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| Africa: North |
| Libya Goes To War Against Islamic Terrorists |
| 2005-08-29 |
| Several Islamic terrorist groups have shown up in Libya over the past year. The most prominent of these (if only because of their ability to publicize themselves) has been The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (Jama'at al-Islamiya al-Muqatila), or LIFG. So far this year, there have been several violent incidents between LIFG members and the security forces. The terrorists have not proved themselves very terrible so far. In one incident, an LIFG killer, armed with a sword, went after some policemen. The cops pulled out their pistols, and, well, you may have seen that one play out in the movies. The Islamic terrorists know who their real enemy is, and during the 1990s made several unsuccessful assassination attempts against Khadaffi. Groups like LIFG understand that most Libyans are fed up with Khadaffi and all his posturing and inefficiency. Before Osama bin Laden got distracted with killing infidels (non-Moslems), guys like Khadaffi were at the top of the al Qaeda hit list. But al Qaeda gave up trying to take Khadaffi down, because thugs like Khadaffi know how to deal with Islamic terrorists. For example, after the Iraq invasion of 2003, many Libyan Islamic radicals wanted to go to Iraq and fight the Americans. Khadaffi let them, and gave orders that any who survived and tried to return home, were to be shot on sight. The traditional (in the Arab world) way of dealing with violent dissent (like Islamic terrorism) is to come down hard on the malcontents, and err on the side of too much violence. But Khadaffi also has to deal with some truly new, and very dangerous ideas circulating throughout the Arab world. No, not Islamic conservatism, but democracy. The last thing Khadaffi wants is democracy. He knows most Libyans are unhappy, and would vote him out of office if given a chance. Khadaffi is trying to improve the economy, and is bringing in lots of foreign experts to help him do it. That’s why he dumped support for terrorism and nukes, in order to get out from under UN embargos. But it’s going to take a while to undo decades of misadministration. In the meantime, all those foreigners just inflame the Islamic radicals. To cope with this, Khadaffi plans to hire at least another 100,000 people for the security forces. Life is not going to be easy for anyone in Libya over the next few years. |
| Posted by:DanNY |
| #1 Hell, they should go back to killing each other. Nobody gives a rat's ass about that. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-08-29 12:30 |