Thread: The Libyan Crisis

Originally Posted by Norton

Originally Posted by Butterfly

looks like it's shopping time for the rebels

And their friends.

"Libya's oil fields could be open for business again soon. It's a prospect that has oil executives wondering which firms and nations will be favoured be any new administration.
Those who backed the recent rebellion, such as France and Italy will find themselves in the strongest position.
However Russian and Chinese firms may lose out after failing to support any action against Col Muammar Gaddafi."


BBC News - Libya: Countries compete for oil licences

The squeeky wheel gets the oil

To the Victor go the spoils.

looks like the French not happy to have missed the Iraq spoils went for catchup with Libya

Asia Times Online :: THE ROVING EYE: How al-Qaeda got to rule in Tripoli



"His name is Abdelhakim Belhaj. Some in the Middle East might have, but few in the West and across the world would have heard of him.

Time to catch up. Because the story of how an al-Qaeda asset turned out to be the top Libyan military commander in still war-torn Tripoli is bound to shatter - once again - that wilderness of mirrors that is the "war on terror", as well as deeply compromising the carefully constructed propaganda of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) "humanitarian" intervention in Libya. Muammar Gaddafi's fortress of Bab-al-Aziziyah was essentially invaded and conquered last week by Belhaj's men - who were at the forefront of a militia of Berbers from the mountains southwest of Tripoli. The militia is the so-called Tripoli Brigade, trained in secret for two months by US Special Forces. This turned out to be the rebels' most effective militia in six months of tribal/civil war.

Already last Tuesday, Belhaj was gloating on how the battle was won, with Gaddafi forces escaping "like rats" (note that's the same metaphor used by Gaddafi himself to designate the rebels). 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).

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". Fast forward to last February when, a free man, Belhaj decided to go back into jihad mode and align his forces with the engineered uprising in Cyrenaica.

Every intelligence agency in the US, Europe and the Arab world knows where he's coming from. He's already made sure in Libya that himself and his militia will only settle for sharia law. There's nothing "pro-democracy" about it - by any stretch of the imagination. And yet such an asset could not be dropped from NATO's war just because he was not very fond of "infidels". The late July killing of rebel military commander General Abdel Fattah Younis - by the rebels themselves - seems to point to Belhaj or at least people very close to him. It's essential to know that Younis - before he defected from the regime - had been in charge of Libya's special forces fiercely fighting the LIFG in Cyrenaica from 1990 to 1995. The Transitional National Council (TNC), according to one of its members, Ali Tarhouni, has been spinning Younis was killed by a shady brigade known as Obaida ibn Jarrah (one of the Prophet Mohammed's companions). Yet the brigade now seems to have dissolved into thin air.

Shut up or I'll cut your head off

Hardly by accident, all the top military rebel commanders are LIFG, from Belhaj in Tripoli to one Ismael as-Salabi in Benghazi and one Abdelhakim al-Assadi in Derna, not to mention a key asset, Ali Salabi, sitting at the core of the TNC. It was Salabi who negotiated with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi the "end" of LIFG's jihad, thus assuring the bright future of these born-again "freedom fighters". It doesn't require a crystal ball to picture the consequences of LIFG/AQIM - having conquered military power and being among the war "winners" - not remotely interested in relinquishing control just to please NATO's whims.

Meanwhile, amid the fog of war, it's unclear whether Gaddafi is planning to trap the Tripoli brigade in urban warfare; or to force the bulk of rebel militias to enter the huge Warfallah tribal areas. Gaddafi's wife belongs to the Warfallah, Libya's largest tribe, with up to 1 million people and 54 sub-tribes. The inside word in Brussels is that NATO expects Gaddafi to fight for months if not years; thus the Texas George W Bush-style bounty on his head and the desperate return to NATO's plan A, which was always to take him out. Libya may now be facing the specter of a twin-headed guerrilla Hydra; Gaddafi forces against a weak TNC central government and NATO boots on the ground; and the LIFG/AQIM nebula in a jihad against NATO (if they are sidelined from power). Gaddafi may be a dictatorial relic of the past, but you don't monopolize power for four decades for nothing, and without your intelligence services learning a thing or two. From the beginning, Gaddafi said this was a foreign-backed/al-Qaeda operation; he was right (although he forgot to say this was above all neo-Napoleonic French President Nicolas Sarkozy's war, but that's another story). He also said this was a prelude for a foreign occupation whose target was to privatize and take over Libya's natural resources. He may - again – turn out to be right.

