Fighting on the Side of Al Qaeda

 

Ever since the riots broke out in Egypt, I have taken a non-interventionist position, saying that it was our meddling that is at least partially responsible for this mess in the first place, it’s none of our business, and neither side deserves our support.  Well, events just keep on proving that right.  It came out, less than twenty-four hours ago, that one of the leaders of the Libyan rebels (you know, those guys we went to war to support) recruited jihadists in eastern Libya to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to kill Americans; and he himself even went to Afghanistan, where he was captured in 2002.  From this article:

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”. . . .

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. . . 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 members made up the second-largest cohort of foreign fighters in Iraq, after Saudi Arabia.

Earlier this month, al-Qaeda issued a call for supporters to back the Libyan rebellion, which it said would lead to the imposition of “the stage of Islam” in the country.

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