WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS

U.S.-led airstrikes to help al-Qaida?

Terror group, Islamic parties form main opposition in Libya

Posted: March 20, 2011
6:40 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily


Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa

JERUSALEM – Arab leaders fear U.S. and international airstrikes against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's forces will aid the main Islamist opposition in the country, some of which consist of al-Qaida.

"Doesn't the Obama administration understand Gadhafi is the one Arab leader who is fighting back against the Islamist revolt threatening his regime?" asked a member of the now deposed regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

A top official in the Palestinian Authority, speaking from Ramallah, told WND it is widely understood in the Arab world that the military strikes against Gadhafi's positions will aid the Libyan rebels, whose leadership largely comprise Islamist groups that seek to create a Muslim caliphate.

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Indeed, yesterday the Arab League secretary general, Amr Moussa, deplored the broad scope of the U.S.-European bombing campaign in Libya and said he would call a new league meeting to reconsider Arab approval of the Western military intervention.

Moussa's reservations come after revolts already deposed the pro-Western leaders of Egypt and Tunisia, where Islamist parties form the opposition and stand the most to gain from the leadership vacuum.

Similar Islamist-led unrest threatens Yemen, Algeria, Morocco and other Middle Eastern and North African countries.

Al-Qaida to gain?

The U.S. and European airstrikes targeting Gadhafi's forces seem most likely to create an advantage for the opposition, with Gadhafi reportedly now offering rebels dialogue as opposed to his hard-line crackdown on rebel-held towns.

Much of the opposition consists of Islamist groups, such as the major Libyan Islamist Fighting Group, which, like the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, seeks to create an Islamic caliphate. The group released a statement two years ago claiming to have renounced violence.

Gadhafi himself has stated multiple times that al-Qaida is leading the revolt against his regime. He has pinpointed rebels in Dernah as being led by an al-Qaeda cell that has declared the town an Islamic emirate.

Libya's official news agency has reported al-Qaida forces attacked Libyan government armed forces in recent weeks, including west of Benghazi.

"Al-Qaida will establish jihad in Northern Africa, and the West will have to oppose the dangerous challenges, triggering a new crusade," Gadhafi told the Russia Today television network last week.

The Libyan leader specifically blamed the unrest on al-Qaida and Osama Bin Laden, who, he said, were seeking to turn Libya into a state resembling Afghanistan or Somalia.

An al-Qaida leader of Libyan origin, Abu Yahya al-Libi, released a statement backing the revolt in Libya, while Yusuf Qaradawi, Muslim Brotherhood superstar who recently returned to Egypt, issued a fatwa authorizing Gadhafi's military entourage to assassinate him.

Just last week, the British media reported WikiLeaks cables from 2008 identified parts of Libya, Dernah in particular, as a breeding ground for fighters in a number of causes, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The unemployed, disfranchised young men of eastern Libya have nothing to lose and are therefore willing to sacrifice themselves for something greater than themselves by engaging in extremism in the name of religion," the cables quoted a Dernah businessman as saying.

Even Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, last week said he was wary that al-Qaida affiliates in North Africa could try to take advantage of the upheaval in Libya, seeking a new foothold.

He told reporters on Friday that the U.S. is trying to make sure that "the terrorist elements" active in the region don't "take advantage of the situation."

Humanitarian reasons?

Yesterday, U.S. radar-jamming aircraft and combat jets flew sorties reportedly aimed at Gadhafi's ground forces and air defenses, as coalition forces moved quickly to impose a no-fly zone over Libya amid some reports that Gadhafi was ready to negotiate with the opposition.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a television interview the main goal of the military coalition effort is to protect civilians from further violence by pro-Gadhafi forces, while enabling the flow of humanitarian relief supplies.

The Obama administration has been clear in its stated conviction the military strikes are meant specifically to avert a humanitarian crisis in Libya.

The timing of the attack, however, opens a slew of questions.

Gadhafi has been accused for weeks of approving so-called massacres in main opposition strongholds, and yet the U.S. did not act.

It wasn't until Gadhafi's forces started to take back main swaths of opposition-held territory that the Obama administration and the international community finally approved military action in Libya.

In the last few days, Gadhafi's forces have pushed farther eastward toward a strategic port city, pounding terrain with airstrikes and rockets and delivering a setback for Libya's rebels.

The Libyan leader's army also retook other rebel-held lands, such as territory 77 miles east of Ras Lanuf, which only two weeks ago was seized by rebel forces who vowed to march on to the capital, Tripoli.

Gadhafi further retook other lands in swift gains that showed his forces possessed superior military capabilities, leading to the rebels to call for international intervention.

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