The Singapore "experts" who praised the Gaddafi regime's decision to free the LIFG's jihadis qualified it as "a necessary strategy to mitigate the threat posed to Libya". Now, LIFG/AQIM is finally poised to exercise its options as an "indigenous political force".

Ten years after 9/11, it's hard not to imagine a certain decomposed skull in the bottom of the Arabian Sea boldly grinning to kingdom come."

Originally Posted by OhOh

Every intelligence agency in the US, Europe and the Arab world knows where he's coming from

Originally Posted by OhOh

Shut up or I'll cut your head off

Glasgow ?

Asia Times Online :: THE ROVING EYE: It's a TOTAL war, monsieur



"The winners of that "kinetic" thing in northern Africa (the Barack Obama administration swears it's not a war) - collectively described as Friends of Libya (FOL) - were all in a jolly mood as they gathered in Paris on Thursday, with no air-conditioning but potent odors of runny Brie and Roquefort, to gloat about their United Nations-sanctioned, North Atlantic Treaty Organization-implemented "operation" for regime change in Libya.

Call it the FOL war; the R2P war (as in "responsibility to protect" Western plunder); the Air France war; the Total war; anyway, the FOL had a blast spinning their win.

Sarkozy, gloated, "We have aligned with the Arab people in their aspiration for freedom." Bahrainis, Saudis, Yemenis, not to mention Tunisians and Egyptians, have every right to be puzzled.

Sarko added, "Dozens of thousands of lives were spared thanks to the intervention." Even the "rebels" are spinning there are at least 50,000 dead, with NATO still hooked on a wild bombing spree.

The emir of Qatar at least admitted that on-the-run Muammar Gaddafi could not have been toppled without NATO. But he added that the Arab League could have done more; in fact it did - by providing a bogus vote that opened the way for the Anglo-French-American redacted UN Resolution 1973.

Transitional National Council (TNC) interim prime minister Mahmoud Jibril asserted, "The world bet on the Libyans and the Libyans showed their courage and made their dream real." "World" now means NATO and a bunch of regressive Persian Gulf monarchies. As for the rest, shut up.

Yet the most sinister, true to character, must have been NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen; "We have no plans whatsoever to intervene in conflicts in the region." Then came the inevitable "but". Rasmussen added, "But more generally speaking, I think this could set a template. We have demonstrated an ability to act in support of the United Nations and we have demonstrated an ability to include partners outside NATO in such operations".

Africa and the Middle East, not to mention most of the global South, you have been warned; Humanitarian imperialism, under the cloak of R2P, is the new law of the land.

Securing the loot
Hours before the Paris bash, French daily Liberation published on its website a letter written only 17 days after UN Resolution 1973. In the letter, the TNC ratifies an agreement ceding no less than 35% of Libya's total crude oil production to France in exchange of Sarko's "humanitarian" support.

The letter is addressed to the office of the emir of Qatar (the go-between for the TNC and France from the beginning) - with a copy to then-Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa. The letterhead is supplied by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya.

The promise totally matches what an official from an oil company in Cyrenaica said last week - that the "winners" in the oil bonanza would be the nations that supported the TNC from the start.

As expected, denials piled up. The Quai d'Orsay - the French Foreign Ministry - said it had never heard of such a document. Same for Mansur Said al-Nasr, a TNC special envoy to the Paris conference. The TNC's man in Britain, Guma al-Gamaty, added that all future oil contracts would be awarded "on the basis of merit". And even energy giant Total had to muscle in; its chief executive officer, Christophe de Margerie, swore he had never discussed oil deals with the TNC.

As if Sarko and Total were altruistic, Rousseau-style humanitarians who would never spare a thought for 44 billion barrels of oil. Total was in Benghazi discussing business with the TNC already last June. A bitter intra-European "oil war" between Total and Italy's ENI is already in effect.

ENI - active in Libya since 1959 - has already signed an agreement with the TNC to be back in business and immediately supply fuel to Libya - in exchange for future payment in oil. Total's push is to secure a much larger piece of the Libya energy pie than it already had - as in future contracts.

Slouching towards Arabia
It's quasi-official. Libya is not in Africa anymore. It has been relocated (upgraded?) to Arabia. Maybe Saudi King Abdullah ordered it by decree and no one noticed. The FOL do not include Africans. The African Union (AU) has refused to recognize the TNC; it will only do so when a legitimate government is in place.

While NATO went the Air France way - liberation from above, in business class - the AU from the start pleaded for a ceasefire and negotiations. The FOL imperially ignored it.

Perhaps Africans have noticed that NATO's mission "to protect civilians" now includes bombing Sirte - where smart projectiles carefully target only "evil" Gaddafi supporters disguised as civilians, while the good guys escape unharmed.

