New Libya. An Islamic Caliphate Supporting Terror?

Now that it appears that the rebels have pushed out Qaddafi we may be on the verge of a new Libya.  The big question is what shape will this new Libya take. There is much evidence pointing toward a new government supporting terrorism and imposing Shariah law.

Remember the United States committed to helping these rebels before even knowing who they were.  Back in March, Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander, said in testimony before Congress that U.S. intelligence suggested there may be “flickers” of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah in the rebels.

We have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al-Qaeda, Hezbollah — we’ve seen different things. But at this point, I don’t have detail sufficient to say that there’s a significant al-Qaeda presence or any other terrorist presence in and among these folks.

 Flicker's? What the heck does that mean? Did we help a group of rebels take over Libya who will use it as a terrorist staging ground? Did we trade in an anti-American Libyan government that could be controlled for an anti-American Libyan government that could not be controlled.

It certainly looks that way, many of the leaders of the Libyan rebel fighters have admitted past allegiances to al-Qaeda. One of the rebel leaders Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, even fought for al-Qaeda against US troops in Afghanistan till he was arrested in 2002.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited "around 25" men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are "today are on the front lines in Adjabiya".

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters "are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists," but added that the "members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader".

His revelations came even as Idriss Deby Itno, Chad's president, said al-Qaeda had managed to pillage military arsenals in the Libyan rebel zone and acquired arms, "including surface-to-air missiles, which were then smuggled into their sanctuaries".

Mr al-Hasidi admitted he had earlier fought against "the foreign invasion" in Afghanistan, before being "captured in 2002 in Peshwar, in Pakistan". He was later handed over to the US, and then held in Libya before being released in 2008.

US and British government sources said Mr al-Hasidi was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG, which killed dozens of Libyan troops in guerrilla attacks around Derna and Benghazi in 1995 and 1996.

Even though the LIFG is not part of the al-Qaeda organisation, the United States military's West Point academy has said the two share an "increasingly co-operative relationship". In 2007, documents captured by allied forces from the town of Sinjar, showed LIFG emmbers made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

The WSJ reported that two former Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and a terrorist who spent 6-years in  Guantanamo Bay  were training and recruiting rebel forces.

The presence of Islamists like these amid the opposition has raised concerns, among some fellow rebels as well as their Western allies, that the goal of some Libyan fighters in battling Col. Gadhafi is to propagate Islamist extremism.

Think about this for a second, on one hand our heroes overseas are fighting against al-Qaeda in the war against terrorism, on the the other hand we are backing an al-Qaeda related group of Islamist terrorists in Libya.  Am I missing something here?

But for some reason the US is turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda’s involvement with the rebels. In addition to supporting the rebels at war through NATO the US has allowed the Libyans rebels to take over Libya’s embassy in the US. Holy Cow! We now have a al-Qaeda ambassador to the United States.

As you look at the videos of the cheering rebels entering Tripoli proclaiming freedom from Qaddafi understand that the Libyan people may have traded one despot for another.  The Heritage Foundation got a hold of the draft constitution created by the rebels (embedded below).  While it contains nice sounding elements like rule of law, freedom of speech and religious practice, and a multi-party electoral system it begins with a very ominous clause.



The highlighted area reads: 

“Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).” Under this constitution, in other words, Islam is law.

Putting it all together we have a rebellion connected to  al-Qaeda, aiming to install Sharia Law on its people.  Something tells me that long-term both the United States and the citizens of Libya are going to regret supporting this rebel movement.

 62823350 Libya Draft Constitutional Charter for the Transitional Stage