Libya, along with this incentive: "The market of paradise has opened and the hoor al ayn [virgins promised to martyrs] are waiting."



The forums are used to disseminate stories such as one that recounted how a band of mujahidin overran a Libyan army base in al-Bayda in the northeast of the country.



Western analysts believe the claims are exaggerated and some are simply echoes of Gaddafi regime propaganda aimed at discrediting the rebellion by portraying it as an Islamist uprising.

[color="#800080"](No. It's indeed being reported that Gaddafi has now resorted to joining forces with islamists - because the US initially went for "secular" muslims. Or so the story's told.

But the rebels fighting Gaddafi's regime are fully supported by - I mean, have the full sympathy of - the christowest (note the media, oohing and aahing all over the 'poor' islamaniac rebels putting up a 'brave' jihadi 'fight' against Gaddafi - himself not a posterboy either.

And it's the rebels that are largely driven by islam, rather just maintaining the totalitarian status quo. And it's the global ummah that sees the deposing of Gaddafi as a signal to get ready to fill the long-sought vacuum. Praise US/NATO whatever. Islamic peace be upon them. Etc.)[/color]



However, among al-Qa'ida's online followers it seems they are having the desired effect. Another post says: "The only thing we can do at this moment is pray for the brothers and await the official declaration of an Islamic emirate in Libya."



The ICSR's assessment is that it is essentially a propaganda push by al-Qa'ida and its allies to promote Libya as a "new Afghanistan", that is a new rallying point to revitalise their movement.



Al-Qa'ida has been cultivating its contacts in Libya for decades. Its key ally there is the old Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which was formed in 1995 to overthrow President Muammar Gaddafi and contribute to the international jihadist campaign. Despite Gaddafi's long-term support for international terrorism, he is regarded by Islamic militants as an apostate ruler who has betrayed his promise to make Libya an Islamic republic.



US terrorism analyst Bill Roggio from the Long War Journal says north and eastern Africa have proven fertile ground for al-Qa'ida with their restive Muslim populations, oppressive governments and lawless regions that make ideal sites for terrorist training camps.

[color="#800080"](Well, it was the US that was arming the islamics of Yugoslavia... NATO was half-hearted on that one, swinging from one side to the next: half their interests were in not letting islamania get an opening into Europe, the other half was to snub Yugoslavia. Russia/orthodox East were the only ones to draw a hard-line against islamics in Yugoslavia.)[/color]



The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was set up by Libyans who had fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, several of whom went on to take up key positions in the al-Qa'ida command structure. Many of the group's founding members trained in al-Qa'ida camps in Afghanistan, according to a report by the US Council on Foreign Relations.

[color="#800080"](See, erstwhile friends of the US/west.)[/color]



Al-Qa'ida's leader in Afghanistan until his death in 2008, Abu Laith al-Libi, was a Libyan, as is the senior field commander regarded by some US intelligence analysts as Osama bin Laden's heir apparent, Abu Yahya al-Libi.



Yesterday' s WikiLeaks documents show that at least one former detainee who was set free, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu, is training with rebel forces in Libya and has close ties to al-Qa'ida.



In 2006 the LIFG merged with militant groups from neighbouring Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco to form a new al-Qa'ida franchise, which called itself al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Mahgreb.



The merger was heralded by Abu Laith al-Libi, who said: "We announce we are joining al-Qa'ida's loyal soldiers. The tyrant of Libya is pushing the country into a new quagmire. He suddenly discovered that America, the guardian of the cross, is not an enemy."

[color="#800080"](See, despite the west pretending - a few paras above - that Gaddafi has something to do with this latest islamist surge, the islamists most definitely want Gaddafi "tyrant of Libya" out of the way.)[/color]



The merger and AQIM's vow to topple Gaddafi were apparently prompted by the dictator's rapprochement with the US in 2003, when Gaddafi announced that Libya would end its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons program, which had long been used to support international terrorism, and the US dropped sanctions and restored diplomatic relations in return.



The Libyans were officially welcomed into the fold by al-Qa'ida deputy head Zawahiri, who condemned Gaddafi for surrendering his "weapons and equipment to Crusader masters", and called for the overthrow of the governments of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.



AQIM's leader Abdelmalek Droukdal told The New York Times in a 2008 interview: "Our general goals are the same goals of al-Qa'ida the mother."