Perhaps Africans have been the only ones to listen to the Vietnam-era threat by TNC member Ali Tarhouni - very cozy with Qatar - who said, about the few towns and regions still loyal to Gaddafi, "Sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood - and the faster we do this the less blood will be shed."

Perhaps Africans were the only ones to notice the sustained and increasingly reported (not by corporate media) ethnic cleansing perpetrated by the "rebels"; as if no one knew that people in Cyrenaica have historically been extremely prejudiced against sub-Saharan Africans.

Or perhaps Africans see right through the FOL's agenda; the new Libyan status as a barely disguised Western colony; and the neo-Orwellian fable of humanitarian imperialism."

Originally Posted by OhOh

the Air France war

love that one

Originally Posted by OhOh

"Sometimes to avoid bloodshed you must shed blood - and the faster we do this the less blood will be shed."

brilliant

^
As posted a couple of months back, the US and UK treachery of Ghaddafi will have been noticed by every nation on earth - especially the rogue ones.

After witnessing the back stabbing of Ghaddafi it's impossible to imagine that North Korea, Iran or any other traditional enemy of America/The West would ever think raproachment is a serious possibility.

It will also make China doubly unsure. A dangerous situation indeed.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

BBC - 4 September 2011
Last updated at 01:19 GMT

Libya: Gaddafi regime's US-UK spy links revealed

US and UK spy agencies built close ties with their Libyan counterparts during the so-called War on Terror, according to documents discovered at the office of Col Gaddafi's former spy chief.

The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli.

The UK's MI6 also apparently gave the Gaddafi regime details of dissidents. (click link for more)

brilliant, now it makes the war for oil very clear

Libyans hope to seize Gaddafi bastion | Reuters

"(Reuters) - Libya's interim council said it hoped to seize one of Muammar Gaddafi's last strongholds without resistance on Sunday as it tries to control the entire country and restore normality.

Outside the pro-Gaddafi town of Bani Walid, a National Transitional Council (NTC) negotiator said talks were over.

"Everything was done yesterday, they asked us for more time and we gave them some more hours," Mahmoud Abdul Azil told Reuters, at a checkpoint 40 km (25 miles) from the desert town.

"Today, God willing, we will go in. There was some fighting overnight. They fired at us first."

Abdul Azil said NATO-backed NTC forces were just 10 km from Bani Walid and inching forward, ready to attack what he said were an estimated 100 pro-Gaddafi fighters there if necessary.

"We are waiting for the order for our commanders to go into the city. We have told them we are coming. Everyone should stay at home. Hopefully it will be done without bloodshed," he said, as warplanes of the Western alliance roared overhead.

In Tripoli, life was returning to normal after last month's fighting and last week's Muslim holiday. Traffic was heavy as fuel supplies improved. Cafes were busy and offices opened.

NTC officials announced plans to bring their heavily-armed fighters under control and try to integrate thousands of them into the police force and find jobs for others.

"We only need the revolutionaries for the first month. We have a plan we will announce today to include 3,000 of the revolutionaries in the interior ministry who will be trained and will work in national security," interim Interior Minister Ahmad Darat told reporters.

"The rest of them work in business or are builders etc -- they don't want to be in the police. They will give up their weapons. It's just a matter of time and organisation."

Officials said there would also be retraining and reintegration schemes for those who fought for Gaddafi.

GADDAFI "SAFE"

Anti-Gaddafi forces have also closed in on the deposed leader's birthplace in the coastal city of Sirte, but appear ready to allow more time for negotiations there.

"With God's grace, we are in a position of strength. We can enter any city ... but because of our care and desire to prevent bloodshed and avoid more destruction to national institutions we have given a period of one week," NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Aziz said in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday.

"This is an opportunity for these cities to announce their peaceful joining of the revolution," he said.

A spokesman for Gaddafi, who has been in hiding since his foes seized Tripoli on August 23, has dismissed talk of surrender and said powerful tribal leaders were still loyal to him.

"He's in the country," Moussa Ibrahim told Reuters on Friday in a call from an undisclosed location. "He's in a safe place surrounded by many people who are prepared to protect him."

Ibrahim, who said he did not know exactly where Gaddafi was, dismissed suggestions that Bani Walid was ready to surrender. He said he himself had been moving around a "southern suburb of Tripoli" with Gaddafi's son and heir-apparent Saif al-Islam.

On frontlines to the east and west of Sirte, fighters also said on Saturday they were ready to move in.

