Abu Anas al-Libi and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)

[Magda Hassan]

"Our Man in Tripoli": US-NATO Sponsored Islamic Terrorists Integrate Libya's Pro-Democracy Opposition

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, April 03, 2011
1 April 2011

Region: Middle East & North Africa
Theme: Intelligence
In-depth Report: NATO'S WAR ON LIBYA







Concepts are Turned Upside Down: The US-NATO military alliance is supporting a rebellion integrated by Islamic terrorists, in the name of the "War on Terrorism"…


There are various factions within the Libyan opposition: Royalists, defectors from the Qadhafi regime including the Minister of Justice and more recently the Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa, members of the Libyan Armed Forces, the National Front for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) and the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO) which acts as an umbrella organization.
Rarely acknowledged by the Western media, Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi Libya, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), is an integral part of the Libyan Opposition.
The Libyan Interim Council does not constitute a clearly defined entity. It is based on the representation from newly created local councils established to "manage daily life in the liberated cities and villages". (The Libyan Interim National Council » The Council's statement)
Opposition forces are in large part made up of an untrained civilian militia, former members of the Libyan armed forces, together with the trained paramilitary Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is aligned with Al Qaeda, is in the frontline of the armed insurrection.

The Al Qaeda Network as an Instrument of US-NATO Intervention
Both the LIFG as an entity as well as its individual members are categorized by the UN Security Council as terrorists. According to the US Treasury: "The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group threatens global safety and stability through the use of violence and its ideological alliance with al Qaida and other brutal terrorist organizations" (Treasury Designates UK-Based Individuals, Entities Financing Al Qaida -Affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group US Fed News Service, February 8, 2006).
Concepts are turned upside down. Both Washington and NATO, which claim to be waging a "War on Terrorism", are supporting a "pro-democracy movement" integrated by members of a terrorist organization.
In a cruel irony, Washington and the Atlantic Alliance are acting in defiance of their own anti-terrorist laws and regulations.
Moreover, support under "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) to opposition forces integrated by terrorists is implemented pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which is blatant violation of UNSC resolution 1267. The latter identifies the Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), as a terrorist organization.
In other words, the UN Security Council is in clear violation not only of the UN Charter but of its own resolutions. (The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee 1267).
Historical Origins of The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)
Amply documented, the "Islamic jihad" has been covertly supported by the CIA since the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war. (See Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, Montreal, 2005).
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), using Pakistan's military Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), played a key role in training the Mujahideen. In turn, the CIA-sponsored guerrilla training was integrated with the teachings of Islam:

"In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166,…[which] authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a dramatic increase in arms supplies a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987… as well as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who traveled to the secret headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There the CIA specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan rebels." (Steve Coll, Washington Post, July 19, 1992)

The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya, was founded in Afghanistan by Veteran Libyan Mujahideens of the Soviet-Afghan war.
From the outset in the early to mid-1990s,the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) performed the role of an "intelligence asset" on behalf of the CIA and Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. Starting in 1995, the LIFG was actively involved in waging an Islamic Jihad directed against the secular Libyan regime, including a 1996 attempted assassination of Muamar Qadhafi.

"Former MI5 operative, David Shayler, revealed that while he was working on the Libya desk in the mid-1990s, British secret service personnel collaborated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which is connected to one of Osama bin Laden's trusted lieutenants. LIFG is now considered a terrorist group in the United Kingdom." (Gerald A. Perreira, British Intelligence Worked with Al Qaeda to Kill Qaddafi, Global Research, March 25, 2011, emphasis added)

Guerrilla-style terrorist attacks, allegedly with the support of MI6, were routinely conducted against Libyan government security forces, police and military personnel:

"Fierce clashes between [Qadhafi's] security forces and Islamist guerrillas erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) formally declared its existence in a communiqué calling Qadhafi's government "an apostate regime that has blasphemed against the faith of God Almighty" and declaring its overthrow to be "the foremost duty after faith in God." This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghans who had been granted political asylum in Britain… The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. LIFG's next big operation, a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards, was later said to have been financed by British intelligence to the tune of $160,000, according to ex-MI5 officer David Shayler. While Shayler's allegations have not been independently confirmed, it is clear that Britain allowed LIFG to develop a base of logistical support and fundraising on its soil. At any rate, financing by bin Laden appears to have been much more important. According to one report, LIFG received up to $50,000 from the Saudi terrorist mastermind for each of its militants killed on the battlefield." [2005] (Quoted in Peter Dale Scott, Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons? Global Research, March 2011, emphasis added)

There are contradictory reports as to whether the LIFG is part of Al Qaeda or is acting as an independent jihadist entity. One report suggests that in 2007 the LIFG became "a subsidiary of al Qaeda, later assuming the name of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).(See Webster Tarpley, The CIA's Libya Rebels: The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq, Global Research, March 2011)
Continuity in US and Allied Intelligence Operations: Al Qaeda Operatives in Yugoslavia
Since the Soviet-Afghan war, the Al Qaeda network has served as an "intelligence asset" for the CIA. Confirmed by a 1997 US Senate document, Al Qaeda operatives were used by the Clinton administration to channel support to the Bosnian Muslim Army in the early 1990s. (See US Senate, Republican Party Committee, Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base, http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1997/iran.htm, 1998)
Amply documented, The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which was supported by NATO, had developed extensive ties to the Islamic terror network. (US Senate, Republican Party Committee, The Clinton Administration Sets Course for NATO Intervention in Kosovo, 1998, http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1998/kosovo.htm, See also Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, Montreal, 2005).
Al Qaeda in Yugoslavia served as an intelligence asset in the context of NATO's "humanitarian war". Terrorist organizations were covertly supported and funded. In 1999, the NATO intervention came to the rescue of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which was integrated by Al Qaeda operatives. (US Republican Party Committee documents on Kosovo, op cit):

"One of the most disturbing aspects of the present [terrorism] crisis [1998 in Kosovo] is that it may have been triggered by our own inept foreign policy in Bosnia and Kosovo. There, beyond all common sense, we find ourselves championing Muslim factions who draw support from the very Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our mortal enemies elsewhere" (Col. Harry G. Summers, "Bringing terrorists to justice," Washington Times, December 8, 1998, emphasis added. The late Col. Harry G. Summers (USA-Ret.) (1932-1999) was a Distinguished Fellow at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.)

