The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 13 | Number 3 | Article ID 3504 | Mar 21 2011

1

Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their PatronsPeter Dale Scottrsquos Libyan Notebook (Updated March 27)　　リビアの自由の闘士とその後援者とはminusminusピーターデールスコットのリビアノート（３月27日更新）

Peter Dale Scott

Who are the Libyan FreedomFighters and Their Patrons Spanishtranslation available Portuguesetranslation available Swedishtranslation available Germantranslation available Farsi (Persian)translation available Serbiantranslation available Turkishtranslation available Czechtranslation available

Peter Dale Scotts Libyan Notebook

Preface

The world is facing a very unpredictable andpotentially dangerous situation in North Africaand the Middle East What began as amemorable promising relatively nonviolentachievement of New Politics - the Revolutionsin Tunisia and Egypt - has morphed very swiftlyinto a recrudescence of old habits Americaalready mired in two decade-long wars in Iraqand Afghanistan and sporadic air attacks inYemen and Somalia now bombing yet anotherThird World Country in this case Libya

USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile insupport of Operation Odyssey Dawn in theMediterranean Sea March 19 2011 USgovernment handout

The initially stated aim of this bombing was todiminish Libyan civilian casualties But manysenior figures in Washington includingPresident Obama have indicated that the US isgearing up for a quite different war for regimechange one that may well be protracted andcould also easily expand beyond Libya1 If itdoes expand the hope for a nonviolenttransition to civilian government in Tunisia andEgypt and other Middle East nationsexperiencing political unrest may be lost to ahard-edged militarization of governmentespecially in Egypt All of us not justEgyptians have a major stake in seeing thatthat does not happen

The present article does not attempt to proposesolutions or a course of action for the United

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

2

States and its allies or for the people of theMiddle East It attempts rather to examine thenature of the forces that have emerged in Libyaover the last four decades that are presentlybeing played out

To this end I have begun to compile what I callmy Libyan Notebook a collection of relevantfacts that underlie the present crisis ThisNotebook will be judgmental in that I ambiased towards collecting facts that the USmedia tend to ignore facts that are the productin many instances of investigative reportingthat cuts to the heart of power relations deepstructures and economic interests in theregion including the US Israel and the ArabStates as these have played out over the lasttwo decades and more But I hope that it willbe usefully objective and open-endedpermitting others to draw diverse conclusionsfrom the same set of facts2

I wish to begin with two ill-understood topics IWho Are the Libyan Opposition and II WhereAre the Libyan Rebel Arms Coming From

I Who Are the Libyan Opposition

1) Historically

If Muammar Al Gaddafi behaved paranoid itwas for good reason It wasnt long after hereached the age of 27 and led a small group ofjunior military officers in a bloodless coupdeacutetat against Libyan King Idris on September1 1969 that threats to his power and lifeemerged - from monarchists Israeli MossadPalestinian disaffections Saudi security theNational Front for the Salvation of Libya(NFSL) the National Conference for the LibyanOpposition (NCLO) British intelligence UnitedStates antagonism and in 1995 the mostserious of all Al Qaeda-like Libyan Islamicfighting group known as Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya The Colonelreacted brutally by either expelling or killingthose he feared were against him3

Gaddafi and Nasser in a 1969 Photo Gettyimage

2) National Front for the Salvation of Libya(NFSL)

With the aim of overthrowing Libyanstrongman Muammar Khadafy Israel and theUS trained anti-Libyan rebels in a number ofWest and Central African countries The Paris-based African Confidential newsletter reportedon January 5th 1989 that the US and Israelhad set up a series of bases in Chad and otherneighboring countries to train 2000 Libyanrebels captured by the Chad army The groupcalled The National Front for the Salvation ofLibya was based in Chad4

US official records indicate that funding forthe Chad-based secret war against Libya alsocame from Saudi Arabia Egypt MoroccoIsrael and Iraq The Saudis for instancedonated $7m to an opposition group theNational Front for the Salvation of Libya (alsobacked by French intelligence and the CIA)But a plan to assassinate Gadafi and take overthe government on 8 May 1984 was crushed Inthe following year the US asked Egypt toinvade Libya and overthrow Gadafi butPresident Mubarak refused By the end of1985 the Washington Post had exposed theplan after congressional leaders opposing itwrote in protest to President Reagan5

The FNSL [National Front for the Salvation of

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

3

Libya] was part of the National Conference forthe Libyan Opposition held in London in 2005and British resources are being used to supportthe FNSL and other opposition in Libya TheFNSL held its national congress in the USA inJuly 2007 Reports of atrocities and civiliandeaths are being channeled into the westernpress from operations in Washington DC andthe opposition FNSL is reportedly organizingresistance and military attacks from both insideand outside Libya6

3) National Conference for the LibyanOpposition (NCLO)

The main group leading the insurrection is theNational Conference for the Libyan Oppositionwhich includes the National Front for theSalvation of Libya (NFSL) The NFSL which isleading the violence is a US-sponsored armedmilitia of mostly Libyan expatriates and tribesopposed to al-Qaddafi7

4) Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting GroupLIFG)

The LIFG was founded in 1995 by a group ofmujahideen veterans who had fought againstthe Soviet occupation of Afghanistan Upontheir return to Libya they grew angry aboutwhat they viewed as the corruption and impietyof the Libyan regime and formed the LIFG tocreate a state that would show what theybelieved to be the true character of the LibyanpeopleThe most significant LIFG attack was a 1996attempt to assassinate Gadhafi LIFG membersled by Wadi a l -Shateh threw a bombunderneath his motorcade The group alsostages gueri l la-style attacks againstgovernment security forces from its mountainbases Although most LIFG members arestrictly dedicated to toppling Gadhafiintelligence reportedly indicates that somehave joined forces with al-Qaida to wage jihadagainst Libyan and Western interests

worldwide As recently as February 2004 then-Director ofCentral Intelligence George Tenet testifiedbefore the Senate Intelligence Committee thatone of the most immediate threats [to USsecurity] is from smaller international Sunniextremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links They include the Libyan IslamicFighting Group8

In recent days Libyan officials have distributedsecurity documents giving the details ofSufiyan al-Koumi said to be a driver for Osamabin Laden and of another militant allegedlyinvolved in an Islamic emirate in Derna innow-liberated eastern Libya Koumi thedocuments show was freed in September 2010as part of a reform and repent initiativeorganised by Saif al-Islam Gaddafis sonThe LIFG established in Afghanistan in the1990s has assassinated dozens of Libyansoldiers and policemen In 2009 to markGaddafis 40 years in power it apologised fortrying to kill him and agreed to lay down itsarms MI6 [British Intelligence] has beenaccused in the past of supporting it Six LIFGleaders still in prison disavowed their oldways and explained why fighting Gaddafi nolonger constituted legitimate jihad Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi another freed LIFG memberdenied the official claims Gaddafi is trying todivide the people he told al-Jazeera Heclaims that there is an Islamist emirate inDerna and that I am its emir He is takingadvantage of the fact that I am a formerpolitical prisonerDerna is famous as the home of a large numberof suicide bombers in Iraq It is also deeplyhostile to Gaddafi Residents of eastern Libyain general and Derna in particular view theGaddadfa (Gaddafis tribe) as uneducateduncouth interlopers from an inconsequentialpart of the country who have stolen the rightto rule in Libya US diplomats were told in2008 in a cable since released by WikiLeaksThe last 110 members of the LIFG were freedon 16 February the day after the Libyan

