Abu Anas
al-Liby, one of the world's most wanted men before he was
captured earlier this
month by American Special Forces: did the CIA
know his whereabouts for two
years? If so, why did it wait to pounce?
Al-Liby was Thought to Be a CIA 'Double Agent' (El Khabar,
Algeria)
"The operation to capture al-Liby on Libyan soil by U.S. Special
Forces, who were disguised as Arabs and spoke Arabic dialects, came as quite a
surprise. Most intelligence services operating in the region had believed al-Liby
to be a double agent - which went a long way to explaining why the Americans had
failed to target him for more than two years. ... The security services of
other countries believed that the United States had either placed al-Liby under
observation to gather as much intelligence as possible, or had been secretly
collaborating with him."
Most
of the security and intelligence services operating in North Africa were aware
that al-Qaeda leader Abu
Anas al-Liby, born NazihAbd al-Hamid al- Ruqhay, had found refuge inside Libya. An Algerian security
source has revealed to al-Khabar that during the closing days of the [Libyan
War], Muammar Qaddafi’s security apparatus had informed neighboring countries
that a number of senior al-Qaeda figures had returned to Libya from Iraq and
Afghanistan, and that Abu Anas al-Liby was one of them,
having returned in 2011.
The
operation to capture Abu Anas al-Liby on Libyan soil by
U.S. Special Forces, who were disguised as Arabs and spoke Arabic dialects, came
as quite a surprise. Most intelligence services operating in the region had
believed al-Liby to be a double agent - which went a long way to explaining why
the Americans had failed to target him for more than two years, despite being
aware he was in Tripoli. According to a well-informed source, al-Liby had been put
under CIA surveillance a year and a half ago.
He
told us that the United States wasn't the only country to know of his
whereabouts. The security services of other countries, including Mali and
Mauritania, were also aware he was in Libya, and believed that the United
States had either placed al-Liby under observation to gather as much
intelligence as possible from him relating to al-Qaeda in North Africa, or had
been secretly collaborating with him.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
Our
well-informed source revealed that Qaddafi’s agents had told all neighboring
countries that the fugitive enjoyed the protection of Salafist revolutionaries
in Libya, and that it was "implausible such information had not fallen into the
hands of the CIA, which was actively engaged during the war against Qaddafi, and had to be
aware of a bargain struck with Qaddafi to bring al-Liby's
family to Libya, as well as of the death of one of his relatives during a clash
with Qaddafi forces just days before Tripoli fell into rebel hands."
Some
observers believe that al-Liby's arrest and
deportation to the United States came as part of a military response to the
attack against a shopping mall in Kenya, which was carried out by the al-Qaeda-linked
al-Shabab group, and which has claimed responsibility. Abu-Anas al-Liby has been charged by the United States with being
one of the masterminds behind the 1998 bombings that targeted
American embassies in East Africa.
