Libyan Rebel Leader Admits Links To “Al Qaeda” Fighters

[Alafia87]

Interesting.

http://www.infowars.com/libyan-rebel-leader-admits-links-to-al-qaeda-fighters/

Libyan Rebel Leader Admits Links To “Al Qaeda” Fighters



Steve Watson
Infowars.com
March 25, 2011

The commander of anti Gaddafi rebels forces in Libya has admitted that among the ranks of those fighting against the government are islamic militants who have fought and killed US troops in Iraq, otherwise known as “al qaeda” fighters.

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, who made the remarks in an interview with Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian newspaper, admitted that he had previously recruited fundamentalists to fight in Iraq, and said that the fighters are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.

al-Hasidi described the fighters as “patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” adding that “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.

al-Hasidi himself was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and handed over to US forces after fighting against US troops in Afghanistan. He was held in Libya and eventually released in 2008.

The admission serves to highlight the hypocrisy of the US government’s so called war on terror, and exposes the reality behind the UN sanctioned military action in Libya.

The US, Britain and France launched airstrikes last week in support of the so-called “protesters” who commandeered fighter jets and tanks to attack the regime of tinpot dictator Colonel Gaddafi.

The rebels have been armed with weapons delivered by US allies via Egypt. There have been open calls from elite think tanks, such as RAND, to directly arm the fighters.

The US military is seriously considering doing so and is “considering the legality” of such a move, according to Mark Kornblau, spokesman for US Ambassador Dr Susan Rice.

It is therefore now beyond doubt that the rebels our governments are arming and supporting militarily are in fact at least in part Islamic fundamentalist Al-Qaeda cells who have fought and killed our own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fighters violently oppose the by comparison moderate and modernising regime of Gaddafi and wish to see it destroyed and replaced with sharia law in Libya.


Of course, When Gaddafi pointed out that Al Qaeda fighters were instigating a revolution in Libya, our castrated corporate media reacted by branding the man crazy and declaring him deluded.

This would not be the first time that our governments have equipped Al Qaeda against Gaddafi.

In 2002 French intelligence experts revealed how western intelligence agencies bankrolled a Libyan Al-Qaeda cell controlled directly by Bin Laden to hatch a plot to kill Gaddafi that was foiled in March 1996. The cell was led by Anas al-Liby, who was with Bin Laden in Sudan before Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan.

Indeed, it was Gaddafi’s Libya who put out the first Interpol warrant for Bin Laden’s arrest in 1998. Western intelligence agencies blocked the warrant from being pursued, and allowed Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda to go on and kill more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Some of the very rebels now being funded and trained by western forces were part of the Al-Qaeda cell that tried to kill Gaddafi on behalf of the United States and Britain 15 years ago.

As the London Telegraph reported last week, “The West and al-Qaeda on the same side.” Libyan Al-Qaeda leaders have offered their unanimous support for the ousting of Gaddafi.

“An al-Qaeda leader of Libyan origin, Abu Yahya al-Libi, released a statement backing the insurrection a week ago, while Yusuf Qaradawi, the Qatar-based, Muslim Brotherhood-linked theologian issued a fatwa authorising Col Gaddafi’s military entourage to assassinate him,” writes Richard Spencer, highlighting how the “rebels” are in fact religious extremists hell bent on imposing sharia law in Libya.


All of this serves to highlight the fact that our governments’ contentions that they are in Libya to “protect” the Libyan people are beyond the pale.

Arming and aiding hardcore religious extremists in an effort to overthrow the government of Libya merely serves to provide for a situation somewhere down the line where our globalist controlled militaries will once again be provided an excuse to occupy the country and plunder its resources, just as they have in Afghanistan and Iraq.

—

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

[gman]