Is Libya's Operation Odyssey Dawn part of a US-NATO pattern? Support an insurgency integrated by terrorists with a view to justifying intervention on humanitarian grounds to "save the lives of civilians"?
This was NATO's justification for intervening in Bosnia and Kosovo. What lessons for Libya?
Former Head of Libyan Intelligence "Double Agent" Moussa Koussa Defects to the UK
The LIFG was supported not only by the CIA and The British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) but also by factions within Libya's intelligence agency, led by former intelligence head and Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa, who defected to the United Kingdom in late March 2011.
In October 2001, the head of Libyan Intelligence, Moussa Koussa, met Assistant U.S. Secretary of State William J. Burns. The Koussa-Burns encounter was of crucial importance. Present at the meetings were senior CIA and MI6 officials, including Sir John Scarlett, who at the time (October 2001) was head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) of the Cabinet, reporting directly to Prime Minister Tony Blair. The JIC oversees, on behalf of the British government, the setting of intelligence priorities for MI6, MI5 and Defense Intelligence.
"Our Man in Tripoli" Moussa Koussa was to perform the role of a double agent. In secret meetings with Sir John Scarlett, it was "agreed that a British agent could operate in Tripoli". (Libya defector Moussa Koussa was an MI6 double agent, Sunday Express, April 3, 2011)

Former US Assistant Secretary of State William J. Burns

Sir John Scarlett, former head of Britain's MI6
The development of the LIFG as a paramilitary jihadist movement as well its integration into anti-Qadhafi opposition forces bears a direct relationship to the central role played by double agent Moussa Koussa, who was instrumental in crafting close bilateral ties with the CIA and MI6.
In this regard, Moussa Koussa's defection in late March has all the appearances of a carefully staged operation. In an unusual twist, the deal was negotiated with the British government through the intermediation of a former leader of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who is now working with a London-based human rights foundation:

Noman Benotman, a friend of Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa, has told the BBC how he helped organise his defection from the Gaddafi regime.
Mr Benotman used to be a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group but now works for the counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation.
He said he believed Mr Koussa would be negotiating with the British government and was very co-operative regarding intelligence.
The BBC's Gordon Corera added that the British government was in a dilemma over how to treat Mr Koussa because of his background as head of Libyan intelligence.
Mr Benotman told BBC Breakfast how he helped Koussa defect and how they used to be rivals. (BBC Breakfast April 1, 2011, emphasis added)

Ironically, Benotman was recruited as a Mujahideen to fight in the Soviet-Afghan war. He was one of the founders of the LIFG in Afghanistan. Focussing on issues of "counter-extremism", Benotman is currently a Senior Analyst at the Quilliam Foundation. His present responsibilities include reaching out "to current and former extremists and using Quilliam as a platform from which to share his inside knowledge of al-Qaeda and other Jihadist groups with a wider audience."
The CIA "Counterterrorism Program" in Libya
The bilateral ties established between the CIA-MI6 and Libyan intelligence in October 2001 provided Western intelligence agencies direct access and oversight within Libya, through its pro-US counterparts in Libya's intelligence agency led by Moussa Koussa. This agreement enabled Western intelligence to effectively infiltrate the Libyan Intelligence Agency which was under the helm of an MI6 Double Agent.
According to the US State Department in a 2008 report, the Libyan government "has continued to cooperate with the United States and the international community to combat terrorism and terrorist financing… U.S. officials hope to extend counterterrorism assistance to Libya during FY2010 and FY2011…" (See Christopher M. Blanchard, Libya: Background and U.S. Relations, US Congress Research Service, July 16, 2010).
In 2009, Libyan Intelligence and the CIA established a joint counterterrorism program whereby Libyan intelligence officials would receive counterterrorism training by the CIA. This program was part of an agreement negotiated by Moussa Koussa with the CIA. It was also intended (in theory) to disband the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), with the support of CIA intelligence operatives. Bear in mind the ambiguity of CIA "counterterrorism": the launching of the LIFG in Afghanistan in the early to mid 1990s was part of a CIA project to create a Libyan arm of its Al Qaeda network.
Also in 2009, the imprisoned leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) allegedly renounced their armed struggle waged against the Qadhafi regime in an agreement reached with Libyan security officials. (New jihad code threatens al Qaeda, CNN, November 2009)
What was the role of the US-Libya counterterrorism program from Washington's perspective?
Officially, it was to identify the names of LIFG members and disband the LIFG as an organization. In practice, the US-led operation in Libya, including the training of Libyan intelligence officials under CIA auspices, provided the Agency with a convenient smokescreen for conducting intelligence operations inside Libya.
The training program enabled the CIA to infiltrate and acquire trusted counterparts within Libyan intelligence.
The 2009 Counterrorism program bears a direct relationship to the March 2011 Rebellion. It enabled the Agency, together with the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), to provide covert support to the LIFG in anticipation of the March 2011 armed insurrection.
The media suggests that the LIFG was disbanded (following the implementation of the CIA-sponsored counterterrorism program). There is no evidence to that effect. The LIFG remains on the (updated March 24, 2011) United Nations Security Council terror list:

QE.L.11.01. Name: LIBYAN ISLAMIC FIGHTING GROUP
Name (original script):
A.k.a.: LIFG F.k.a.: na Address: na Listed on: 6 Oct. 2001 (amended on 5 Mar. 2009)

Other information: Review pursuant to Security Council resolution 1822 (2008) was concluded on 21 Jun. 2010
(The LIFG Listing is on p. 70, http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/pdf...edlist.pdf, Under the UNSC rules disbanded terrorist organizations are removed from the list in conformity with a delisting procedure. The LIFG has not been removed from the list). United Nations Security Council: Consolidated List established and maintained by the 1267 Committee with respect to Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden, and the Taliban and other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them (updated March 24, 2011).
Weapons and Covert Support to LIFG Rebels
There are indications that the CIA and MI6 continue to provide covert support to the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which now constitutes the frontline of the armed insurrection against the Qadhafi regime.

Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi's regime…
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". (Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links, Daily Telegraph, March 25, 2011, italics added)

Abdul Hakim Al-Hasadi, is a leader of the LIFG who received military training in a guerrilla camp in Afghanistan. He is head of security of the opposition forces in one of the rebel held territories with some 1,000 men under his command. (Libyan rebels at pains to distance themselves from extremists The Globe and Mail, March 12, 2011)
The US-NATO coaltion is arming the Jihadists. Weapons are being channelled to the LIFG from Saudi Arabia, which historically, since the outset of the Soviet-Afghan war, has covertly supported Al Qaeda. The Saudis are now providing the rebels, in liaison with Washington and Brussels, with anti-tank rockets and ground-to-air missiles.
Media Disinformation: Islamic Terrorists Join the Pro-Democracy Movement "in a Personal Capacity"
Admiral James Stavridis, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, has tacitly acknowledged that "American intelligence had picked up "flickers" of terrorist activity among the rebel groups… Very alarming…" But we are not dealing with "flickers". LIFG fighters constitute the backbone of the armed insurgency.
The Western media has also expressed its concern, while insisting that the Jihadists are "former" members of the LIFG who have joined the armed struggle "in a personal capacity" rather than as members of terrorist organization. According to Benotman in an interview with CNN:

"Dozens of former LIFG fighters have now joined rebel efforts to topple Gadhafi," but he stressed that they had done so in a personal capacity rather than organizing operations as a group.
"Some Western counter-terrorism officials fret that a prolonged civil war in Libya could open up space for al Qaeda. Governments and NGOs have to be quick," says Benotman, "in helping rebel-held areas develop education, health-care and the institutions of democracy." (Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, Libyan civil war: An opening for al Qaeda and jihad? CNN, March 23, 2011)

An Al Qaeda related terrorist organization integrates the Libya pro-democracy movement? Since when do terrorists act as individuals "in a personal capacity"?
Both the LIFG as an entity as well as its individual members are categorized by the UN Security Council as terrorists under UNSC resolution 1267. (The Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee 1267)
"Our Man in Tripoli"
Moussa Koussa was "Our Man in Tripoli". The circumstances of his defection as well as the history of his collaboration with the CIA and MI6, suggest that for the last ten years, he has been serving US and Allied interests, including the planning of the "pro-democracy" armed insurrection in Eastern Libya.