Ahmed al-Amal, a unit commander to the west, said: "Refugees coming out of Sirte have told us there's no food, fuel, water or electricity in the city. Gaddafi families in Sirte are forcing civilians to obey. They are mistreating them. A lot of people are angry and fed up."

Independent accounts from Sirte, Bani Walid and Sabha, deep in the Sahara desert, have not been available as communications appear to be largely cut off. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on all sides to protect civilians and allow the agency to provide aid to Sirte.

To the east of Sirte, whose resistance still effectively divides the country in two between Benghazi and Tripoli, fighters were also dug in and, they said, ready to advance.

"We are awaiting the green light from the council," said Naji al-Maghrabi, commander of the "Omar al-Mukhtar Brigade," named for a Libyan hero of battles against Italian colonialists.

"If they tell us, 'Move into Sirte now,' we will."

One fighter, Belqassem Souliman, said: "They have no way out but to surrender or die.""

Lots of ifs, buts and maybes from the official TNC terrorist sources. No credible reports from an attributed source.

The civilians, whom the crusader coalition is out to "protect, are being held under a medieval siege with no access to the "humanitarian" aid except that which is dropped from 30,000 feet from their "protectors2.

Turning it into another Gaza concentration camp, just like the British in South Africa in the 18th century and the Israelis in the 21st.

How the "civilised" world must rejoice at this murderous war.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

the US and UK treachery of Ghaddafi

Lets please not forget the other 28 countries in the Libyan Contact Group:

The EU, Sweden,Turkey and the GCC.

All bastions of corrupt, lying, stealing politicians and royalty.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

the US and UK treachery of Ghaddafi

Lets please not forget the other 28 countries in the Libyan Contact Group:

The EU, Sweden,Turkey and the GCC.

All bastions of corrupt, lying, stealing politicians and royalty.

What one country do you believe in?

Originally Posted by Ceburat1

Originally Posted by OhOh

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

the US and UK treachery of Ghaddafi

Lets please not forget the other 28 countries in the Libyan Contact Group:

The EU, Sweden,Turkey and the GCC.

All bastions of corrupt, lying, stealing politicians and royalty.

What one country do you believe in?

Greenland, send me some.

AFP: China denies providing weapons to Libya

China denies providing weapons to Libya

(AFP) – 5 hours ago

BEIJING — Chinese companies have not provided Libya with any "military products", China's foreign ministry said Tuesday, after reports of Beijing offering weapons to the ousted Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper reported on Sunday that Beijing offered huge stockpiles of weapons to Kadhafi during the final months of his regime and held secret talks on shipping them through Algeria and South Africa.

"Chinese companies have not provided military products to Libya in any direct or indirect form," foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told journalists.

The Canadian daily said state-controlled Chinese arms companies were ready to sell weapons and ammunition worth at least $200 million to Kadhafi in late July, despite UN sanctions, citing secret documents it had obtained.

The documents, published on the paper's website, do not confirm whether any military assistance was delivered.

They showed that Kadhafi?s top security aides made a trip to Beijing in mid-July, where they met officials from China North Industries Corp. (Norinco); the China National Precision Machinery Import & Export Corp. (CPMIC); and China XinXing Import & Export Corp.

The Chinese companies offered the entire contents of their stockpiles for sale, and promised to manufacture more supplies if necessary, The Globe and Mail said.

and it gets better and better

BBC News - Libya rendition claims: David Cameron calls for inquiry

Allegations that MI6 was involved in the rendition of Libyan terror suspects should be examined by an independent inquiry, David Cameron has said.

It comes after papers suggesting close ties between MI6, the CIA and the Gaddafi regime were found in Tripoli.

An anti-Gaddafi military leader says he wants the UK and US to apologise for organising his 2004 transfer to Libya.

An existing inquiry into allegations of UK security agencies' involvement in torture has said it will investigate.

Like I keep saying.. None of the bad guys will ever trust the US or UK again. They've lost all credibility. Now you might say 'who cares.' But strategically, it's a disaster.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

David Cameron calls for inquiry

Kick into the long grass, along with all the other "difficulties" he is having.

Originally Posted by Tom Sawyer

None of the bad guys will ever trust the US or UK again

Not just the bad guys, the other "powers" have seen what western cowboy justice is like.

An domestically unpopular and virulently anti-western despot is gone, the West has curried favor with Libyan oil (at the expense of Russia and China), certainly some lives lost, but not many compared to bloodbaths like Iraq, and as far as I'm aware, none of 'ours'. Not a bad result for a dirty business like war. Lets hope we don't find ourselves in bed with stoneage jihadi's, but I rather doubt it actually. Most Libyans chafed under the Islamic and social orthodoxy of the Qadafi regime.