Not doubting this report, but a word of caution as to the source: In my opinion infowars and Alex Jones are phony "radicals" who push conspiracy theories that serve (whether intentionally or not) to distract people from concentrating on the real, verifiable conspiracies (like big corporations conspiring with government tax and revenue people to not pay their tax, which is undeniably real, as opposed to, say, the bilderbergers being a front for a pagan cult of owl-worshippers, which is both dubious and irrelevant - who cares if they worship an owl or "jesus", it's what they actually do to victimise poor people that matters).
re Libya, I don't know much about it although I know a couple people from there, but I get the impression that the "rebels" are an extremely mixed bunch who have in common that they hate Gaddafi's regime, but not necessarily much else. I wouldn't doubt that al qaeda fighters are amongst them but I would not take seriously Gaddafi's assertion that they are the prime movers of the uprising. I think a lot of people, especially in the east, were genuinely fed up with living in a kleptocracy (though far from the worst kleptocracy in the world) run by one man and his family in quite a brutal fashion (although again, no more brutal than is the standard for US-backed autocratic regimes in the region) and were inspired by the mid east uprisings to attempt their own. Various elements joined in this, including people who I suspect are opportunistically trying to position themselves as the next leaders, the Islamist elements mentioned in the article, genuinely idealistic people both secular and religious, and others who don't fit neatly into any of those categories. At first the general consensus seemed to be that they did not want to align themselves to any western powers, then they (or some elements of the ad hoc "leadership" at any rate) changed their mind when it became clear that they couldn't win without them. Now they are compromised by being allied with these powers who plainly do not have the interests of "the Libyan people" (in reality many peoples in an artifically-bordered "country") at heart. Similarly, working class black zimbabweans who had genuine legitimate grievances with Mugabe's regime in the 90s lost credibility when the MDC welcomed the white farmers [invaders] into the fold.
Then there are those who support Gaddafi, whether genuinely (I get the impression that you can have a fairly comfortable life in Libya, materially speaking, if you support the regime or are willing to turn a blind eye to its excesses, like massacring over 1000 prisoners in Benghazi in the 90s, which helps explain why that city became a focal point of the uprising), out of fear, or those who may not like Gaddafi but hate the western powers more - especially as those powers are now bombing them with depleted uranium weapons.
Then there is the issue of racism. Plainly it is not as clear cut as Gaddafi propagandists like Gerald Perreira make out, as to judge from photos and footage I've seen, there are black people on both sides of the struggle, and many of the mercenaries or supposed mercenaries are not black. Nor can it be as clear cut as my Libyan friend and others who support the "rebels" make out (in my friend's case because he genuinely believes it, in other cases not) - that all the captured and killed "mercenaries" you can find in the youtube footage really were proven to be mercenaries firing into crowds of civilians, that other than a couple of instances of mob violence they are all being treated humanely and released if their captors feel they were forced to fight, that reports of non-black Libyans risking their lives to protect black people are more represenstative of "the truth" than reports of black people being massacred by non-black libyans. To me, not being so emotionally involved in it as my friend is, it's plain that this is a case of the dictum "there are three sides to every story, your side, my side and the truth" (Babatunde Olatunji). When the smoke clears we'll see which side has more to answer for or whether they're evenly matched in that regard.
At the end of the day it's a messy situation all around and the involvement of the western powers (and qatar - as an aside, I wonder how good a job al jazeera will do of reporting any insurrection that might hit *that* country) pretty much guraantees that it won't have a happy ending any time soon.

[Alafia87]

I hear what you're saying about Alex Jones though I wouldn't call him a "radical" since he's very much into the free market, "invisible hand", etc.  (I do know you're not calling him one).  About the Bilderbergs, I have no fight with their Meritan (African)-Inspired religion, but I do think the real nuts and bolts is that they are intent on keeping control of the world and exterminating the masses of the population.  I do know my history though because the first people to speak out about the Bilderberg group were the American John Birch Society, a real far right group of racists.  However, just like how a broken clock is right twice a day, so were they right about the Bilderbergs, and so is Alex Jones.

Alex Jones has in my opinion been wrong before like about Obama being born in Kenya, but he and his team was right about the beginning of the recession in the US and the real truth behind the September 11th Attacks.  So, there's no one source I can think of that I agree with everything about them, but I do acknowledge the truths that I think they are coming forward with.

[Alafia87]

Enemies Unknown
[col. writ. 3/26/11] (c) '11 Mumia Abu-Jamal
 
   It is a measure of how powerful the U.S. military is, and how poor the media is, that the nation wages war against peoples and countries it knows nothing about.
   All it apparently takes is a media campaign, calling someone a 'monster', a 'thug', or the clincher, a Hitler, and bombers begin hitting the skies.
   It does it, gets chastened or beaten, vows not to do it again, and of course, does it again -- and again.
   When U.S. forces struck Vietnam (after a lie about an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin), it did so almost as an afterthought; to assist a beaten European ally (France), and in support of what scholars and analysts called 'the domino theory', as if, if Vietnam 'fell', all of Asia would quickly tumble -- like dominoes.
   This theory, like many such ones in support of Imperial wars, was false.  Decades later, one of the war's foremost hawks, Defense Secretary Robert Strange McNamara, would admit that American leaders knew next to nothing about Vietnam, its language, history or culture, and that such ignorance made victory virtually impossible.
   Then Somalia.  Then Iraq.
   Now Libya. How many of us know that much of the internal war is driven by tribal conflicts? That one of the major eastern tribes, the Senussi, lost power and influence when King Idris was overthrown in 1969 by the Free Officers Movement, of which Col. Kaddafi was a part? That many of them don't want democracy but the old kingdom restored?
   That many flew flags of the House of Idris -- a western puppet like Farouk of Egypt or the Shah of Iran -- during initial rebellions?
   Does it seem strange that western so-called democracies are fighting on the side of kings?
   Oh -- and backwards, poor Libya. Did you know that Libya has the highest per capita GOP in Africa -- even higher than South Africa?? Or that it had one of the highest literacy rates in the Arab world? (Almost 20% higher than Egypt?)
   I didn't either.  I read it (in a relatively obscure British journal).  And to check it out, I looked it up.
   We don't know, because it's not in the interest of the corporate forces which owns and utilizes the media, or for us to know.
   10 years after the Afghanistan war started, and 8 years after the Iraq war began, and we haven't learned a damned thing.
 
--(c) '11 maj

[gman]

Long Live Mumia Abu Jamal (in freedom and fresh air)!
I'll check out the documentary when I get the chance and get back to you.