Former head of Libyan Intelligence Moussa Koussa
Former head of Libyan intelligence Moussa Koussa played a central role in channelling covert support to the LIFG on behalf of his Western intelligence counterparts. Former CIA director George Tenet, while not explicitly referring to "Our Man in Tripoli", acknowledges in his 2007 autobiography that "the easing of tensions with Libya [was] one of the major successes of his tenure, as it led to cooperation between the two spy services against al-Qaeda." (quoted in Intelligence Partnership between Qadhafi and the CIA on counter-terrorism, op cit)
There should be no doubt: NATO and the LIFG are bed-fellows. The Western military alliance is supporting a rebellion integrated by Islamic terrorists, in the name of the "war on terrorism".
Who are the terrorists? In a bitter twist, while the Islamic jihad is featured by the US Administration as "a threat to Western civilization", these same Islamic organizations including the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, not to mention the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (Emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America's "War on Terrorism" (2005). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.
America's "War on Terrorism"
by Michel
Chossudovsky
also available in pdf format
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[Magda Hassan]

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/manualpart1_1.pdf

The Al Qaeda Handbook is an extensive manual for how to wage war, allegedly written byOsama bin Laden's extremist group, Al Qaeda.[SUP][2][/SUP] This handbook provides religiousjustifications and quotations from the Qur'an throughout. It was first seized by Britishauthorities in a raid on an Al Qaeda cell in Manchester, England.[SUP][3][/SUP] The handbook was published on the US Department of Justice's[SUP][4][/SUP] website.

[URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Defense"]
Department of Defense[/URL] spokesmen routinely claim that the Guantanamo captives were trained using the manual.[SUP][5][/SUP][SUP][6][/SUP][SUP][7][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP]Claims Guantanamo captives were trained using the manual

Mission

Main Mission

• The overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime.
  

Other missions

• Gathering information about the enemy, the land, the installations, and the neighbors.
  
• Kidnapping enemy personnel, documents, secrets, and arms.
  
• Assassinating enemy personnel as well as foreign tourists.
  
• Freeing the brothers who are captured by the enemy.
  
• Spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.
  
• Blasting and destroying the places of amusement, immorality, and sin; not a vital target.
  
• Blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers.
  
• Blasting and destroying bridges leading into and out of the cities
  

Actions after capture

One controversial passage states that "At the beginning of the trial ... the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security before the judge. Complain of mistreatment while in prison."[SUP][4][/SUP] This passage is frequently cited by commentators to cast doubt on the claims by detainees in the "war on terror" that they were subjected to torture, or abuse. However, the same section of the manual also counsels its readers to do everything they possibly can to have a full medical examination prior to their interrogation. It explains to readers that the medical examination establishes a baseline that will enable them to prove that wounds inflicted on them during interrogation were not inflicted prior to their capture.[SUP][4][/SUP]
The handbook instructs commanders to make sure operatives, or "brothers," understand what to say if captured. "Prior to executing an operation, the commander should instruct his soldiers on what to say if they are captured," the document says. "He should explain that more than once in order to ensure that they have assimilated it. They should, in turn, explain it back to the commander."[SUP][4][/SUP]

Owners

• Abu Hamza al Masri - Convicted of possession of a terrorist encyclopedia, among other charges, on February 7, 2006[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]
  

Arrests

The Nottingham Two were arrested in 2008 solely for downloading the copies of the Handbook from a U.S. government site to aUniversity of Nottingham computer. They were released a week later, but one was subsequently charged with visa irregularities, and ensuing controversy within the university led to the suspension of the educator teaching the terrorism course.[SUP][9][/SUP]

See also

• Management of Savagery
  

References

• Jump up^ Spc. Shanita Simmons (August 14, 2007). "Manchester Manual: The Code of Conduct for terrorism". Joint Task Force GuantanamoPublic Affairs. Retrieved 2008-02-22. ""The Manchester Manual is literally an overarching basic guide that simply covers just about everything. It covers how to conduct general combat operations, how to escape and evade capture and how to behave in captivity," said the JTF source. "There is even a chapter on how to poison yourself using your own feces.""
  
• Jump up^ Donna Miles (June 29, 2005). "Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behavior at Guantanamo Bay". American Forces Press Service.Archived from the original on 17 September 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-10. "This instruction comes straight from the pages of an official al Qaeda training manual, and officials at the detention facility at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say they see clear evidence that detainees are well-versed in its contents." Works related to Al Qaeda Manual Drives Detainee Behavior at Guantanamo Bay at Wikisource
  
• Jump up^ BBC News website on Handbook seizure in Manchester
  
• ^ Jump up to:[SUP]a[/SUP] [SUP]b[/SUP] [SUP]c[/SUP] [SUP]d[/SUP] The Al Qaeda Handbook(US Dept of Justice Website
  
• Jump up^ "Briefing on Detainee Operations at Guantanamo Bay". United States Department of Defense. February 13, 2004. Archived from the original on 13 February 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-22.
  
• Jump up^ "United States v. David Hicks: Prosecution response to defense motion for dismissal for denial of a right to a speedy trial". United States Department of Defense. 18 October 2004. Retrieved 2008-02-22. "Indeed, a far longer period would be justified in the current instance. The United States has undertaken painstaking intelligence-gathering and interrogation with respect to hundreds of enemy combatants and suspected members of al Qaida, a highly disciplined organization whose agents span the globe and operate in total secrecy. See generally al Qaida Training Manual ("Manchester Manual"), available at www.usdoj.gov/ag/trainingmanual.htm."
  
• Jump up^ Jane Mayer (July 11, 2005). "The Experiment: The military trains people to withstand interrogation. Are those methods being misused at Guantánamo?". New Yorker magazine. Archived from the original on 3 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-22. "The military officials who run the Guantánamo prison maintain that almost all of the detainees' charges are untrue. A training manual written by Al Qaeda leaders, which is known as the Manchester Manual, because a copy of it was confiscated during a 2000 raid in England, counsels Islamists to "complain of mistreatment while in prison" and say that "torture was inflicted on them." Bumgarner said, "They are trained to make false accusations. It's part of their P.R.""
  
