Thursday 2nd of May 2024
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as long as we hit sumpthin'...

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Libyan Shifts From Detainee to Rebel, and U.S. Ally of Sorts


By ROD NORDLAND and SCOTT SHANE


DARNAH, Libya — For more than five years, Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu was a prisoner at the Guantánamo Bay prison, judged “a probable member of Al Qaeda” by the analysts there. They concluded in a newly disclosed 2005 assessment that his release would represent a “medium to high risk, as he is likely to pose a threat to the U.S., its interests and allies.”

Today, Mr. Qumu, 51, is a notable figure in the Libyan rebels’ fight to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, reportedly a leader of a ragtag band of fighters known as the Darnah Brigade for his birthplace, this shabby port town of 100,000 people in northeast Libya. The former enemy and prisoner of the United States is now an ally of sorts, a remarkable turnabout resulting from shifting American policies rather than any obvious change in Mr. Qumu.

He was a tank driver in the Libyan Army in the 1980s, when the Central Intelligence Agency was spending billions to support religious militants trying to drive Soviet troops out of Afghanistan. Mr. Qumu moved to Afghanistan in the early 1990s, just as Osama bin Laden and other former mujahedeen were violently turning against their former benefactor, the United States.

He was captured in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, accused of being a member of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and sent to Guantánamo — in part because of information provided by Colonel Qaddafi’s government.

“The Libyan Government considers detainee a ‘dangerous man with no qualms about committing terrorist acts,’ ” says the classified 2005 assessment, evidently quoting Libyan intelligence findings, which was obtained by The New York Times. “ ‘He was known as one of the extremist commanders of the Afghan Arabs,’ ” the Libyan information continues, referring to Arab fighters who remained in Afghanistan after the anti-Soviet jihad.

When that Guantánamo assessment was written, the United States was working closely with Colonel Qaddafi’s intelligence service against terrorism. Now, the United States is a leader of the international coalition trying to oust Colonel Qaddafi — and is backing with air power the rebels, including Mr. Qumu.

The classified Guantánamo assessment of Mr. Qumu claims that he suffered from “a non-specific personality disorder” and recounted — again citing the Libyan government as its source — a history of drug addiction and drug dealing and accusations of murder and armed assault.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/guantanamo-files-libyan-detainee-now-us-ally-of-sorts.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

boom boum bom...

A Nato air strike on the Libyan capital Tripoli has badly damaged buildings in Col Muammar Gaddafi's compound.

Reports said at least two powerful missiles struck the Libyan leader's sprawling Bab al-Azizia compound early on Monday.

Three TV stations briefly went off the air following the explosions.

The blasts were among the biggest to hit Tripoli so far, correspondents said. Nato is targeting Col Gaddafi's forces as he tries to quell a revolt.

The BBC's Ian Pannell in Tripoli said the damaged buildings appeared to be the same ones that Col Gaddafi used to host a recent visit by an African Union peace mission.

Reports said Libyan Television and the Jamahiriya and Shababiya TV stations were off air for about half-an-hour following the blasts.

On Sunday, forces loyal to the Libyan leader bombarded areas of the western city of Misrata, despite the regime saying it had halted attacks to allow local tribes to negotiate with rebels.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13184594

a civil war amongst the oil...

planesail

Libya is the fourth-largest country in Africa with an area of 1.8 million square kilometres (about the size of Queensland) and population of 6.4 million people (Queensland has 4.5 million).

There are 1.7 million Libyans living in the western capital, Tripoli and 90 per cent of Libyans live in less than 10 per cent of the area, primarily along the coast. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania in the west, Fezzan in the south, and Cyrenaica in the east - where the largest city, Benghazi, has 1.09 million people. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves in the world.

The military situation in president Gaddafi’s “Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” seems increasingly messy as Gaddafi’s forces continue to defeat or contain the rebels on the ground - despite the no-fly zone and NATO air strikes. Now the UK, France and Italy have announced they have deployed, or are deploying, up to 10 military “advisers” each to try to break the deadlock, while the US has started to use Predator drone strikes to surgically target Gaddafi’s forces in built-up areas.

The UK and France were the lead nations in recognising the rebel “Libyan Republic” in Cyrenaica, and promoting the removal of Gaddafi. Various reasons have been put forward for this, including their interest in saving civilian lives, domestic political reasons, access to Libyan oil, and prospective arms sales contracts - although not necessarily in that order. The US was reluctantly dragged into leading the bombing campaign through the NATO connection, and encouragement of Foreign Minister Rudd, among others.

The UK and France anticipated that the jasmine revolution, which had had its beginnings in Libya on 15 February 2011, would quickly sweep through the country from east to west, causing the Libyan Army to change sides, and the population to rise up and throw out Gaddafi and his family. This proved to be a disastrous miscalculation, as what actually developed was a civil war between east and west.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/167228.html

brown pants to the rescue...

italylibya

 

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi has approved the use of his country's air force in Nato's Libya mission.

Italy was ready to allow its jets to take "targeted military action", he said in a statement.

Earlier, a Nato air strike badly damaged buildings in Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli.

Nato is enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians in Libya amid a revolt that began in February, inspired by other uprisings in the Arab world.

Mr Berlusconi announced the decision after a telephone call with US President Barack Obama, and would also call other European leaders to brief them personally, said his statement.

Italy had previously said it would not take part in Nato-led air strikes, citing its 40-year colonial rule of Libya.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13188951

 

buck naked with no-where to go .....

How much sympathy should we have for the hapless Foreign Secretary, William Hague, as he thrashes about to avoid the question of whether we're trying to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi on the one hand and why we aren't doing more to intervene in Syria on the other?

His excruciating contortions when asked on the Today programme yesterday whether we were deliberately trying to kill the Libyan leader reflect a real confusion of purpose on the part of the British and other Western governments.

So too do Hague's efforts to explain away the manifest difference in our reactions to President Bashar Assad's violence against his own people in Syria and Colonel Gaddafi's equal brutality against peaceful demonstrations in Libya.

To suggest, as the Foreign Secretary does, that somehow the regime in Damascus is still "at a crossroads" where it can be persuaded by words of condemnation and threats of possible sanctions to follow the path of righteousness and reform, whilst the regime in Tripoli had gone beyond that point and therefore should be removed, is just specious nonsense.

The reality is that we - and one includes the US and the French in this - are taking radically different approaches to the two countries because we see it in our interests to do so.

No Wonder Hague Can't Explain Himself