Some important al-Qaeda leaders operating in Pakistan's tribal regions also are believed to have come from Libya. For instance, "Atiyah," who was guiding the anti-U.S. war strategy in Iraq, was identified as a Libyan named Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.
It was Atiyah who urged a strategy of creating a quagmire for U.S. forces in Iraq, buying time for al-Qaeda headquarters to rebuild its capacity in Pakistan. "Prolonging the war [in Iraq] is in our interest," Atiyah said in a letter that upbraided Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for his hasty and reckless actions in Iraq.
The Atiyah letter was discovered by the U.S. military after Zarqawi was killed by an airstrike in June 2006. [To view the "prolonging the war" excerpt in a translation published by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, click here. To read the entire letter, click here.]
Gaddafi's Warning
As in the anti-Islamist crackdown of the 1990s, Gaddafi has used harsh rhetoric in vowing to crush the latest Benghazi-based rebellion. Those threats were cited by President Barack Obama and other leaders as a key reason for securing a United Nations resolution and establishing a no-fly zone over Libya, to protect the rebels and civilians in eastern Libya.
Yet, while intervening to save lives in eastern Libya, Obama and other Western officials seem to know little about whom they're saving. So far, journalists have failed to identify the leaders behind the revolt.
However, in a personal letter to Obama, Gaddafi cited the role of terrorists in this new uprising.
"We are confronting al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, nothing more," Gaddafi wrote. "What would you do if you found them controlling American cities with the power of weapons? Tell me how would you behave so that I could follow your example?"
Though Gaddafi clearly has a self-interest in portraying the rebels as al-Qaeda terrorists -- and the rebels surely include many common citizens simply fed up with Gaddafi's authoritarian rule -- the report from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center lends some credence to his claims.
Still, influential American neocons and major U.S. news outlets have portrayed the Libyan clash as simply a case of a brutal dictator, who has his own terrorist baggage, crushing a popular movement of innocent citizens seeking democracy and freedom.
Despite the warning signs of possible Islamist influences over the rebel forces, American neocons have grabbed the steering wheel of this wider-war bandwagon as it picks up speed.
"The only solution to Libya's crisis, as Mr. Obama first recognized several weeks ago, is the removal of Mr Gaddafi from power," said a lead editorial in Wednesday's Washington Post, which has evolved into the neocons' preeminent publication. "But the administration still seems to lack a coherent strategy for accomplishing that aim."
Clearly pining for the days of George W. Bush's muscular unilateralism, the Post's editors demanded that Obama take the lead in implementing a military strategy that ensures regime change in Tripoli...
"If the regime's heavy weapons were systematically targeted, the rebels could surge forward. All this would require Mr. Obama to do something he has avoided from the beginning in Libya: Exercise U.S. leadership."Far from rejecting that [U.S.] role, many Arabs have been puzzled and even outraged by Mr. Obama's manifest reluctance to support a revolution aimed at overthrowing one of the region's most vile dictatorships. Ultimately, Mr. Obama's passivity is self-defeating.
"The sooner he recognizes this, the better the chance of salvaging a decent outcome in Libya."
Charles Krauthammer, one of the Post's prominent neocon columnists, weighed in with his own typically snarky column on Friday, also demanding that Obama take decisive action against Gaddafi...
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