• Jump up^ "The detainees". Newshour (PBS). February 13, 2004. Retrieved 2008-02-22. "We applied very strict criteria to bring them there. There's a document called the Manchester Manual that was picked up in a search in Manchester and has surfaced in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It's the al-Qaida manual, basically. There is a very lengthy chapter on counter-interrogation techniques. These are sophisticated terrorists who know how to avoid interrogation. We are learning about them every day; we're learning more about from other intelligence sources and we work extremely hard to find out who these people are. We do not want to hold one person in Guantanamo one day longer than they need to be held."
  
• Jump up^ http://freehicham.co.uk/about-2/
  

[Peter Lemkin]

Great work above Magda! It becomes pretty clear[er] that the strategy of tension via false-flag terrorism and 'our' terrorists continues via NATO, UK [MI6 and others], USA [CIA and others], Israel [Mossad and others], and several other nations in on this cabal. While there may be some 'native' terrorists, they seem to have done a minority of the 'events'/deaths/terror, IMO. Very sad...but very true and important information above. Helps put 9-11 and many other operations in perspective. If ONLY the average World Citizen knew - especially those in the 'West'...but they have either been fooled or are in denial, for the most part. Most can't 'go there' where their and other 'friendly' governments are the real EVIL doers and creators of terrorist operations and actions. :hock::

[Magda Hassan]

They can ask all they like but I doubt anyone will be answering. At least with any truth.

British MPs to ask why al-Qaeda kingpin Abu Anas al-Libi was given asylum in the UK

Questions will be asked in Parliament as to why Abu Anas al-Libi, who was captured by US special forces in Libya, had previously been allowed to live in Britain from where he eventually fled

By Ashraf Abdulwahhab, in Tripoli, Richard Spencer and Tom Whitehead

8:24PM BST 06 Oct 2013


MPs are to question the Home Secretary Theresa May as to why one of the world's most wanted al Qaeda terror suspects, captured by US special forces this weekend, was previously given political asylum and allowed to live in Britain.

Abu Anas al-Libi, a trusted lieutenant of Osama bin Laden and at one time al-Qaeda's chief computer expert, was snatched on Saturday in a US Delta Force operation in the Libyan capital Tripoli.

Al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqaie, was given asylum in Britain in 1995 and it is alleged he helped plan the twin attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1998 in which 224 people were killed.

According to a former FBI official he was taken in for questioning by police in Manchester after the bombings but was released and fled the country. When his house in the city was finally raided by police, they discovered a 180-page al-Qaeda manual on methods of carrying out terror attacks and assassinations.

On Sunday it was revealed that al-Libi had been hiding "in plain sight" in Tripoli despite a $5 million bounty having been put on his head by the US.

He is thought to have returned to Libya as the uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi began in February 2011 and had been living with his family in the east of the city.
His son, Abdullah al-Ruqaie, described the Delta Force snatch to the The Daily Telegraph saying that it included men speaking Libyan dialect Arabic among the squad suggesting a degree of cooperation with the local authorities which they later denied.
"He was coming back from the mosque, at 6:38 in the morning," he said.
"Four vehicles stopped by his car, in front of the house, and ten masked and unmasked men came out, broke the car window on the steering wheel side, drugged him, and took him.
"He was kidnapped in front of the house not inside. If he had been kidnapped inside the house we would not have let them take him without a fight."
Al Libi was last night "lawfully detained by the U.S. military in a secure location outside of Libya", according to the Pentagon.
But questions will now be asked how he came to be given political asylum in Britain, despite his known involvement in a Libyan terrorist organisation and a long previous association with bin Laden, and how he was able to flee the country.
Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said al-Libi's case will be raised with the Home Secretary, when she appears before MPs on Tuesday.
He said he wanted to ensure all the proper processes were undertaken with a man who was possibly known to the security and intelligence agencies at the time.
"We will want to look at the background of this case and will question the Home Secretary about it," said Mr Vaz.

"It is highly relevant to our work on asylum and we will want to examine very carefully whether the proper checks were made."

[Magda Hassan]

::laughingdog::

Abu Anas al-Libi, al Qaeda kingpin caught in Libya, was released by British police before going on the run

A former FBI official has claimed Abu Anas al-Libi was taken in for questioning by British police but released from custody in the 1990s

By Jon Swaine, New York

7:02PM BST 06 Oct 2013



Abu Anas al-Libi, the al-Qaeda lieutenant seized in Tripoli, was released from questioning by police in Manchester and has spent the past 14 years on the run after fleeing his home in Britain, according to a former FBI official.

Al-Libi, 49, won political asylum in Britain in 1995, after being thrown out of al-Qaeda's headquarters in Sudan by Osama bin Laden in response to a request from the Sudanese government.

Sudan was under intense pressure from Muammar Gaddafi, then Libya'spresident, to stop harbouring Libyan al-Qaeda operatives who wanted him overthrown and replaced with an Islamist regime.

An apologetic Bin Laden gave al-Libi and his compatriots bags of cash and scattered them around the world. Al-Libi ended up in Manchester, a known base of the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

By then, according to US prosecutors, he was already a leading figure in an al-Qaeda plot to mount a spectacular attack against US interests in Africa, in revenge for American military action in Somalia.


Identifiable by a scar on the left side of his face, al-Libi had earned respect within the terrorist network for his sophisticated computer skills and outstanding performance at training camps.
He had begun conducting "photographic surveillance of the US Embassy in Nairobi" in late 1993, as part of a plot to attack it, according to Jamal al-Fadl, an al-Qaeda member turned US government witness.
His photographs were processed for the network's chiefs in a makeshift dark room in the apartment of L'Houssaine Kherchtou, a Moroccan al-Qaeda fighter and once Bin Laden's pilot, al-Fadl said.
Later, "Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber," al-Fadl told a judge.
Four years later, the twin bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed 224 people and injured more than 4,000 and gave a clear statement of al-Qaeda's future intent.
Al-Libi was one of 20 al-Qaeda lieutenants named as Bin Laden's co-defendants in a criminal indictment for the bombings filed in a Manhattan court by Bill Clinton's administration later that year.
Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterror official, said he was among a small group of agents who rushed across the Atlantic in 1999 or 2000 when told Al-Libi was in Manchester, and was to be arrested.
Contrary to reports he escaped capture, al-Libi was seized and his home raided, Mr Soufan claimed. Yet he was released after no "smoking gun" linking him to the attacks was found in the search.
In his memoir The Black Banners, Mr Soufan said that John O'Neill, then the head of the FBI's Bin Laden unit, warned British detectives that they were making a serious mistake by letting him go.
"You can be certain he'll skip town before we have time to sort through all the evidence and find something which I'm sure is there," Mr O'Neill, who died in the September 11 attack, reportedly said.
It is unclear why al-Libi would not have been extradited to the US, where he had already been indicted for the attacks. He indeed fled, according to Mr Soufan, evading surveillance by a team following him.
Closer inspection of al-Libi's possessions turned up a book later dubbed the "Manchester Manual", which contained instructions to al-Qaeda operatives for carrying out attacks and enduring interrogation.
This evidence that terrorist operatives had been trained to avoid disclosing information if arrested was later cited by George W. Bush's administration as justifying the torture of al-Qaeda suspects.
After the September 11 attacks, al-Libi was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list. A $25 million reward, later reduced to $5 million, was offered for information leading to his capture.
Only three of the 21 al-Qaeda operatives named in the 1998 indictment now remain at large. Eight, including Bin Laden, have been killed. One died awaiting trial and nine, including al-Libi, are in jail or custody awaiting trial.
It was alleged in 2002 that al-Libi was a member of a Libyan al-Qaeda cell that received hundreds of thousands of pounds from British intelligence to assassinate Gaddafi in an ultimately unsuccessful plot.
The allegation was made in a book by two French intelligence experts, who claimed the mid-1990s plot led Britain to play down the first international arrest warrant for bin Laden, issued by Libya in 1998.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/10359319/Abu-Anas-al-Libi-al-Qaeda-kingpin-caught-in-Libya-was-released-by-British-police-before-going-on-the-run.html

[Magda Hassan]

The official MSM narrative on the capture. Ta daaaa. "Oh gee wizz just guess who we found here!"

