Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Thu 05/29/2025 View Wed 05/28/2025 View Tue 05/27/2025 View Mon 05/26/2025 View Sun 05/25/2025 View Sat 05/24/2025 View Fri 05/23/2025
2004-02-29 
Iran to launch terror campaign against Qadaffi
Iran is trying to prevent Libya from disclosing incriminating details of Teheran's top-secret nuclear weapons programme, by threatening to unleash Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
And Rafsanjani has the chutzpah to call us the world's real terrorists ...
Western intelligence specialists have learned from interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects, captured close to Afghanistan's border with Iran, that a militant group of Libyan extremists is being protected and trained by terrorism experts from Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
And how did the al-Qaeda suspects happen to know this, you ask? My guess is that the branch of the IRGC that was working with the Libyans came from a same branch, but different department, from that which works with al-Qaeda directly.
The Libyan Combat Islamic Group (GICL) was expelled from Libya by Gaddafi in 1997 after it was implicated in attacks against government targets. At first the group relocated to Afghanistan, where it became closely involved in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation.
Interesting thing about the GICL is that its other name is the Fighting Islamic Group, also known as FIG. They tried to whack Muammar during the early 1990s, allegedly with help from MI6 of all places, causing the colonel to issue the first Interpol warrant for Binny's arrest.
After the war in Afghanistan in 2001 the Libyan group was given a safe haven in Iran, together with other North African terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda. Now the Iranians have agreed to provide the Libyan dissidents with expert training to enable them to attack Libyan targets and intensify their campaign to overthrow Gaddafi.
My understanding is that the IRGC took in al-Qaeda as well. The other North African groups are likely the GIA, GSPC, Salafi Jihad, the EIJ, and Gamaa al-Islamiyyah.
The Iranians have told Libya of the group's presence in Iran, but promised to restrict its activities to al-Qaeda operations elsewhere so long as Gaddafi does not reveal details of Iran's secret nuclear activity.
Ah, the mad mullahs seemed to have mastered the carrot and stick approach, but they still can't grasp their turbans around the concept of cause and effect ...
One of the reasons that Gaddafi sought to improve relations with British intelligence following September 11 was his concern about the growing effectiveness of Libya's Islamic terrorist groups. The improved relations culminated in Gaddafi's decision, announced at the end of last year, to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction.
Being caught with his pants down getting Khan's centrifuges also probably factored into his decision-making proccess.
"This is a serious initiative by the Iranians," said a Western intelligence official with access to the interrogation transcripts of al-Qaeda detainees in Afghanistan. "They are desperate to prevent Gaddafi from spilling the beans about either Iran's involvement in international terrorism or in developing nuclear weapons."
The thing is, there's going to be something in there for the mad mullahs to offer al-Qaeda for dealing with the colonel if he spills his guts. Safe harbor is one possibility, but if Khamenei's feeling particularly suicidal he can always churn out a few nukes and toss them Saif al-Adel's way.
For now, the Libyan dissidents are being trained at a camp in southern Iran. If Tripoli makes any unauthorised disclosures about the Iranian programme, however, they will be encouraged by Teheran to resume their violent campaign to overthrow Gaddafi.
If this is true, my guess is that the boomers are gonna start gunning for Muammar pretty soon. Somehow, I doubt he's got the same level of protection that Perv gets.

Muammar's also got the capability to repay them in the same coin. Popcorn, anyone? -Fred
Posted by Dan Darling 2004-02-29 00:44|| || Front Page|| [11133 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Wanna bet he gets some US SF types to augment the all-girl kick-death squad he has protecting him?

Be a bit easier to kill em in Libay - no next-door support like they get in Iraq. And we trace this back to the Iranians, this will piss off the arab world.

You all do remember that the Arabs dont really like the Persians, right?
Posted by OldSpook 2004-2-29 1:09:14 AM||   2004-2-29 1:09:14 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Arabs could not like Iranians but I think they dislike Gaddafi still more. To begin with lately he has been making noises telling that Lybians are not really Arabs and should not care about them, having the local population dispel the "we are Arab" myth has ever been the nightmare of both the pan-Arabist and the Islamists. Second: he has ever been quite agnostic, he rejects Charia, Hadits and only accepts the Koran. Compound that with the fact he had been critic about Muhammad so Gaddafi is very high on the Islamist hit list. But even during his pan-Arabist phase he cracked on the Muslim Brotherhood and the wahabi-inspired movements.
Posted by JFM  2004-2-29 2:54:41 AM||   2004-2-29 2:54:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 JFM, you almost make Gaddafi seem like a nice guy.;)
Whether one accepts that Libyans are Arab or Berber, another reason for animosity between Libya and Iran is the Muslim sect feud. Lybia's population is 97% Sunni while Iran's is 90% Shiite.
Posted by GK 2004-2-29 5:34:25 AM||   2004-2-29 5:34:25 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 GK

I take Gaddafi any day over the Seoudis. And I think if Gaddafi ruled Egypt the AL Aqsar University wouldn't have become a bastion of fundamentalism: the mullahs and crazy theologists would have "disappeared" a long time ago. If I were sure that Gaddafi is not insane (meaning that any day he can return to its former terrorist and panarabist ideas) I would defintely declare him the less bad of the Arab dictators. We absolutely NEED to break the links who unite the Arab-speaking nations into a false unity who naturally dreams of curbing whole world under Islamic yoke (1). Thus any guy who says "We are (Fill the blank) and proud of it. We are no stinking Arabs and we reject the silly idea they brought us civilization" (2), well this guy is our friend.