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

4

uprising began One of those releasedAbdulwahab Mohammed Kayed is the brotherof Abu Yahya Al Libi one of al Qaidas toppropagandists Koumi fled Libya and is said tohave ended up in Afghanistan working for BinLaden Captured in Pakistan he was handedover to the US and sent to Guantaacutenamo Bay in2002 In 2009 he was sent back to Libya9 UScounter-terrorist experts have expressedconcern that al-Qaida could take advantage of apolitical vacuum if Gaddafi is overthrown Butmost analysts say that although the Islamistsideology has strong resonance in eastern Libyathere is no sign that the protests are going tobe hijacked by them10

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Membersreleased

Fierce clashes between [Qadhafis] securityforces and Islamist guerrillas erupted inBenghazi in September 1995 leaving dozenskilled on both sides After weeks of intensefighting the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group(LIFG) formally declared its existence in acommuniqueacute calling Qadhafis government anapostate regime that has blasphemed againstthe faith of God Almighty and declaring itsoverthrow to be the foremost duty after faithin God [3] This and future LIFG communiqueacuteswere issued by Libyan Afghans who had beengranted political asylum in Britain Theinvolvement of the British government in theLIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains thesubject of immense controversy LIFGs nextbig operation a failed attempt to assassinateQadhafi in February 1996 that killed several ofhis bodyguards was later said to have been

financed by British intelligence to the tune of$160000 according to ex-MI5 officer DavidShayler [4] While Shaylers allegations havenot been independently confirmed it is clearthat Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base oflogistical support and fundraising on its soil Atany rate financing by bin Laden appears tohave been much more important According toone report LIFG received up to $50000 fromthe Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of itsmilitants killed on the battlefield [2005]11

Americans Britons and the French are findingthemselves as comrades in arms with the rebelIslamic Fighting Group the most radicalelement in the Al Qaeda network [to bringdown Gaddhafi] Secretary of State HillaryClinton admitted the risks of the unholyalliance in a congressional hearing saying thatthe Libyan opposition is probably more anti-American than Muammar Gaddhafi A decadeago this very same delusion of a Western-Islamist partnership in Kosovo Bosnia andChechnya ended abruptly in the 911 attacks12

5) Transitional National Council

A RIVAL transitional government to theregime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafilooks set to win US and other internationalsupport as momentum builds to oust thelongtime dictatorUS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmedyesterday that the Obama administration wasreaching out to opponents of Colonel GaddafiShe said the US was willing to offer lsquoany kind ofassistance to remove him from powerProtest leaders who have taken control inLibyas eastern cities claim to have establisheda transitional national council that amounts torival rule They have called on the countrysarmy to join them as they prepare for an attackon the capital Tripoli where the Libyan leaderretains controlConfident the Libyan leaders 42-year rule wascoming to an end Mrs Clinton said yesterdaylsquoWe are just at the beginning of what will follow

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

5

Gaddafi13

6) Facebook

He [Omar El- Hariri Chief of Armed Forces forthe Transitional National Council] remainedunder close surveillance by the security forcesuntil Feb 17 when the revolution started Itwas not initiated by prominent figures of theolder generation he said but beganspontaneously when Tunisia and Egypt inspiredthe youth lsquoChildren of Facebook he declaredin English with a broad smile14

7) Oil

Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they havecreated a new national oil company to replacethe corporation controlled by leader MuammarQaddafi whose assets were frozen by theUnited Nations Security CouncilThe Transitional National Council released astatement announcing the decision made at aMarch 19 meeting to establish the lsquoLibyan OilCompany as supervisory authority on oilproduction and policies in the country basedtemporarily in Benghazi and the appointmentof an interim director general of the companyThe Council also said it designated the CentralBank of Benghazi as a monetary authoritycompetent in monetary policies in Libya andthe appointment of a governor to the CentralBank of Libya with a temporary headquartersin Benghazi15

Peter Dale Scotts Libyan Notebook

II Where Are the Libyan Rebel ArmsComing From

Robert Fisk Libya in turmoil Americassecret plan to arm Libyas rebelsObama asks Saudis to airlift weapons intoBenghazi Independent March 7 2011

Desperate to avoid US military involvement inLibya in the event of a prolonged strugglebetween the Gaddafi regime and its opponentsthe Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it cansupply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi TheSaudi Kingdom already facing a day of ragefrom its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community onFriday with a ban on all demonstrations has sofar failed to respond to Washingtons highlyclassified request although King Abdullahpersonally loathes the Libyan leader who triedto assassinate him just over a year ago

Washingtons request is in line with other USmilitary co-operation with the Saudis The royalfamily in Jeddah which was deeply involved inthe Contra scandal during the Reaganadministration gave immediate support toAmerican efforts to arm guerrillas fighting theSoviet army in Afghanistan in 1980

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab allystrategically placed and capable of furnishingweapons to the guerrillas of Libya Theirassistance would allow Washington to disclaimany military involvement in the supply chain -even though the arms would be American andpaid for by the Saudis

The Saudis have been told that opponents ofGaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars asa first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafisarmour and ground-to-air missiles to shootdown his fighter-bombers

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hoursbut they would need to be delivered to airbases in Libya or to Benghazi airport If theguerrillas can then go on to the offensive andassault Gaddafis strongholds in western Libya

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

6

the political pressure on America and Nato -not least from Republican members ofCongress - to establish a no-fly zone would bereduced

US military planners have already made it clearthat a zone of this kind would necessitate USair attacks on Libyas functioning if seriouslydepleted anti-aircraft missile bases thusbringing Washington directly into the war onthe side of Gaddafis opponents

For several days now US Awacs surveillanceaircraft have been flying around Libya makingconstant contact with Malta air traffic controland requesting details of Libyan flight patternsincluding journeys made in the past 48 hoursby Gaddafis private jet which flew to Jordanand back to Libya just before the weekend

Officially Nato will only describe the presenceof American Awacs planes as part of itspost-911 Operation Active Endeavour whichhas broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to allNato countries under the missions existingmandate Now that Gaddafi has been reinstatedas a super-terrorist in the Wests lexiconhowever the Nato mission can easily be usedto search for targets of opportunity in Libya ifactive military operations are undertaken

Al Jazeera English television channel last nightbroadcast recordings made by American

aircraft to Maltese air traffic controlrequesting information about Libyan flightsespecially that of Gaddafis jet

An American Awacs aircraft tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Maltacontrol tower on Saturday for informationabout a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCNon its way from Amman to Mitiga Gaddafisown VIP airport

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say Do you haveinformation on an aircraft with the Squawk2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]

Malta air traffic control replies Seven thatsounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340with a destination Mitiga according to flightplan

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangersfrom a co-ordinated day of protest by its ownShia Muslim citizens who emboldened by theShia uprising in the neighbouring island ofBahrain have called for street protests againstthe ruling family of al-Saud on Friday

After pouring troops and security police intothe province of Qatif last week the Saudisannounced a nationwide ban on all publicdemonstrations

Shia organisers claim that up to 20000protesters plan to demonstrate with women inthe front rows to prevent the Saudi army fromopening fire

If the Saudi government accedes to Americasrequest to send guns and missiles to Libyanrebels however it would be almost impossiblefor President Barack Obama to condemn thekingdom for any violence against the Shias ofthe north-east provinces

Thus has the Arab awakening the demand fordemocracy in North Africa the Shia revolt andthe rising against Gaddafi become entangled inthe space of just a few hours with US military

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

3

Libya] was part of the National Conference forthe Libyan Opposition held in London in 2005and British resources are being used to supportthe FNSL and other opposition in Libya TheFNSL held its national congress in the USA inJuly 2007 Reports of atrocities and civiliandeaths are being channeled into the westernpress from operations in Washington DC andthe opposition FNSL is reportedly organizingresistance and military attacks from both insideand outside Libya6

3) National Conference for the LibyanOpposition (NCLO)