15 years on... How America finally ended a terrorist's life of freedom

The lengthy operation to capture Abu Anas al-Libi ended as he returned to his home in the Libyan capital Tripoli from morning prayers

The whereabouts of Abu Anas al-Libi had been reported to western intelligence officials more than a year ago Photo: AFP








By Richard Spencer, Ashraf Abdulwahhab in Tripoli and Magdy Samaan

9:55PM BST 06 Oct 2013


The operation was as swift as it was inevitable. The whereabouts of the man known as Abu Anas al-Libi had been reported to western intelligence officials more than a year ago as he followed a regular routine from his Tripoli home.

One of America's most wanted men, with a $5 million price on his head, was living within a mile of the former, now ransacked British Embassy.

According to one report, the Libyan government, under its former leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, had even given out his address to those who asked.

That freedom ended at dawn on Saturday. He was driving back from morning prayers to his villa in the upmarket eastern suburb of Ben Ashour when the American "Delta Force" special operations unit pounced, as his wife watched from the window.

"I saw the cars stop him. They took his pistol and then they put a bag on his head and pushed him into a car," she said. His brother, Abdulbaset, who relayed her account to The Daily Telegraph, did not give her name, in keeping with conservative local custom.

Within a few hours al-Libi had been spirited out of the country. The Pentagon would not say where he was being held but there are US navy warships within helicopter range in the Mediterranean, and US military bases in southern Italy.
The operation to capture al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdulhamed al-Ruqaie, began 15 years earlier, when he was living in exile in Manchester.
[SUP]The 1998 bombing of Nairobi for which al-Libi was indicted (AFP)[/SUP]
Investigators looking into the bombing of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7 1998 believed he was one of the operation's planners.
They believed he had travelled to East Africa at the behest of Osama bin Laden, with whom he had worked closely when al-Qaeda was based in the Sudan, to photograph the targets. A computer expert, he was by now on the "Shura Council" and a senior computer expert of the terror group.
He fled Britain in 1999, in circumstances that remain controversial, and his seizure on Saturday was his next confirmed sighting. But reports had reached western officials last year that he had moved back to Libya during or even before the 2011 uprising against Gaddafi's rule and was moving freely around the capital. One of his sons had been killed in the fighting in Tripoli in August of that year.
At the time of the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last September which killed the ambassador, Christopher Steven, al-Libi was suspected of helping to re-establish al-Qaeda in post-Gaddafi Libya.
He now lived with his wife and one of his sons, Abdullah. It was outside their home that the operation to seize him moved into gear on Saturday morning.
[SUP]Abdullah, one of Abu Anas al-Libi's sons, at the scene where his father was captured (AFP)[/SUP]
Abdulbaset al-Ruqaie said his brother was parking his car outside the house when three or four SUV-type cars screeched in and surrounded him.
Five men emerged wearing balaclavas and smashed the car's side window.
They managed to grab his weapon - not an unusual item for Libyan men to carry in the chaotic post-Gaddafi years - and pull him out and into their own convoy before speeding off.
Mr al-Ruqaie said that at first he thought al-Libi had been a victim of one of the numerous feuds between competing militias, some Islamist, who are vying for power in Libya.
"I thought it was a kind of misunderstanding between the brigades," he said. "I thought it was a normal Libyan kidnap, not that it was American commandos."
The truth was not confirmed by the US authorities until almost 24 hours later. "As the result of a US counterterrorism operation, Abu Anas al Libi is currently lawfully detained by the US military in a secure location outside of Libya," a Pentagon spokesman said.
The fact that the operation happened at almost exactly the same time another raid, by US Navy Seals, was taking place on an al-Qaeda base in coastal Somalia was described as "coincidence". There was no immediate suggestion that al-Libi was in contact with al-Shabaab, the Somali branch of al-Qaeda.
Al-Libi's son, Abdullah, said his father had been preparing to launch a formal legal case to determine his innocence and prevent his extradition to the United States. He said his father had worked in the oil industry after returning to Libya.
"This operation was committed by the government," he said. "There is no difference between this government and Gaddafi. It should leave as Gaddafi left."
Like him, Hashem al-Bishr, head of the government-backed Supreme Security Council, also claimed that the men who seized al-Libi were Libyan, though led by an American.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Ali al-Zeidan denied that the government was involved in or had been informed of the arrest. Mr Zeidan is already under attack from Islamists for being too close to the United States, and by last night support groups demanding al-Libi's freedom were already springing up on the internet.
The spokesman defended the government's failure to arrest him before.
"Do you think that the Libyan government knows or follows every citizen?" he said. "He didn't do anything inside Libya. He just lived a secure life, like a normal citizen."
Washington welcomed what it said was a further success in its campaign to eliminate al-Qaeda's top leadership.
"We hope that this makes clear that the United States of America will never stop in the effort to hold those accountable who conduct acts of terror," John Kerry, the secretary of state, said. Chuck Hagel, the defence secretary, said: "These operations in Libya and Somalia send a strong message to the world that the United States will spare no effort to hold terrorists accountable, no matter where they hide or how long they evade justice."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...eedom.html

[Magda Hassan]

Well, his missus doesn't think he did it. Chuck Hegel may think Abu Anas al Libi "one of the world's most wanted terrorists," but to his wife he was just an unemployed bum with a clapped out liver. The government of Libya were involved in the raid but requested an explanation from the US as to WTF is going on.

Wife: Captured 'most wanted terrorist' al Libi had left al Qaeda

By Jomana Karadsheh. Paul Cruickshank and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
October 7, 2013 -- Updated 0112 GMT (0912 HKT)Abu Anas al Libi, a key al Qaeda operative wanted for his role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, has been captured in a U.S. special operations forces raid in Tripoli, Libya, U.S. officials told CNN on Saturday, October 5.

