Posted on 09/04/2011 7:16:31 PM PDT by tsowellfan
Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.
U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels. A government report circulated Tuesday said extremists were observed “strategizing” on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya after the regime of Col. Gadhafi is defeated.
“Several forum participants have suggested that, following a transitional stage, the battle should turn against secularist rebels and members of the [rebels’] Transitional National Council,” the unclassified report stated.
Some U.S. officials sought to play down the remarks by noting that such Internet postings are not always accurate measures of jihadist plans.
The report said the jihadists’ strength and influence on the ground “are uncertain at this time.”
However, the report said the jihadist plotting coincided with the high-profile emergence of Abu Abdallah al-Sadiq, a former leader of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and now a leading rebel. He is currently known as Abdel Hakim al-Khulidi Belhaj and led rebels in overrunning Col. Gadhafi’s Tripoli compound.
A U.S. official familiar with intelligence reports on the region said there are concerns that some LIFG members remain committed to al Qaeda and others may be temporarily renouncing their ties to the terrorist group for “show.”
“Some members of LIFG in the past had connections with al Qaeda in Sudan, Afghanistan or Pakistan, and others dropped their relationship with al Qaeda entirely,” the official said...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Ya think??
OMG!
Nobody could see that coming!
< /sarc >
Surprise, surprise!
Now, there’s a surprise—NOT! Hussein knew and gave his blessing.
Unexpected!
Shocked, yes shocked to the core. Who would have guessed that muslim extremest, who constitute the majority of the rebel command and provisional government, would want an Islamic state ... well certainly not our esteemed state department. They received assurances from the rebels ... trust us they said ... just not sure if they said bend over first!
Obama must be so proud.
That is IMPOSIBLE!!
It is the Arab Spring.
They’re rounding up blacks now, too.
The national motto for the new Islamic State of Libya will be written on all currency and official buildings: Death to America!
Maybe Hillary can run for Prez there, and Huma can be the Secretary for Keepin’ It Real. Yup....huge victory for the Muslim Brotherhood and AQAP. Leading from behind means taking it up the behind.
"I can't believe you're still surprised by this kind of thing."
Arab Spring to become Islamic Winter.
Then I guess the Obama victory tour is off for now.
Oh, that is a big surprise. Obama and his buddies the Muslim Brotherhood planned for this all along. Thanks Obama for putting Israel and the US along with the EU at great risk for terrorist attacks by opening your big mouth and causing the uprisings in all of these Arab countries.
when will the morons in the state dept
realize
no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse.
Abdelhakim Belhaj, aka Abu Abdallah al-Sadek, is a Libyan jihadi. Born in May 1966, he honed his skills with the mujahideen in the 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
He’s the founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and its de facto emir - with Khaled Chrif and Sami Saadi as his deputies. After the Taliban took power in Kabul in 1996, the LIFG kept two training camps in Afghanistan; one of them, 30 kilometers north of Kabul - run by Abu Yahya - was strictly for al-Qaeda-linked jihadis.
After 9/11, Belhaj moved to Pakistan and also to Iraq, where he befriended none other than ultra-nasty Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - all this before al-Qaeda in Iraq pledged its allegiance to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and turbo-charged its gruesome practices.
In Iraq, Libyans happened to be the largest foreign Sunni jihadi contingent, only losing to the Saudis. Moreover, Libyan jihadis have always been superstars in the top echelons of “historic” al-Qaeda - from Abu Faraj al-Libi (military commander until his arrest in 2005, now lingering as one of 16 high-value detainees in the US detention center at Guantanamo) to Abu al-Laith al-Libi (another military commander, killed in Pakistan in early 2008).
Time for an extraordinary rendition
The LIFG had been on the US Central Intelligence Agency’s radars since 9/11. In 2003, Belhaj was finally arrested in Malaysia - and then transferred, extraordinary rendition-style, to a secret Bangkok prison, and duly tortured.
In 2004, the Americans decided to send him as a gift to Libyan intelligence - until he was freed by the Gaddafi regime in March 2010, along with other 211 “terrorists”, in a public relations coup advertised with great fanfare.
The orchestrator was no less than Saif Islam al-Gaddafi - the modernizing/London School of Economics face of the regime. LIFG’s leaders - Belhaj and his deputies Chrif and Saadi - issued a 417-page confession dubbed “corrective studies” in which they declared the jihad against Gaddafi over (and illegal), before they were finally set free.
A fascinating account of the whole process can be seen in a report called “Combating Terrorism in Libya through Dialogue and Reintegration”. [1] Note that the authors, Singapore-based terrorism “experts” who were wined and dined by the regime, express the “deepest appreciation to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation for making this visit possible”.
Crucially, still in 2007, then al-Qaeda’s number two, Zawahiri, officially announced the merger between the LIFG and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM). So, for all practical purposes, since then, LIFG/AQIM have been one and the same - and Belhaj was/is its emir.
In 2007, LIFG was calling for a jihad against Gaddafi but also against the US and assorted Western “infidels”.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/middle_east/mh30ak01.html
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