The main group leading the insurrection is theNational Conference for the Libyan Oppositionwhich includes the National Front for theSalvation of Libya (NFSL) The NFSL which isleading the violence is a US-sponsored armedmilitia of mostly Libyan expatriates and tribesopposed to al-Qaddafi7

4) Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting GroupLIFG)

The LIFG was founded in 1995 by a group ofmujahideen veterans who had fought againstthe Soviet occupation of Afghanistan Upontheir return to Libya they grew angry aboutwhat they viewed as the corruption and impietyof the Libyan regime and formed the LIFG tocreate a state that would show what theybelieved to be the true character of the LibyanpeopleThe most significant LIFG attack was a 1996attempt to assassinate Gadhafi LIFG membersled by Wadi a l -Shateh threw a bombunderneath his motorcade The group alsostages gueri l la-style attacks againstgovernment security forces from its mountainbases Although most LIFG members arestrictly dedicated to toppling Gadhafiintelligence reportedly indicates that somehave joined forces with al-Qaida to wage jihadagainst Libyan and Western interests

worldwide As recently as February 2004 then-Director ofCentral Intelligence George Tenet testifiedbefore the Senate Intelligence Committee thatone of the most immediate threats [to USsecurity] is from smaller international Sunniextremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links They include the Libyan IslamicFighting Group8

In recent days Libyan officials have distributedsecurity documents giving the details ofSufiyan al-Koumi said to be a driver for Osamabin Laden and of another militant allegedlyinvolved in an Islamic emirate in Derna innow-liberated eastern Libya Koumi thedocuments show was freed in September 2010as part of a reform and repent initiativeorganised by Saif al-Islam Gaddafis sonThe LIFG established in Afghanistan in the1990s has assassinated dozens of Libyansoldiers and policemen In 2009 to markGaddafis 40 years in power it apologised fortrying to kill him and agreed to lay down itsarms MI6 [British Intelligence] has beenaccused in the past of supporting it Six LIFGleaders still in prison disavowed their oldways and explained why fighting Gaddafi nolonger constituted legitimate jihad Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi another freed LIFG memberdenied the official claims Gaddafi is trying todivide the people he told al-Jazeera Heclaims that there is an Islamist emirate inDerna and that I am its emir He is takingadvantage of the fact that I am a formerpolitical prisonerDerna is famous as the home of a large numberof suicide bombers in Iraq It is also deeplyhostile to Gaddafi Residents of eastern Libyain general and Derna in particular view theGaddadfa (Gaddafis tribe) as uneducateduncouth interlopers from an inconsequentialpart of the country who have stolen the rightto rule in Libya US diplomats were told in2008 in a cable since released by WikiLeaksThe last 110 members of the LIFG were freedon 16 February the day after the Libyan

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

4

uprising began One of those releasedAbdulwahab Mohammed Kayed is the brotherof Abu Yahya Al Libi one of al Qaidas toppropagandists Koumi fled Libya and is said tohave ended up in Afghanistan working for BinLaden Captured in Pakistan he was handedover to the US and sent to Guantaacutenamo Bay in2002 In 2009 he was sent back to Libya9 UScounter-terrorist experts have expressedconcern that al-Qaida could take advantage of apolitical vacuum if Gaddafi is overthrown Butmost analysts say that although the Islamistsideology has strong resonance in eastern Libyathere is no sign that the protests are going tobe hijacked by them10

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Membersreleased

Fierce clashes between [Qadhafis] securityforces and Islamist guerrillas erupted inBenghazi in September 1995 leaving dozenskilled on both sides After weeks of intensefighting the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group(LIFG) formally declared its existence in acommuniqueacute calling Qadhafis government anapostate regime that has blasphemed againstthe faith of God Almighty and declaring itsoverthrow to be the foremost duty after faithin God [3] This and future LIFG communiqueacuteswere issued by Libyan Afghans who had beengranted political asylum in Britain Theinvolvement of the British government in theLIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains thesubject of immense controversy LIFGs nextbig operation a failed attempt to assassinateQadhafi in February 1996 that killed several ofhis bodyguards was later said to have been

financed by British intelligence to the tune of$160000 according to ex-MI5 officer DavidShayler [4] While Shaylers allegations havenot been independently confirmed it is clearthat Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base oflogistical support and fundraising on its soil Atany rate financing by bin Laden appears tohave been much more important According toone report LIFG received up to $50000 fromthe Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of itsmilitants killed on the battlefield [2005]11

Americans Britons and the French are findingthemselves as comrades in arms with the rebelIslamic Fighting Group the most radicalelement in the Al Qaeda network [to bringdown Gaddhafi] Secretary of State HillaryClinton admitted the risks of the unholyalliance in a congressional hearing saying thatthe Libyan opposition is probably more anti-American than Muammar Gaddhafi A decadeago this very same delusion of a Western-Islamist partnership in Kosovo Bosnia andChechnya ended abruptly in the 911 attacks12

5) Transitional National Council

A RIVAL transitional government to theregime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafilooks set to win US and other internationalsupport as momentum builds to oust thelongtime dictatorUS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmedyesterday that the Obama administration wasreaching out to opponents of Colonel GaddafiShe said the US was willing to offer lsquoany kind ofassistance to remove him from powerProtest leaders who have taken control inLibyas eastern cities claim to have establisheda transitional national council that amounts torival rule They have called on the countrysarmy to join them as they prepare for an attackon the capital Tripoli where the Libyan leaderretains controlConfident the Libyan leaders 42-year rule wascoming to an end Mrs Clinton said yesterdaylsquoWe are just at the beginning of what will follow

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

5

Gaddafi13

6) Facebook

He [Omar El- Hariri Chief of Armed Forces forthe Transitional National Council] remainedunder close surveillance by the security forcesuntil Feb 17 when the revolution started Itwas not initiated by prominent figures of theolder generation he said but beganspontaneously when Tunisia and Egypt inspiredthe youth lsquoChildren of Facebook he declaredin English with a broad smile14

7) Oil

Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they havecreated a new national oil company to replacethe corporation controlled by leader MuammarQaddafi whose assets were frozen by theUnited Nations Security CouncilThe Transitional National Council released astatement announcing the decision made at aMarch 19 meeting to establish the lsquoLibyan OilCompany as supervisory authority on oilproduction and policies in the country basedtemporarily in Benghazi and the appointmentof an interim director general of the companyThe Council also said it designated the CentralBank of Benghazi as a monetary authoritycompetent in monetary policies in Libya andthe appointment of a governor to the CentralBank of Libya with a temporary headquartersin Benghazi15

Peter Dale Scotts Libyan Notebook

II Where Are the Libyan Rebel ArmsComing From

Robert Fisk Libya in turmoil Americassecret plan to arm Libyas rebelsObama asks Saudis to airlift weapons intoBenghazi Independent March 7 2011

Desperate to avoid US military involvement inLibya in the event of a prolonged strugglebetween the Gaddafi regime and its opponentsthe Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it cansupply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi TheSaudi Kingdom already facing a day of ragefrom its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community onFriday with a ban on all demonstrations has sofar failed to respond to Washingtons highlyclassified request although King Abdullahpersonally loathes the Libyan leader who triedto assassinate him just over a year ago

Washingtons request is in line with other USmilitary co-operation with the Saudis The royalfamily in Jeddah which was deeply involved inthe Contra scandal during the Reaganadministration gave immediate support toAmerican efforts to arm guerrillas fighting theSoviet army in Afghanistan in 1980

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab allystrategically placed and capable of furnishingweapons to the guerrillas of Libya Theirassistance would allow Washington to disclaimany military involvement in the supply chain -even though the arms would be American andpaid for by the Saudis

The Saudis have been told that opponents ofGaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars asa first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafisarmour and ground-to-air missiles to shootdown his fighter-bombers