• Official: Commandos from the elite U.S. Army Delta Force conducted the raid
  
• Abu Anas al Libi's wife says some of the men in the raid seemed to be Libyans
  
• The operation was a "masterpiece," Libyan counterterrorism analyst says
  
• Al Libi is suspected of playing a part in 2 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in 1998
  

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- The wife of an accused al Qaeda operative captured by U.S. forces told CNN that masked men ambushed her husband when he was on the way home from morning prayers.
While U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called Abu Anas al Libi "one of the world's most wanted terrorists," al Libi's wife described him a different way in an exclusive interview with CNN on Sunday.
Umm Abdul Rahman called al Libi an innocent man, adding that he left al Qaeda in 1996 and had no connection to the twin 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"I am sure of what I am saying -- he did not take part in any bombing anywhere in the world," Rahman said. "He participated in the jihad in Afghanistan. .... He was a member of al-Qaeda and he was personal security for (Osama) bin Laden -- that's true -- but he did not take part in any operation."
Al Libi was among those indicted for the embassy attacks by a federal grand jury in New York, and U.S. officials and terrorism analysts hailed news of his capture.
Al Libi's wife watched men capture him
Meanwhile, Libya's interim government distanced itself from the operation and called the U.S. capture a kidnapping.
Rahman told CNN she didn't know who had taken her husband -- only that the raid she watched happen from her Tripoli home happened very quickly.
Al Libi was returning to his house at about 6:30 a.m. Saturday (12:30 a.m. ET) when a group of at least 10 men in four vehicles surprised him, his wife told CNN. Some of the men were wearing masks, while others weren't, she said. Those men looked like Libyans to her and they spoke Arabic with Libyan accents, she said.
"What I saw were Libyans. Maybe they had Americans with them, but I didn't see them because there was more than one car. They say there were 10 people involved, but I believe there were more than 10," Rahman said. "I couldn't count them because there were many of them. I can't confirm if they were Americans or not, but what I saw were Libyans. "
Elite team involved in capture
On Sunday, a U.S. official said commandos from the elite U.S. Army Delta Force had snatched the 49-year-old al Qaeda operative.
Tripoli has requested an explanation from Washington about the raid, the country's state news agency reported Sunday.
The mission was conducted with the knowledge of the Libyan government, said one U.S. official. The Pentagon said the U.S. military was holding al Libi in a "secure location" outside Libya. A U.S. official told CNN that he was taken to a U.S. Navy warship after his capture.
U.S. forces strike in Libya, Somalia, capture al Qaeda operative
"It's a masterpiece how someone can craft such an operation," said Libyan counterterrorism analyst Noman Benotman, who is also a former jihadist associate of al Libi.
Benotman is president of the Quilliam Foundation, a London-based counterterrorism think tank. He is also a former senior member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which al Libi joined in the mid-1990s before gravitating back toward al Qaeda.
Al Libi had been living in that still unsettled nation, more or less in the open, for more than a year despite his alleged associations. According to Benotman, it is unlikely he was still playing an active role for al Qaeda.
His wife agreed, saying he was living a normal life, was not in hiding and had reapplied for a job with the oil ministry.
She said he has a severe case of hepatitis C and she worries about his health.
Next stop, New York?
Al Libi has been all around the globe -- Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Kenya, Britain, Iran and beyond -- making friends with some of the world's most notorious terrorists and enemies with the United States and its allies.
On Saturday, his odyssey ended where it began: in his homeland of Libya.
His next destination? He eventually will be taken to New York, a source with knowledge of the capture and proceedings told CNN, though the exact timing is unclear.
The Obama administration has activated the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group to interview him for intelligence purposes while he remains in U.S. military custody, U.S. officials told CNN. The team is led by the FBI and includes CIA and other intelligence agencies. After the interviews are concluded, he would be transferred to civilian custody and brought to New York to face federal charges, the officials said.
U.S. authorities have long wanted al Libi to stand trial in an American court to face charges for his alleged role in the U.S. embassy bombings that left well over 200 dead and thousands wounded.
Edith Bartley lost both her father, Julian Bartley, and her brother, Julian Jr., in the attack in Nairobi, Kenya. Her father was the U.S. Embassy's counsel general; her 20-year-old brother was an intern there.
"We know that this is a firm signal around the globe that as our government is still wading through a standstill right now, that we are still vigilant as a country and focused on international terror, and we're not going to step down at all," Bartley told CNN's "New Day Sunday."
Bartley said while she was relieved when Osama bin Laden -- also indicted in the embassy attacks -- was killed in 2011, she's also happy that al Libi was taken into custody.
"Certainly, we are very pleased to know that we can have someone who is captured, and for the wealth of information that may be available to our intelligence community and our military personnel," she said. "You can't put a price on that."
CNN's Nic Robertson, a veteran of covering al Qaeda, said al Libi's arrest is a "huge deal."
"He's a big player in al Qaeda (and) in one of the key target areas, in the north of Africa," he said. "This is a significant step."
Stops in Afghanistan, Britain, Iran and beyond
The FBI's page on al Libi -- part of its roster of "Most Wanted Terrorists" and noting the $5 million reward being offered for information leading directly to his apprehension -- says that he is accused in a "conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy the national defense utilities of the United States."
Born Nazih Abd al Hamid al Ruqhay, al Libi joined al Qaeda soon after its founding, as the terrorist organization built up its presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When the group's late leader Osama bin Laden relocated to Khartoum, Sudan, in 1992, al Libi went with him.
As the 1990s continued, al Libi came to be known as one of al Qaeda's most capable operatives, especially for his expertise in surveillance and computers.
A fellow al Qaeda operative at one point testified that al Libi was in Nairobi in 1993, allegedly checking out possible targets, including the U.S. Embassy.
The blast in Kenya's capital five years later ended up killing more than 200 people and wounding 5,000. The Tanzania blast went off nearly simultaneously, leaving 11 people dead.
His wife denied that he had any role in any bombing and said that after he returned to Libya in 2011 during the revolution, he had been asking the Libyan government to help him clear his name. She did admit that he had belonged to al Qaeda, but said he was a personal guard for bin Laden until he left the terror group in 1996.
Africa marks 10th anniversary of U.S. embassy bombings
Al Libi at one point joined the jihadist Libyan Islamic Fighters Group before moving to Qatar and then Britain, settling in Manchester.
It was there, in 2000, that police raided his home.
Authorities uncovered a document that became known as the "Manchester Manual" -- hundreds of pages of guidance on carrying out a terrorist campaign. Among them: a document that called for "attacking, blasting and destroying" embassies.
But what they didn't find was al Libi, who had left the country before the raid.
He is thought to have spent time subsequently in Afghanistan before fleeing to Iran after the fall of the Taliban. Western intelligence sources believe he remained in that country before going home to Libya.
After years in native Libya, al Libi in U.S. hands
In September 2012, CNN was first to report that al Libi was alive and well in Libya. Western intelligence had tracked his movements in Tripoli, and had even taken surveillance photos.
Western intelligence sources said that there was concern that al Libi was working to establish an al Qaeda network in the North African nation, but no evidence has since materialized that he continued to be involved in terrorist operations after he returned to Libya.
So how long had he been home?
In December 2010, before the outbreak of the unrest that ended with Moammar Gadhafi's death, Libyan authorities told a United Nations committee that al Libi had returned, even giving a Tripoli address for him.
And one Western intelligence source said al Libi appears to have been in Libya in the spring of 2011, when the civil war was in full swing.
Family members told CNN al-Libi returned to Tripoli in 2011 to take part in the revolution against Gadhafi. His wife, four sons and daughter had arrived from Iran the previous year.
Al-Libi's sons and wife say they believed they were under surveillance over the past two years in Libya and expected anything -- even a drone strike. But Saturday's raid still came as a surprise.
"There was no longer any talk about him in the media, so we felt somewhat reassured. He even stopped taking his weapon or his sons with him or hiring private security -- he was living his life normally," Rahman said.
Counterterrorism analysts told CNN in fall 2012 that al Libi may not have been apprehended at the time because of the delicate security situation in much of Libya, where ex-jihadists -- especially those who once belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group -- held considerable sway after the campaign against and ultimate ouster of longtime leader Gadhafi.
It was not clear for how long, and how much, Libya's government knew about al Libi's presence, or whether other governments had approached them to arrest al Libi. The fact that there's no extradition treaty between Libya and the United States further complicates matters.
The fact that al Libi is in U.S. hands, of course, changes everything.
In addition to standing trial, al Libi will be questioned about what he knows about al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.
And if he talks, he could offer valuable information on men he worked with inside Libya, as well as al Qaeda generally.