(1) Given that the only period of Arab proeminence has been the Muslim invasions teh result is that panarab nationalism even wxhen realtively secular will never be far apart of Islamism and its dream of having the world turn toward Mecca and the Arabs being its overlords.

(2) One of the central Islamist dogmas is that there was no real civilization before the Muslim invasion, that it was illiterate camel-herders who civilized Egypt and teached the second degree equation to the descendants of Babylonians.
Posted by JFM  2004-2-29 8:13:12 AM||   2004-2-29 8:13:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 He needs to choose a side. He has no protection while sitting on the fence. With the cat half-way out of the bag, no reason for the Iranians to believe that he has not compomised them and no way the Iranians can protect him, there is really only one sane choice for Mumar. I look for him to continue to bargain but to give up every piece of information he posesses in the end.
Posted by Super Hose  2004-2-29 10:15:40 AM||   2004-2-29 10:15:40 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Is Fred in that neighborhood arranging the necessaries for Wheelus?
Posted by Shipman 2004-2-29 10:20:01 AM||   2004-2-29 10:20:01 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 could anyone here have predicted last February that we might actually be providing protect for Khadaffy Duck against persian hit squads? Bush has really turned the Mideast on it's head, and for the better, no?
Posted by Frank G  2004-2-29 11:18:13 AM||   2004-2-29 11:18:13 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 Also be interesting to see how much the NORKs and the Chinise have got to do with all this dodgy 'arms' smuggling. Any info on what the NORKs are peddling on the international market could be very usefull in the case against Kimmie
Posted by Jon Shep U.K 2004-2-29 11:20:47 AM||   2004-2-29 11:20:47 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Khadaffy on our side. Gee willikers, I thought I'd never see the day...
Posted by gromky 2004-2-29 11:48:28 AM||   2004-2-29 11:48:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 FrankG - Ha! Don't you know that destabilzation (the multilaterist's nightmare boogey-man) is always bad? Hell, all change is bad! What are you - some kind of cowboy?
- Ye Olde Status Quo & Order of the Historical Rear-View Mirror

Yeeeehaaaa! *snicker*
;->
Posted by .com 2004-2-29 12:15:42 PM||   2004-2-29 12:15:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Jon Shep UK---The NORKS have been peddling their missiles to Iran and others who will provide foreign exchange. We can six way talk them, but we still have to play hardball with them because they are and always will be hard cases.

Iran sees an opportunity to do alot of things before the election. The Black Turbans see our country divided (at least by press accounts) and no ops before the elections. We need to bring Khadaffy Duck along. He needs us more than we need him, though we need Libya in the WoT to start breaking up this Saudi funded African terrorism.
Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-2-29 12:17:26 PM||   2004-2-29 12:17:26 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Hey! I got slapped down a week or so ago for asking if Libya was a Arab country.... it's in North Africa, so it must be Arab, or so I was told. Is that still correct?
Posted by Shipman 2004-2-29 12:21:56 PM||   2004-2-29 12:21:56 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 Shipman

When the Arabs invaded North Africa the locals found that even after converting they paid higher taxes and had lesser opportunities than Arabians. That is why they started to speak Arabic and to say they were Arabs.

After the fall of Saddam Gaddafi told that panarabism had only brought bad things to Lybia and that his country should turn toward Africa instead of Arab countries. I am not sure but I think he told Lybia was not Arab.
Posted by JFM  2004-2-29 12:41:44 PM||   2004-2-29 12:41:44 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 I would think the only true Arabs are from the Saudi Peninsula.

By the thw way,.com.

Yippiee Ioh Kiyay,m@#$%r f^&*%r
(just joking around,meant no offense)
Posted by Raptor  2004-2-29 7:08:29 PM||   2004-2-29 7:08:29 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Heh, s'okay Bruce Raptor! I've never heard a cowboy actually say that -- and I even worked on a Dude Ranch in Wyoming for a coupla summers and at my Grandfather's Purina Feed store for several years when there were still bunches of real cowboys in Texas, but Bruce was doing his Roy Rogers TV routine, so no sweat, heh. :-)
Posted by .com 2004-2-29 8:45:53 PM||   2004-2-29 8:45:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#16  Hey! I got slapped down a week or so ago for asking if Libya was a Arab country....

Yes, but that was Aris,so it doesn't count... :)

Posted by Pappy 2004-2-29 9:30:31 PM||   2004-2-29 9:30:31 PM|| Front Page Top

18:33 Frank G
18:33 badanov
18:26 Hellfish
18:23 Hellfish
17:40 swksvolFF
17:34 Ebbuger Whuque4103
17:30 Ebbuger Whuque4103
17:02 Melancholic
16:27 Gravilet Snanter4154
16:20 Chaise Speaking for Boskone7897
16:02 Skidmark
16:01 Skidmark
15:46 Skidmark
15:41 Skidmark
15:37 swksvolFF
15:36 Skidmark
15:34 Skidmark
15:27 Skidmark
14:48 NoMoreBS
14:31 NoMoreBS
14:16 NoMoreBS
14:15 NoMoreBS
14:04 swksvolFF
13:47 Regular joe









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com