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hoursbut they would need to be delivered to airbases in Libya or to Benghazi airport If theguerrillas can then go on to the offensive andassault Gaddafis strongholds in western Libya

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

6

the political pressure on America and Nato -not least from Republican members ofCongress - to establish a no-fly zone would bereduced

US military planners have already made it clearthat a zone of this kind would necessitate USair attacks on Libyas functioning if seriouslydepleted anti-aircraft missile bases thusbringing Washington directly into the war onthe side of Gaddafis opponents

For several days now US Awacs surveillanceaircraft have been flying around Libya makingconstant contact with Malta air traffic controland requesting details of Libyan flight patternsincluding journeys made in the past 48 hoursby Gaddafis private jet which flew to Jordanand back to Libya just before the weekend

Officially Nato will only describe the presenceof American Awacs planes as part of itspost-911 Operation Active Endeavour whichhas broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to allNato countries under the missions existingmandate Now that Gaddafi has been reinstatedas a super-terrorist in the Wests lexiconhowever the Nato mission can easily be usedto search for targets of opportunity in Libya ifactive military operations are undertaken

Al Jazeera English television channel last nightbroadcast recordings made by American

aircraft to Maltese air traffic controlrequesting information about Libyan flightsespecially that of Gaddafis jet

An American Awacs aircraft tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Maltacontrol tower on Saturday for informationabout a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCNon its way from Amman to Mitiga Gaddafisown VIP airport

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say Do you haveinformation on an aircraft with the Squawk2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]

Malta air traffic control replies Seven thatsounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340with a destination Mitiga according to flightplan

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangersfrom a co-ordinated day of protest by its ownShia Muslim citizens who emboldened by theShia uprising in the neighbouring island ofBahrain have called for street protests againstthe ruling family of al-Saud on Friday

After pouring troops and security police intothe province of Qatif last week the Saudisannounced a nationwide ban on all publicdemonstrations

Shia organisers claim that up to 20000protesters plan to demonstrate with women inthe front rows to prevent the Saudi army fromopening fire

If the Saudi government accedes to Americasrequest to send guns and missiles to Libyanrebels however it would be almost impossiblefor President Barack Obama to condemn thekingdom for any violence against the Shias ofthe north-east provinces

Thus has the Arab awakening the demand fordemocracy in North Africa the Shia revolt andthe rising against Gaddafi become entangled inthe space of just a few hours with US military

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

4

uprising began One of those releasedAbdulwahab Mohammed Kayed is the brotherof Abu Yahya Al Libi one of al Qaidas toppropagandists Koumi fled Libya and is said tohave ended up in Afghanistan working for BinLaden Captured in Pakistan he was handedover to the US and sent to Guantaacutenamo Bay in2002 In 2009 he was sent back to Libya9 UScounter-terrorist experts have expressedconcern that al-Qaida could take advantage of apolitical vacuum if Gaddafi is overthrown Butmost analysts say that although the Islamistsideology has strong resonance in eastern Libyathere is no sign that the protests are going tobe hijacked by them10

Libyan Islamic Fighting Group Membersreleased

Fierce clashes between [Qadhafis] securityforces and Islamist guerrillas erupted inBenghazi in September 1995 leaving dozenskilled on both sides After weeks of intensefighting the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group(LIFG) formally declared its existence in acommuniqueacute calling Qadhafis government anapostate regime that has blasphemed againstthe faith of God Almighty and declaring itsoverthrow to be the foremost duty after faithin God [3] This and future LIFG communiqueacuteswere issued by Libyan Afghans who had beengranted political asylum in Britain Theinvolvement of the British government in theLIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains thesubject of immense controversy LIFGs nextbig operation a failed attempt to assassinateQadhafi in February 1996 that killed several ofhis bodyguards was later said to have been

financed by British intelligence to the tune of$160000 according to ex-MI5 officer DavidShayler [4] While Shaylers allegations havenot been independently confirmed it is clearthat Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base oflogistical support and fundraising on its soil Atany rate financing by bin Laden appears tohave been much more important According toone report LIFG received up to $50000 fromthe Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of itsmilitants killed on the battlefield [2005]11

Americans Britons and the French are findingthemselves as comrades in arms with the rebelIslamic Fighting Group the most radicalelement in the Al Qaeda network [to bringdown Gaddhafi] Secretary of State HillaryClinton admitted the risks of the unholyalliance in a congressional hearing saying thatthe Libyan opposition is probably more anti-American than Muammar Gaddhafi A decadeago this very same delusion of a Western-Islamist partnership in Kosovo Bosnia andChechnya ended abruptly in the 911 attacks12

5) Transitional National Council

A RIVAL transitional government to theregime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafilooks set to win US and other internationalsupport as momentum builds to oust thelongtime dictatorUS Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmedyesterday that the Obama administration wasreaching out to opponents of Colonel GaddafiShe said the US was willing to offer lsquoany kind ofassistance to remove him from powerProtest leaders who have taken control inLibyas eastern cities claim to have establisheda transitional national council that amounts torival rule They have called on the countrysarmy to join them as they prepare for an attackon the capital Tripoli where the Libyan leaderretains controlConfident the Libyan leaders 42-year rule wascoming to an end Mrs Clinton said yesterdaylsquoWe are just at the beginning of what will follow

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

5

Gaddafi13

6) Facebook

He [Omar El- Hariri Chief of Armed Forces forthe Transitional National Council] remainedunder close surveillance by the security forcesuntil Feb 17 when the revolution started Itwas not initiated by prominent figures of theolder generation he said but beganspontaneously when Tunisia and Egypt inspiredthe youth lsquoChildren of Facebook he declaredin English with a broad smile14

7) Oil

Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they havecreated a new national oil company to replacethe corporation controlled by leader MuammarQaddafi whose assets were frozen by theUnited Nations Security CouncilThe Transitional National Council released astatement announcing the decision made at aMarch 19 meeting to establish the lsquoLibyan OilCompany as supervisory authority on oilproduction and policies in the country basedtemporarily in Benghazi and the appointmentof an interim director general of the companyThe Council also said it designated the CentralBank of Benghazi as a monetary authoritycompetent in monetary policies in Libya andthe appointment of a governor to the CentralBank of Libya with a temporary headquartersin Benghazi15

Peter Dale Scotts Libyan Notebook

II Where Are the Libyan Rebel ArmsComing From

Robert Fisk Libya in turmoil Americassecret plan to arm Libyas rebelsObama asks Saudis to airlift weapons intoBenghazi Independent March 7 2011

Desperate to avoid US military involvement inLibya in the event of a prolonged strugglebetween the Gaddafi regime and its opponentsthe Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it cansupply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi TheSaudi Kingdom already facing a day of ragefrom its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community onFriday with a ban on all demonstrations has sofar failed to respond to Washingtons highlyclassified request although King Abdullahpersonally loathes the Libyan leader who triedto assassinate him just over a year ago

Washingtons request is in line with other USmilitary co-operation with the Saudis The royalfamily in Jeddah which was deeply involved inthe Contra scandal during the Reaganadministration gave immediate support toAmerican efforts to arm guerrillas fighting theSoviet army in Afghanistan in 1980

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab allystrategically placed and capable of furnishingweapons to the guerrillas of Libya Theirassistance would allow Washington to disclaimany military involvement in the supply chain -even though the arms would be American andpaid for by the Saudis

The Saudis have been told that opponents ofGaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars asa first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafisarmour and ground-to-air missiles to shootdown his fighter-bombers

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hoursbut they would need to be delivered to airbases in Libya or to Benghazi airport If theguerrillas can then go on to the offensive andassault Gaddafis strongholds in western Libya

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

6

the political pressure on America and Nato -not least from Republican members ofCongress - to establish a no-fly zone would bereduced