"All his recent years of activation is going to come under very, very close and important scrutiny," said CNN's Robertson.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/05/world/...index.html

[Magda Hassan]

He is currently being held in custody on a naval ship.

An accused operative for Al Qaeda seized by United States commandos in Libya over the weekend is being interrogated while in military custody on a Navy ship in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said on Sunday. He is expected eventually to be sent to New York for criminal prosecution.

A file photo of the Navy transport ship San Antonio, where Abu Anas was being questioned.


The fugitive, known as Abu Anas al-Libi, is seen as a potential intelligence gold mine, possessing perhaps two decades of information about Al Qaeda, from its early days under Osama bin Laden in Sudan to its more scattered elements today.
The decision to hold Abu Anas and question him for intelligence purposes without a lawyer present follows a pattern used successfully by the Obama administration with other terrorist suspects, most prominently in the case of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a former military commander with the Somali terrorist group Shabab.
Mr. Warsame was captured in 2011 by the American military in the Gulf of Aden and interrogated aboard a Navy ship for about two months without being advised of his rights or provided a lawyer.
After a break of several days, Mr. Warsame was advised of his rights, waived them, was questioned for about a week by law enforcement agents and was then sent to Manhattan for prosecution.
"Warsame is the model for this guy," one American security official said.
Mr. Warsame later pleaded guilty and has been cooperating with the government, providing intelligence information about his co-conspirators, who included "high-level international terrorist operatives," federal prosecutors have said in court papers.
Abu Anas is being held aboard the U.S.S. San Antonio, a vessel brought in specifically for this mission, officials said.
Abu Anas, 49, who was born Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was indicted in Manhattan in 2000 on charges of conspiring with Bin Laden in plots to attack United States forces in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia, as well as in the 1998 bombings of the United States embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which killed 224 people.
He has been described as a Qaeda computer expert and helped to conduct surveillance of the embassy in Nairobi, according to evidence in trials stemming from the bombings. In investigating the attacks, the authorities recovered a Qaeda terrorism manual in Abu Anas's residence in Manchester, England.
The manual is a detailed treatise on how to carry out terrorist missions. It focuses on forged documents, safe houses, surveillance, assassinations, codes and interrogation techniques. It also cites "blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers," and it endorses the use of explosives, saying they "strike the enemy with sheer terror and fright."
It is not known if Abu Anas wrote the manual, but federal prosecutors introduced it as evidence in the 2001 trial of four operatives convicted in the bombings conspiracy, and in the prosecution of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first former detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to be tried in the federal system.
The manual was also used in a 2006 trial in Virginia over whether to impose the death penalty on Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker in the Sept. 11 plot. (He received a life sentence.)
The Defense Department, in a statement on Sunday, said Abu Anas was "currently lawfully detained under the law of war in a secure location outside of Libya."
"Wherever possible," the statement said, "our first priority is and always has been to apprehend terrorist suspects, and to preserve the opportunity to elicit valuable intelligence that can help us protect the American people."
Officials declined on Sunday to confirm that New York was Abu Anas's destination, but two officials suggested it was likely.
The seizure of Abu Anas was carried out by American troops assisted by F.B.I. and C.I.A. agents. Navy SEALs, meanwhile, carried out a raid on the Somali coast, trying without success to capture a senior leader of the Shabab, the group that carried out the massacre at the Nairobi shopping mall two weeks ago.
Another American official emphasized that the commando raids in Libya and Somalia were designed to capture the intended targets, not to kill them with Predator drone missiles, the signature counterterrorism weapon of the Obama administration.
"If we can, capturing terrorists provides valuable intelligence that we can't get if we kill them," said the official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the continuing interrogation.
Abu Anas is one of about two dozen defendants charged in federal court in Manhattan in a series of indictments that began in 1998, when Bin Laden was charged, and which expanded over the years to add other operatives.
With Abu Anas's capture, only a handful of those operatives are believed to remain alive and at large, most prominently Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy to Bin Laden who succeeded the Qaeda leader after he was killed in a 2011 American operation.
One of Bin Laden's former close aides, a Sudanese named Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl who defected from the group in the mid-1990s and became a cooperating witness for the American government, testified in 2001 that Abu Anas was a computer engineer who ran the group's computers.
Abu Anas was also part of a small team of Qaeda operatives that in the early 1990s traveled to Nairobi and carried out surveillance of the American Embassy and other potential bomb targets, according to the indictment and other evidence.
The photographs, diagrams and surveillance report from the Nairobi mission were ultimately reviewed by Bin Laden in Khartoum, Sudan, the government has said.
"Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber," another member of the surveillance team, Ali A. Mohamed, said in federal court when he pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2000.
News of Abu Anas's capture was welcomed by family members of victims.
"Of course, our hearts are still very much tied to that day," said Edith Bartley, whose father, Julian L. Bartley Sr., the consul general, and brother, Julian L. Bartley Jr., a college student working as an intern, were both killed in the attack in Nairobi.
Ms. Bartley said her mother, Sue, traveled regularly to New York from the Washington area for the Ghailani trial in 2010, and she said they would both attend any trial involving Abu Anas.
"It's a reminder to the courts and to others involved that the person who's on trial impacted real people, people who were serving their country abroad," she said.
<img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif">
Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/world/....html?_r=0

More on the use of ships as prisons

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[TD="class: postHeader, bgcolor: transparent, colspan: 2"]Prison Ships, Ghost Prisoners, and Obama's Interrogation Program
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[TR="bgcolor: transparent"]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent"]By: Jeff Kaye Thursday July 7, 2011 1:52 pm[/TD]
[TD="bgcolor: transparent, align: right"][/TD]
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[/TABLE]
It was back in June 2008 that the British legal charity Reprieve issued a report alleging "the United States may have used as many as 17 ships as floating prisons." Moreover, the group claimed "about 26,000 people are being held by the U.S. in secret prisons a figure that includes land-based detention centers." The Defense Department, of course, denied anything untoward.