AQIM has been most active in Algeria where its forerunner, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, led a bloody insurrection that began in 1992 after the military regime cancelled parliamentary elections when it seemed a coalition of Islamic parties was on the verge of winning.

[color="#800080"](Even muslims are afraid of islamic rule. In contrast, only the christowest seems to welcome islamic rule in ME. And promote it regularly. As they do in India also: the imposed christorule in India - same as the christoBrits before - is after all beneficial to islam and denudes the heathen natives from resilience to the christoislamic infestation.)[/color]



Since the name change, AQIM has carried out guerilla-style ambushes against military personnel and truck bombs against government targets, kidnapped tourists for ransom, bombed buses and embraced suicide attacks.



Experts believe these actions suggest widening ambitions within the group's leadership, which is now pursuing a more global, sophisticated and better-financed direction, says a recent report by the US Council on Foreign Relations. It notes that AQIM used the Iraq War and other unpopular Western policies to recruit new members.



A worldwide caution issued by the US State Department in January says AQIM has declared its intention to attack Western targets and has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings and murder of several Westerners.



Among the posts detected recently on the jihadist forums is one from a regular participant who claims to have contacts with al-Qa'ida, asserting that AQIM is "preparing to begin operations in Libya".



The commentator claims that between 4000 and 7000 Islamic militants have assembled in the city of Benghazi.



"The Salafi brothers in Benghazi have declared the Islamic emirate of Libya. The brothers have captured military tanks, Hummers, heavy-medium-light machine guns," the commentator reports.



[color="#0000FF"]Jihadist ideologues whose posts have been monitored praise the purity of the uprising in Libya compared with other manifestations of the Arab spring, such as in Egypt, which they deride for being secular and pro-democracy.



One post notes "the great thing about this revolution is that the people are only raising the banner of truth and shouting takbeer



[God is great], and nobody shouts the name of a secular-democratic party".[/color]



There is intense debate on the forums over the provision of Western military assistance to the Libyan rebel movement, which has prompted consternation about an alliance with the so-called enemies of Islam.



A participant on one forum commented: "I really need some clarification on the current situation in Libya. We see images from kufr [non-Muslim] news sources that the Libyans are requesting help from the kufr against Gaddafi. Could someone please confirm that the mujahidin in Libya are on the straight path."



Forum leaders have reassured participants on this score, essentially arguing the end - achieving an Islamic state - will justify the means. They liken the situation in Libya to that in Afghanistan in the 1990s, when a range of alliances was forged between rival factions in order to oust the Soviet army, before the Taliban eventually took power. "[In Afghanistan] we had Sunnis, nationalists, Ikhwanis [Muslim Brotherhood], Sufi, Shi'ites and other groups fighting shoulder to shoulder against the Russians.



"What happened after the war? We witnessed a civil war between the groups. The Taliban succeeded in taking 90 per cent of Afghanistan. They declared the Islamic emirate and implemented the Sharia. I think that the same thing will happen in Libya."



The mainstream Libyan rebel movement has been eager to distance itself from the Islamists who are trying to muscle in on their rebellion. On March 30, the Libyan Interim Transitional National Council issued a statement intended to allay Western fears about an Islamist takeover, stressing its "commitment to the implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism [and] sanctions concerning al-Qa'ida and the Taliban".



[color="#0000FF"]The ICSR believes the jihadists' propaganda is more wishful thinking than reality. "Their claims are unconvincing and there are notable discrepancies between their interpretation of events and the facts on the ground," Meleagrou-Hitchens reports.



He says despite the rallying cries, there is little concrete evidence of a strong al-Qa'ida presence or serious Islamist activity among the rebels, and their Transitional National Council is "clearly not an al-Qa'ida aligned movement".



However, Western analysts are keeping a close eye on the evolution of the Libyan rebellion, noting that senior online militants are urging a cautious, patient, long-term approach rather than a quick revolution.



The conventional wisdom on the Islamist forums, according to ICSR, is that "there is enough of a Salafi-jihadi presence to ensure that once Gaddafi is overthrown, Libya will begin to move toward transforming into an Islamic state governed by Sharia".



One forum leader warns that declaring an Islamic emirate in Libya would prompt a Western invasion, and stresses instead that they should build up their military forces, "educate the people" on the need for an Islamic state, "and then declare the emirate, with weapons, economy and a people ready to fight for Allah."[/color]

Praise the US. Their "war on terrorism" was a great ruse I mean success.

Jeebusjehovallah works in "mysterious" (transparent) ways.