US military planners have already made it clearthat a zone of this kind would necessitate USair attacks on Libyas functioning if seriouslydepleted anti-aircraft missile bases thusbringing Washington directly into the war onthe side of Gaddafis opponents

For several days now US Awacs surveillanceaircraft have been flying around Libya makingconstant contact with Malta air traffic controland requesting details of Libyan flight patternsincluding journeys made in the past 48 hoursby Gaddafis private jet which flew to Jordanand back to Libya just before the weekend

Officially Nato will only describe the presenceof American Awacs planes as part of itspost-911 Operation Active Endeavour whichhas broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to allNato countries under the missions existingmandate Now that Gaddafi has been reinstatedas a super-terrorist in the Wests lexiconhowever the Nato mission can easily be usedto search for targets of opportunity in Libya ifactive military operations are undertaken

Al Jazeera English television channel last nightbroadcast recordings made by American

aircraft to Maltese air traffic controlrequesting information about Libyan flightsespecially that of Gaddafis jet

An American Awacs aircraft tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Maltacontrol tower on Saturday for informationabout a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCNon its way from Amman to Mitiga Gaddafisown VIP airport

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say Do you haveinformation on an aircraft with the Squawk2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]

Malta air traffic control replies Seven thatsounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340with a destination Mitiga according to flightplan

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangersfrom a co-ordinated day of protest by its ownShia Muslim citizens who emboldened by theShia uprising in the neighbouring island ofBahrain have called for street protests againstthe ruling family of al-Saud on Friday

After pouring troops and security police intothe province of Qatif last week the Saudisannounced a nationwide ban on all publicdemonstrations

Shia organisers claim that up to 20000protesters plan to demonstrate with women inthe front rows to prevent the Saudi army fromopening fire

If the Saudi government accedes to Americasrequest to send guns and missiles to Libyanrebels however it would be almost impossiblefor President Barack Obama to condemn thekingdom for any violence against the Shias ofthe north-east provinces

Thus has the Arab awakening the demand fordemocracy in North Africa the Shia revolt andthe rising against Gaddafi become entangled inthe space of just a few hours with US military

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

5

Gaddafi13

6) Facebook

He [Omar El- Hariri Chief of Armed Forces forthe Transitional National Council] remainedunder close surveillance by the security forcesuntil Feb 17 when the revolution started Itwas not initiated by prominent figures of theolder generation he said but beganspontaneously when Tunisia and Egypt inspiredthe youth lsquoChildren of Facebook he declaredin English with a broad smile14

7) Oil

Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they havecreated a new national oil company to replacethe corporation controlled by leader MuammarQaddafi whose assets were frozen by theUnited Nations Security CouncilThe Transitional National Council released astatement announcing the decision made at aMarch 19 meeting to establish the lsquoLibyan OilCompany as supervisory authority on oilproduction and policies in the country basedtemporarily in Benghazi and the appointmentof an interim director general of the companyThe Council also said it designated the CentralBank of Benghazi as a monetary authoritycompetent in monetary policies in Libya andthe appointment of a governor to the CentralBank of Libya with a temporary headquartersin Benghazi15

Peter Dale Scotts Libyan Notebook

II Where Are the Libyan Rebel ArmsComing From

Robert Fisk Libya in turmoil Americassecret plan to arm Libyas rebelsObama asks Saudis to airlift weapons intoBenghazi Independent March 7 2011

Desperate to avoid US military involvement inLibya in the event of a prolonged strugglebetween the Gaddafi regime and its opponentsthe Americans have asked Saudi Arabia if it cansupply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi TheSaudi Kingdom already facing a day of ragefrom its 10 per cent Shia Muslim community onFriday with a ban on all demonstrations has sofar failed to respond to Washingtons highlyclassified request although King Abdullahpersonally loathes the Libyan leader who triedto assassinate him just over a year ago

Washingtons request is in line with other USmilitary co-operation with the Saudis The royalfamily in Jeddah which was deeply involved inthe Contra scandal during the Reaganadministration gave immediate support toAmerican efforts to arm guerrillas fighting theSoviet army in Afghanistan in 1980

But the Saudis remain the only US Arab allystrategically placed and capable of furnishingweapons to the guerrillas of Libya Theirassistance would allow Washington to disclaimany military involvement in the supply chain -even though the arms would be American andpaid for by the Saudis

The Saudis have been told that opponents ofGaddafi need anti-tank rockets and mortars asa first priority to hold off attacks by Gaddafisarmour and ground-to-air missiles to shootdown his fighter-bombers

Supplies could reach Benghazi within 48 hoursbut they would need to be delivered to airbases in Libya or to Benghazi airport If theguerrillas can then go on to the offensive andassault Gaddafis strongholds in western Libya

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

6

the political pressure on America and Nato -not least from Republican members ofCongress - to establish a no-fly zone would bereduced

US military planners have already made it clearthat a zone of this kind would necessitate USair attacks on Libyas functioning if seriouslydepleted anti-aircraft missile bases thusbringing Washington directly into the war onthe side of Gaddafis opponents

For several days now US Awacs surveillanceaircraft have been flying around Libya makingconstant contact with Malta air traffic controland requesting details of Libyan flight patternsincluding journeys made in the past 48 hoursby Gaddafis private jet which flew to Jordanand back to Libya just before the weekend

Officially Nato will only describe the presenceof American Awacs planes as part of itspost-911 Operation Active Endeavour whichhas broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to allNato countries under the missions existingmandate Now that Gaddafi has been reinstatedas a super-terrorist in the Wests lexiconhowever the Nato mission can easily be usedto search for targets of opportunity in Libya ifactive military operations are undertaken

Al Jazeera English television channel last nightbroadcast recordings made by American

aircraft to Maltese air traffic controlrequesting information about Libyan flightsespecially that of Gaddafis jet

An American Awacs aircraft tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Maltacontrol tower on Saturday for informationabout a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCNon its way from Amman to Mitiga Gaddafisown VIP airport

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say Do you haveinformation on an aircraft with the Squawk2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]

Malta air traffic control replies Seven thatsounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340with a destination Mitiga according to flightplan

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangersfrom a co-ordinated day of protest by its ownShia Muslim citizens who emboldened by theShia uprising in the neighbouring island ofBahrain have called for street protests againstthe ruling family of al-Saud on Friday

After pouring troops and security police intothe province of Qatif last week the Saudisannounced a nationwide ban on all publicdemonstrations

Shia organisers claim that up to 20000protesters plan to demonstrate with women inthe front rows to prevent the Saudi army fromopening fire

If the Saudi government accedes to Americasrequest to send guns and missiles to Libyanrebels however it would be almost impossiblefor President Barack Obama to condemn thekingdom for any violence against the Shias ofthe north-east provinces

Thus has the Arab awakening the demand fordemocracy in North Africa the Shia revolt andthe rising against Gaddafi become entangled inthe space of just a few hours with US military

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

6

the political pressure on America and Nato -not least from Republican members ofCongress - to establish a no-fly zone would bereduced

US military planners have already made it clearthat a zone of this kind would necessitate USair attacks on Libyas functioning if seriouslydepleted anti-aircraft missile bases thusbringing Washington directly into the war onthe side of Gaddafis opponents

For several days now US Awacs surveillanceaircraft have been flying around Libya makingconstant contact with Malta air traffic controland requesting details of Libyan flight patternsincluding journeys made in the past 48 hoursby Gaddafis private jet which flew to Jordanand back to Libya just before the weekend

Officially Nato will only describe the presenceof American Awacs planes as part of itspost-911 Operation Active Endeavour whichhas broad reach to undertake aerial counter-terrorism measures in the Middle East region