"We do not operate detention facilities on board Navy ships," said Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman. "Department of Defense detention facilities are in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."

Of course, these were the bad, old days of the Bush/Cheney administration, and things were supposed to be different under the new Obama administration. But since Obama came into office, despite claims things would be different, and executive orders issued by the then-incoming President, evidence continues to grow that many of the old habits of torture and illegal detention remain part of the arsenal of the Obama Defense Department.
Egregious practices amounting to torture still remain in the Army Field Manual, and in particular its Appendix M. Reports have been made by major U.S. press about ongoing abuse or torture at the U.S. Bagram facility in Afghanistan. The administration continues to support a rendition program (with its paper-thin guarantee of "promises" by torturing nations that they won't torture). And of course, Guantanamo remains open.
Now, with the news about Somali prisoner Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, we are hearing that at least this detainee (and it begs the question how many more like this), was held for two months as a ghost prisoner on a U.S. ship in international waters, uncharged, without access to attorneys or notification of the International Red Cross. In other words, he was held illegally. Now he's being charged in U.S. courts with terrorism.
It's not like the military has been completely hiding the fact they have been using naval ships to hold prisoners. As Adm. William H. McRaven told his Senate confirmation hearing last week (McRaven is to be the new head of Special Operations Forces) the U.S. will use ships to detain prisoners captured outside Afghanistan.
As the L.A. Times quoted him, "In many cases, we will put them on a naval vessel and we will hold them until we can either get a case to prosecute them in U.S. court,' send them to a third country or release them."
Back in 2008, Reprieve explained what their research had uncovered even back then. Reprieve legal director Clive Stafford Smith told Democracy Now's Amy Goodman:

And we've identified thirty-two prison ships, sort of prison hulks you used to read about in Victorian England, which have been converted to hold prisoners, and we've got pictures of them in Lisbon Harbor, for example. And these are holding prisoners around the world, as well. And there's a bunch of proxy prisons Morocco, Egypt and Jordan where this stuff is going on. And this is a huge concern, because the world focus is on Guantanamo Bay, which really is a diversionary tactic in the whole war of terror or war on terror, whatever you'd like to call it. And actually, most of these people who have been severed from their legal rights are in these other secret prisons around the world.

Today, Center for Constitutional Rights issued a press release condemning the use of ships as floating prisons, and the resulting violations of domestic and international law. The press release also asks a number of pertinent questions. In the reprint of this release, reproduced below, let the press corps take notice, and ask these questions of relevant governmental authorities, from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress.

While we join with those praising the Obama administration for charging Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame before a federal court rather than a flawed and lawless military tribunal, and rather than holding him indefinitely without charge, we condemn the administration for holding and interrogating Mr. Warsame incommunicado for more than two months on a U.S. naval ship. Under our domestic and international law, he should have been treated like a civilian criminal suspect and brought to the U.S. for trial immediately.
Moreover, according to The New York Times, the administration did not notify the International Committee of the Red Cross of Mr. Warsame's capture until approximately two months after his detention. This is illegal and inexcusable. It means in effect that Mr. Warsame was disappeared for this period with all the attendant dangers such hidden detention engenders. It is reminiscent of early Guantánamo Bay and CIA "black site" detention.
We also question under what authority Mr. Warsame was captured and detained. The administration must clarify whether it claims authorization to capture and detain him under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force. Such authority only extends to those involved with the 9/11 attacks, and his relationship to those attacks seems remote or nonexistent. Rather, it appears that the administration is stretching the meaning of that law to capture and detain, perhaps indefinitely, anyone it claims is a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world. Such actions undercut the important criminal protections to which every suspect is entitled. Those protections kick in upon arrest and not two months after the fact.
Even accepting the administration's argument of laws of war, it is illegal under any circumstance to hold people at sea except pending transfer to land and not for purposes of interrogation outside the law. That provision was written into the Geneva Conventions and U.S. military regulations, most likely in response to Japanese abuses of American prisoners aboard Hell Ships' in World War II.
The administration must answer a host of questions surrounding this action:
First are questions regarding the legal authority for Mr. Warsame's capture and detention.
*** Under what legal theory and under what power was the administration operating to justify his capture and detention?
*** If the administration claims authority under the AUMF, how would that have justified the detention given that there is supposed to be an explicit tie to 9/11 in those cases?
*** Does the administration believe we are engaged in armed conflict in Somalia sufficient to trigger application of the laws of war? With the Shabab?
*** If Mr. Warsame was purportedly held in connection with an armed conflict, what does the administration claim his status was under the laws of war?
*** Does the administration claim that Congress has authorized armed conflict with the Shabab?
Second are questions concerning his treatment once captured.
*** Under what authority does the administration claim it may hold a person beyond fourteen days without notifying the Red Cross?
*** How long does the administration claim they may hold a person without procedural protections (e.g., access to counsel and being informed of the right to habeas corpus) before they are prosecuted?
*** How can Mr. Warsame's Miranda waiver have been genuinely voluntary if he was only read his rights two months into his incommunicado detention and interrogation, even after a supposed "break"?
*** Was Mr. Warsame allowed contact with his family?
*** Separate and apart from authority to detain, what authority did they have to interrogate him?
Third are questions regarding how widespread is the practice under which Mr. Warsame was held.
*** How many other people are floating around on U.S. prison ships?
*** How many of those are unknown to the Red Cross?
The proper way to handle Mr. Warsame was the way the U.S. handled other pirate cases in 2009 and 2010: suspects were brought to the U.S. to face criminal charges in New York and Virginia within days of capture at sea. The Obama administration appears to have created a floating legal black hole, just as Guantánamo Bay was originally conceived: no Red Cross, no lawyers, no habeas no rights.

If Congress had any backbone, and it doesn't, there would be immediate hearings on this. But the GOP of course isn't interested, and the Democratic Party is loathe to do anything that might bring the military or interrogation under review going into an election year, and also because, well, they share with the GOP a jonesing for "war on terror" activities. Witness their support for Obama's military adventure in Libya.

We more than ever need an independent political force in this country that will confront the unlawful actions of the military and intelligence agencies. But right now, the Empire is in the driver's seat, and all we can do is protest and demand that something be done.
​http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2011/07...n-program/

[David Guyatt]

Being held on a navy ship for interrogation - is that a euphemism for having your genitals electrocuted I wonder?

[Magda Hassan]

I imagine so. In international waters. But do they want new information or do they want him to be quiet? He is in the same legal limbo territory as prisoner Warsame mentioned above. Or maybe he will have the traditional Muslim burial at sea facing Mecca that they gave OBL?