US Awacs monitor Libya

The data from the Awacs is streamed to allNato countries under the missions existingmandate Now that Gaddafi has been reinstatedas a super-terrorist in the Wests lexiconhowever the Nato mission can easily be usedto search for targets of opportunity in Libya ifactive military operations are undertaken

Al Jazeera English television channel last nightbroadcast recordings made by American

aircraft to Maltese air traffic controlrequesting information about Libyan flightsespecially that of Gaddafis jet

An American Awacs aircraft tail number LX-N90442 could be heard contacting the Maltacontrol tower on Saturday for informationabout a Libyan Dassault-Falcon 900 jet 5A-DCNon its way from Amman to Mitiga Gaddafisown VIP airport

Nato Awacs 07 is heard to say Do you haveinformation on an aircraft with the Squawk2017 position about 85 miles east of our [sic]

Malta air traffic control replies Seven thatsounds to be Falcon 900- at flight level 340with a destination Mitiga according to flightplan

But Saudi Arabia is already facing dangersfrom a co-ordinated day of protest by its ownShia Muslim citizens who emboldened by theShia uprising in the neighbouring island ofBahrain have called for street protests againstthe ruling family of al-Saud on Friday

After pouring troops and security police intothe province of Qatif last week the Saudisannounced a nationwide ban on all publicdemonstrations

Shia organisers claim that up to 20000protesters plan to demonstrate with women inthe front rows to prevent the Saudi army fromopening fire

If the Saudi government accedes to Americasrequest to send guns and missiles to Libyanrebels however it would be almost impossiblefor President Barack Obama to condemn thekingdom for any violence against the Shias ofthe north-east provinces

Thus has the Arab awakening the demand fordemocracy in North Africa the Shia revolt andthe rising against Gaddafi become entangled inthe space of just a few hours with US military

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

7

priorities in the region 16

Libya rebels coordinating with West on airassault Los Angeles Times March 242011

Reports from the region suggest that theSaudis and Egyptians have been providingarms Though US officials could not confirmthat they say it is plausible17

Egypt Said to Arm Libya Rebels WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

CAIRO-Egypts military has begun shippingarms over the border to Libyan rebels withWashingtons knowledge US and Libyan rebelofficials said

The shipments-mostly small arms such asassault rifles and ammunition-appear to be thefirst confirmed case of an outside governmentarming the rebel fighters Those fighters havebeen losing ground for days in the face of asteady westward advance by forces loyal toLibyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

The Egyptian shipments are the strongestindication to date that some Arab countries areheeding Western calls to take a lead in effortsto intervene on behalf of pro-democracy rebelsin their fight against Mr Gadhafi in LibyaWashington and other Western countries havelong voiced frustration with Arab statesunwillingness to help resolve crises in theirown region even as they criticized Westernpowers for attempting to do so

The shipments also follow an unusually robustdiplomatic response from Arab states Therehave been rare public calls for foreign militaryintervention in an Arab country including avote by the 23-member Arab League last weekurging the UN to impose a no-fly zone overLibya

The vote provided critical political cover toWestern powers wary of intervening militarily

without a broad regional and internationalmandate On Thursday evening the UNSecurity Council voted on a resolutionendorsing a no- f ly zone in Libya andauthorizing military action in support of therebels

Within the council Lebanon took a lead roledrafting and circulating the draft of theresolution which calls for all necessarymeasures to enforce a ban on flights overLibya The United Arab Emirates and Qatarhave taken the lead in offering to participate inenforcing a no-fly zone according to UNdiplomats

Libyan rebel officials in Benghazi meanwhilehave praised Qatar from the first days of theuprising calling the small Gulf state theirstaunchest ally Qatar has consistently pressedbehind the scenes for tough and urgentinternational action behind the scenes theseofficials said

Qatari flags fly prominently in rebel-heldBenghazi After pro-Gadhafi forces retook thetown of Ras Lanuf last week Libyan state TVbroadcast images of food-aid packages bearingthe Qatari flag

Anti-Gadhafi fighters in Benghazi

The White House has been reluctant to backcalls from leaders in Congress for armingLibyas rebels directly arguing that the USmust first fully assess who the fighters are andwhat policies they will pursue if they succeeded

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

8

in toppling Col Gadhafi US officials believethe opposition includes some Islamist elementsThey fear that Islamist groups hostile to theUS could try to hijack the opposition and takeany arms that are provided

The Egyptian weapons transfers began lsquoa fewdays ago and are ongoing according to asenior US official lsquoTheres no formal USpolicy or acknowledgement that this is goingon said the senior official But lsquothis issomething we have knowledge of

Calls to Egypts foreign ministry and thespokesman for the prime minister seekingcomment went unanswered There is no meansof reaching Egypts military for comment AnEgyptian official in Washington said he had noknowledge of weapon shipments

The US official also noted that the shipmentsappeared to come too little too late to tip themilitary balance in favor of the rebels whohave faced an onslaught from Libyan forcesbacked by tanks artillery and aircraft

We know the Egyptian military council ishelping us but they cant be so visible saidHani Souflakis a Libyan businessman in Cairowho has been acting as a rebel liaison with theEgyptian government since the uprising began

Weapons are getting through said MrSouflakis who says he has regular contactswith Egyptian officials in Cairo and the rebelleadership in Libya Americans have given thegreen light to the Egyptians to help TheAmericans dont want to be involved in a directlevel but the Egyptians wouldnt do it if theydidnt get the green light

Western officials and rebel leaders in Libyasaid the US has wanted to avoid being seen astaking a leadership role in any military actionagainst Mr Gadhafi after its invasions of Iraqand Afganistan fueled anger and mistrust withWashington throughout the region

But the US stated clearly it wants Mr Gadhafiout of power and has signaled it would supportthose offering help to the rebels militarily orotherwise

A spokesman for the rebel government inBenghazi said arms shipments have begunarriving to the rebels but declined to specifywhere they came from

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified said the spokesman Mustafa al-Gherryani

The US official said Egypt wanted to keep theshipments covert In public Egypt has soughtto maintain a neutral stance toward the rebeluprising in Libya Egypt abstained during theArab Leagues vote calling for the UN toimpose a no-fly zone on Mr Gadhafi accordingto people familiar with the internal ArabLeague deliberations

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian laborersare believed to still be in Libya

On the other hand the Egyptian militaryscovert support for the rebels suggests that ithas calculated that Mr Gadhafi is unlikely toremain in power at least in the eastern half ofthe country and therefore Egypt is eager tobegin to build good relations with the rebels

Rebel forces in the past 24 hours appeared tomake some progress fending off pro-Gadhafiforces assaults and have rolled out newweapons for the first time since the uprisingbegan last month Among them are rebel tanksthat have taken up positions on the front linesin recent days Rebels also launched fighter-jetattacks on government positions on Wednesdayfor the first time so far

The tanks and fighter jets are believed to havebeen among the weapons seized by rebels from

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

9

defected units of the Libyan army in theeastern half of the country but they havereceived spare parts or trained mechanics fromoutside the country to help them deploy themsome rebel officials have speculated-Sam Dagher and Adam Entous contributed tothis article18

Benjamin Gottlieb Egypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesNeonTommy Annenberg Digital NewsMarch 17 2011

Arms shipments from Egypts military havebegun flowing across the border into Libyawith US knowledge Libyan rebels and USofficials said Thursday

Made up mostly of small arms such as assaultrifles and ammunition the shipments are thefirst confirmed reports of an outsidegovernment supporting rebel fighters withweapons Rebels have been loosing ground fordays against pro-Gaddafi forces aiming to endthe conflict before foreign intervention plansare finalized

Although the UN approved a no-fly zoneover Libya late Thursday rebel forces fear thatany planned foreign intervention would be toolittle to late

No-Fly Zone

The shipment of arms indicated an unusuallybold response by an Arab nation intervening ina conflict outside its borders There have alsobeen rare public decrees for the West tointervene in the conflict - the Arab Leaguevoted 23-0 last week encouraging the UN toimpose the no-fly zone over Libya

In spite of reports of arms flowing across theEgyptian boarder Egyptian Foreign Ministryspokeswoman Menha Bakhoum told Reutersthat Egypt would not be involved in anymilitary intervention in neighboring Libya

Egypt will not be among those Arab states Wewill not be involved in any military interventionNo intervention period Bakhoum said

Bakhoum was responding to comments by USSecretary of State Hillary Clinton who saidThursday that discussions were on the tableregarding Arab involvement in US andEuropean intervention in the conflict

Clinton has said repeatedly that the USdesires involvement from a neighboring Arabnation in any planned intervention

A Libyan rebel government spokesman inBenghazi Mustafa al-Gherryani said rebelshave begun receiving arms shipments fromneighboring nations however he declined toreveal their origin

Our military committee is purchasing armsand arming our people The weapons arecoming but the nature of the weapons theamount where its coming from that has beenclassified he said19

Yoichi Shimatsu Mideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatar NewAmerica Media March 1 2011

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay youngprotesters in Benghazi Cairo and Tunisia thattheir democratic hopes are being manipulatedby an ultra-conservative Arab elite which has

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

10

underhandedly backed a surge of militantIslamist radicals across North Africa CredibleUS intelligence reports have cited evidencepointing to Qatars long-running support for theMuslim Brotherhood Al Qaeda and jihadistfighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorisminvestigators in the wake of 9-11 need to bereexamined now that the Libyan IslamicFighting Group (LIFG) an on-and-off affiliate ofAl Qaeda has seized armories across half of theNorth African country Libyas well-stockedarsenals contain high-power explosives rocketlaunchers and chemical weapons LIFG is onthe State Departments terrorist list

Most worrying according to a US intelligenceofficial cited by CNN is the probable loss ofchemical weapons The Federation of AmericanScientists reports that as of 2008 only 40percent of Libyas mustard gas was destroyedin the second round of decommissioningChemical canisters along the Egyptian borderwere yet to be retr ieved and are nowpresumably in the hands of armed militants

After initially letting slip that the earliestLibyan protests were organized by the LIFG AlJazeera quickly changed its line to present aheavily filtered account portraying the eventsas lsquopeaceful protests To explain away thegunshot deaths of Libyan soldiers during theuprising the Qatar-based network presented abizarre scenario of 150 dead soldiers in Libyahaving been executed by their officers forlsquorefusing to fight The mysterious officers thenmiraculously vacated their base disappearinginto thin air while surrounded by angryprotesters Off the record one Americanintelligence analyst called these media claimsan lsquoabsurdity and suggested instead theobvious that the soldiers were gunned down inan armed assault by war-hardened returnedmilitants from Iraq and AfghanistanAccording to a Congressional Research Servicereport of January 2008 lsquoSome observers have

raised questions about possible support for AlQaeda by some Qatari citizens includingmembers of Qatars large ruling familyAccording to the 911 Commission ReportQatars Interior Minister provided a safe havento 911 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammedduring the mid-1990s and press reportsindicate other terrorists may have receivedfinancial support or safe haven in Qatar afterSeptember 11 2001

The national security chief Interior MinisterAbdullah bin Khalid al-Thani is furthermentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by KhalidShaikh Mohammed lsquoto join the Bosnia jihadThe report recalls how after the 1993 WorldTrade Center bombing FBI officials narrowlymissed an opportunity to capture the suspectin Qatar lsquoFormer US officials have sincestated their belief that a high-ranking memberof the Qatari government alerted him to theimpending raid allowing him to flee thecountry20

III Postscript US Intelligence March 262011

Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

Reporting from Washington-

Despi te fears that I s lamicextremists may be playing a hiddenrole in the rebellion againstMoammar Kadaf i the USintelligence community hasfound no organized presence ofAl Qaeda or its allies among theLibyan opposition Americanofficials say

A US intelligence-gathering effortthat began shortly after anti-Kadafiforces started seizing towns ineastern Libya last month has notuncovered a significant presenceof Islamic militants among the

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

11

insurgents

lsquoWere keeping an eye out forextremist activity in Libya but wehavent seen much if any to datesaid a US counter-terrorismofficial A Defense official addedthat the US had not seen a directlink between the opposition andextremists 21

New York Times March 7 2011

DARNAH Libya-

This fiercely independent port cityon the Mediterranean coast oncethe center of a simmering Islamistinsurgency in the 1990s is nowbranded by Col Muammar el-Qaddafi as an Islamic emiratein f i l t ra t ing h is embat t ledcountry

But Darnah offers a more complexreality a meacutelange where secularcurrents are intersecting withreligious ones drawn together bynationalist opposition to ColonelQaddafis four decades of oftenbizarre rule This old Barbary portwith a reputation as one of Libyasmost pious cities and in the wordsof a WikiLeaks cable a wellspringfor foreign fighters in Iraqsuggests a more nuanced pictureof what role militant Islam mayplay in a city and country fumblingto forge a body politic in a landwithout one

Here leaders of tribes like theObeidat Zliten Tajjoura andMisratah a lready exerc iseauthority along with judges and a

three-member council Mr AbuRashed a judge and a formerdiplomat all secular figures

Other than them only the MuslimBrotherhood and more militantstrands thought to number in theh u n d r e d s s h o w s i g n s o forganization many having forgedbonds in prison or fighting thegovernment in the 1990s One ofthose men is Abdul-Hakim al-Hasidi who fought for fiveyears in Afghanistan ended upin Colonel Qaddafis jails forfour years and now withhundreds of armed men runsthe defenses of Darnah and itshinterland

He helps run much of the citysrump bureaucracy as well drawingon a formidable talent for logisticsrecognized by many in the town 22

Daily Telegraph [London] March 25 2011

In an interview with the Italiannewspaper Il Sole 24 Ore Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he hadrecruited lsquoaround 25 men fromthe Derna area in eastern Libyato fight against coalition troopsin Iraq Some of them he saidare lsquotoday are on the front linesin Adjabiya

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighterslsquoare patriots and good Muslimsnot terrorists but added that thelsquomembers of al-Qaeda are alsogood Muslims and are fighting

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

12

against the invader

His revelations came even as IdrissDeby Itno Chads president saidal-Qaeda had managed to pillagemilitary arsenals in the Libyanrebel zone and acquired armslsquoincluding surface-to-air missileswhich were then smuggled intotheir sanctuaries

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he hadearlier fought against lsquothe foreigninvasion in Afghanistan beforebeing lsquocaptured in 2002 inPeshwar in Pakistan He was laterhanded over to the US and thenheld in Libya before being releasedin 2008

US and Brit ish governmentsources said Mr al-Hasidi was amember of the Libyan IslamicFighting Group or LIFG whichkilled dozens of Libyan troops inguerrilla attacks around Derna andBenghazi in 1995 and 1996 23

Wikileaks Cable extract Die Hard inDerna June 2 2008

Rejecting the idea that Derna wasuniformly extremist xxxxxxxxxxxxand his business partner describedthe town as being divided betweenreligiously conservative andsecular residents A largenumber of Dernas citizens werenot happy about the increasinglyconservative religious atmospherethat had prevailed since the1980s he claimed Elaborating[XXXXXXX] attributed adherenceto more extreme iterations of Islamto unnatural foreign influenceson religious practices in Derna A

number of Libyans who had foughtand in some cases undergonereligious and ideological trainingin Afghanistan Lebanon and theWest Bank in the late 1970s andearly 1980s had returned toeastern Libya including Derna inthe mid to late 1980s Claimingtheir return was not coincidentalhe descr ibed a del iberate c o o r d i n a t e d c a m p a i g n t opropagate more conservativeiterations of Islam in part toprepare the ground for theeventual overthrow by the LibyanIslamic Fighting Group (LIFG) ofMuammar Qadhafis regime whichis hated by conservat iveIslamists (Note After taking painsto curry favor with the ulema inLibya in the years immediatelyafter the 1969 revolution Qadhafibroke with them in the late 1970scriticizing aspects of Islam as un-revolutionary Although herenewed efforts to cultivateMuslim leaders in the 1990s deepsuspicions remain) Mostyoung men watched a mix of al-Jazeera news religious sermonsand western action f i lms onEnglish language satellite channelsbroadcast from the Gulf The resultwas a heady mixture of violencereligious conservatism and hatredof US policy in Iraq and PalestineThe consensus view in Derna isthat the US blindly supportsIsrael and has invaded Iraq tosecure oil reserves and positionitself to attack Iran he said Hedismissed PE Chiefs attempts toclarify US policy stressing thatmost people base their judgmentson information they receive fromsatellite television and at themosque PRIDE IN DERNAS

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

13

H I S T O R Y A S A T O W N O FFIGHTERS 11 (C) xxxxxxxxxxxxattributed the flow of foreignfighters from Derna in part to localpride in the towns reputation as ahistorical locus of resistance tooccupation While many of thetowns citizens were uncomfortablewith the towns increasinglyconservative Islamist bent the factthat young men from Dernatraveled to Iraq in disproportionatenumbers to fight against coalitionforces was viewed through adifferent lens Not everyone likedthe bearded ones (a reference toconservative imams) or theirmessage xxxxxxxxxxxx said butthe duty of a Muslim in general -and of a son of Derna in particular- was to resist occupation ofMuslim lands through jihad Itsjihad - its our duty and youretalking about people who donthave much else to be proud ofDernas residents might take issuewith attempts to ban smoking orrestrict social activities but therewas consensus on basic issueslike jihad Depictions on al-Jazeeraof events in Iraq and Palestinefueled the widely-held view inDerna that resistance to coalitionf o r c e s w a s c o r r e c t a n dnecessary 2 4

Webster Tarpley citing West Point StudyMarch 24 2011

[West Point Study]The apparent surge in Libyanrecruits traveling to Iraq may belinked the Libyan Islamic FightingGroups (LIFG) increasinglycooperative relationship with al-Qaeda which culminated in the

LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda onNovember 3 2007 25

Peter Dale Scott a former Canadian diplomatand English Professor at the University ofCalifornia Berkeley is the author of Drugs Oiland War The Road to 9 11 The WarConspiracy JFK 911 and the Deep Politics ofWar His most recent book is American WarMachine Deep Politics the CIA Global DrugConnection and the Road to AfghanistanHis website which contains a wealth of hiswritings is here

Recommended citation Peter Dale Scott Whoare the Libyan Freedom Fighters and TheirPatrons The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue13 No 3 March 28 2011

Notes

1 ldquoDefense Secretary Gates who recentlywarned against any further protracted USground war said on March 23 that the end ofmilitary action in Libya is unknown and couldlast longer than a few weeks lsquoI think there areany number of possible outcomes here and noone is in a position to predict themrsquo Gates toldreporters in Egyptrdquo (C-Span March 24 2011)

2 Interested readers may wish to consult myfirst exploration ldquoGoogling lsquoRevolutionrsquo inNorth Africardquo

3 Dan Lieberman ldquoMuammar Al Gaddafi MeetsHis Own Rebelsrdquo CounterCurrentsorg March9 2011

4 Joel Bainerman Inside the Covert Operationsof the CIA amp Israels Mossad (New York SPIBooks 1994) 14

5 Richard Keeble ldquoThe Secret War Against

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

14

Libyardquo MediaLens 2002

6 Petroleum and Empire in North Africa NATOInvasion of Libya Underway By Keith HarmonSnow 2 March 2011

7 Ghali Hassan ldquoUS Love Affair withMurderous Dictators and Hate for DemocracyrdquoAxis of Logic Mar 17 2011

8 Center for Defense Information ldquoIn theSpotlight The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group(LIFG)rdquo January 18 2005

9 Qadhafi was concerned about Al Qaedaterrorism in Libya and in 1996 Libya becamethe first government to place Osama bin Ladenon Interpolrsquos Wanted List (Rohan GunaratnaInside Al Qaeda Global Network of Terror[New York Columbia UP 2002] 142)Thereafter American and Libyan intelligencecollaborated closely for some years against AlQaeda Beginning when

10 Ian Black ldquoLibya rebels rejects Gaddafis al-Qaida spinrdquo Guardian March 1 2011

11 Gary Gambill The Islamic Fighting Group(LIFG) Jamestown Foundation TerrorismMonitor May 5 2005 citing Al-Hayat(London) 20 October 1995 [ldquocommuniqueacuterdquo]The Shayler affair The spooks the Coloneland the jailed whistle-blower The Observer(London) 9 August 1998 Jean-Charles Brisardand Guillaume Dasquieacute Ben Laden La Veriteinterdite (Bin Ladin The Forbidden Truth) Cfa l so Annie Machon Sp ies L ies andWhistleblowers MI5 MI6 And the ShaylerAffair (Book Guild Publishing 2005) [Shayler]

12 Yoichi Shimatsu ldquoAttack on Libya WhyOdyssey Dawn Is Doomedrdquo New AmericaMedia March 20 2011

13 ldquoUS reaches out to Libyan insurgentsrdquo TheAustralian March 1 2011

14 ldquoHow a onetime friend to Gadhafi became his

rivalrdquo Globe and Mail [Toronto] March 42011

15 Libyan Rebel Council in Benghazi Forms OilCompany to Replace Qaddafirsquosrdquo BloombergMarch 22 2011

16 Robert Fisk ldquoAmericas secret plan to armLibyas rebelsrdquo Independent March 7 2011

17 ldquoLibya rebels coordinating with West on airassaultrdquo Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

18 ldquoEgypt Said to Arm Libya Rebelsrdquo WallStreet Journal March 17 2011

19 Benjamin Gottlieb ldquoEgypt Arms LibyanRebels As Gaddafis Conquest ContinuesrdquoNeonTommy Annenberg Digital News March17 2011

20 Yoichi Shimatsu ldquoMideast Revolutions and9-11 Intrigues Created in Qatarrdquo New AmericaMedia March 1 2011 The al-Thani familyrsquosprotection of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed isconfirmed by former CIA officer Robert Baer(Los Angeles Times March 23 2003) CfRobert Baer Sleeping with the Devil (NewYork Crown 2003) Peter Lance Triple Cross(New York ReganHarperCollins 2006)234-37

21 Ken Dilanian US finds no organized AlQaeda presence in Libya opposition officialssay Los Angeles Times March 24 2011

22 Anthony Shadid Diverse Character in CityQaddafi Calls Islamist New York TimesMarch 7 2011

23 Libyan rebel commander admits his fightershave al-Qaeda links Daily Telegraph [London]March 25 2011

24 Wikileaks cable Die Hard in Derna June 22008 08TRIPOLI 430 CONFNOFORN(Cached copy available here)

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

15

25 Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman Al QaidasForeign Fighter in Iraq A First Look at theSinjar Records (West Point NY HarmonyProject Combating Terrorism Center

Department of Social Sciences US MilitaryAcademy December 2007) 9 quoted inWebster Tarpley The CIAs Libya Rebels TheSame Terrorists who Killed US NATO Troopsin Iraq Tarpleynet March 24 2011

Click on the cover to order

Click on the cover to order

APJ | JF 9 | 13 | 3

16

Click on the cover to order

Click on the cover to order