Global Al Qaeda and AQIM Leaders Trying to Set Up Libya Network

Al-Qaeda plans to gain a foothold in Libya and develop its network by taking advantage of chaos enveloping the country in the wake of Moammar Qaddafi’s ouster, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
“It’s safe to say that it’s one of their goals to try and set up some sort of a footprint and network internally… playing for the long haul,” said the official on condition of anonymity.

“Right now they probably play it safe but in the long term that’s something we are worried about.”
Qaddafi, wanted for alleged crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, remains in hiding but many of his inner circle and a son have fled to neighboring Niger, while Libya’s new rulers tackle the aftermath of a more than six-months uprising.

“We’re concerned that Al-Qaeda could try to take advantage of the situation,” the Pentagon official said.
“Al-Qaeda’s leadership and AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) leadership has expressed an interest in getting involved and playing a role. They see that as an opportunity,” he added.
A two-day meeting on security in Africa’s Sahel desert region earlier this month ruled out any foreign military intervention to counter an Al-Qaeda threat exacerbated by the war in Libya.
The conference in Algiers was dominated by fears that an influx of weapons from Libya could benefit AQIM.
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Italy Anxious about Libyan Republic's Oil Partner Choices

Bashir Saleh is Key to Gaddafi's Africa investments, possible location in Hiding

Bashir Saleh, President of LAAICO, LAICO and Gadaffi's cheif of staff is key to Gaddafi's

Investments and possiblly his post civil war location.

He was sanctioned this year by hte US office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), identified by Treasury on March 15 as subject to sanctions for being owned or controlled by the Government of Libya.

Libya Africa Investment Company (LAICO) corporate records are the key for tracking the Gaddafi family's influence in Africa, including payments to other African Leaders.

Libya Africa Arab Investment Company (LAAICO) became Libya Africa Investment Company (LAICO) in 2007. We have been tracking its activity for a few years. Here is what we know about it's history.

During the Civil War, Qadaffi dispatched Bashir Saleh (Asharq Al-Awsat reported – citing unnamed Libyan sources in Tripoli and Benghazi, Western diplomatic sources in Cairo, Tripoli and Tunis, and vaguely described "Arab sources" –) that Gaddafi was suffering from an "incurable illness" and was attempting to negotiate a voluntary exile for himself and his family inSouth Africa under the protection of South African President Jacob Zuma.

The newspaper claimed Gaddafi's chief of staff, Bashir Saleh, had been dispatched to Djerba, Tunisia, and then to Bamako, Mali, to meet with British and French officials about the possibility of Gaddafi being allowed to leave Libya without facing arrest or trial.

. (Wikipedia)

Checking Bashir Saleh's communications over the last months may even give a clue as to where Gadaffi has gone, there are hotels and businesses all over Africa.

Who Will Control the Army in the New Libya?

This fox video is not really news to us, but what role will al Qaeda fighters hold in the new Libya? This will become more important soon.

More on the AQIM Aquisition of Libya Weapons

The uprising of Libyan rebels against Muammar al-Gaddafi’s rule has led to some unwanted consequences: Al Qaeda-linked militants across North Africa have been benefiting from the lack of control over the Libyan Army’s hardware depots. This will present challenges to regional security for years to come.

It was a Sunday just before mid-June in the desert of Northern Niger. A convoy of three Toyota 4x4s had just entered the sleepy desert town of Ourarene, about 80 kilometres north of Arlit, a regional uranium mining centre essentially run by the French company Areva. All three vehicles, containing only one driver each, came to a stop in the almost unbearable desert heat.

Map of the border region between Libya, Algeria and Niger - Google Earth/io magazine

Then the shooting started.

• Hidden at some distance, a patrol of Niger’s Presidential Guard opened fire at the Toyotas with heavy machine guns and automatic rifles.
• One of the vehicles immediately got hit, while the drivers grabbed their weapons and fired back.
• Soon, the men belonging to the undamaged cars jumped in, shifted into reverse gear, swerved around and made a full-throttle dash amidst the sound of rattling automatic gun fire, incoming bullets whizzing by and clouds of desert dust popping up, according to accounts assembled by French and local media, citing witnesses and security sources.
• One soldier was fatally wounded in the exchange, six others injured.
• The security forces on site quickly called for reinforcements from the regular army, the Presidential Guard and the Gendarmerie.
• Helicopters were launched from Arlit, and a small surveillance aircraft soon arrived in the airspace over Ourarene, scanning the surroundings for the two 4x4s that had escaped the initial attack.
• When soldiers approached the smoking wreck of the Toyota they had hit first, they found the driver shot dead. It did not take them long to discover hints at the identity of the dead man: He was a ‘Barbu’, or ‘bearded one’, a regional synonym for Islamists of Arab origin.
• In the back of the 4×4, the presidential guards found no less than 640 kilograms of military-grade ‘Semtex’ plastic explosives, neatly packed into 40 boxes of 16 kilograms each.
• Dozens of Czech-made detonators, several military uniforms, various documents and 90,000 US Dollars in cash were also stashed in the car. The explosives and the detonators were clearly labelled – ‘Libya’.

Semtex plastic explosives, of which more than half a ton was recently smuggled from Libya - Wikipedia/US Government

• It took the thin-stretched Nigerien authorities three more days, until 15 June, to locate the remaining two cars.
• One had been abandoned about 40 kilometres north of Agadez, with more than 80,000 inhabitants the largest city in Northern Niger.

• Abta Hamaidi Mohammed, a shadowy Nigerien weapons trafficker and former government adviser, surrendered to the authorities in Agadez.

  
  

  Sources close to the investigation claim that Mohammed was piloting one of the Toyotas, and that he was ‘guiding’ the convoy through the desert.

  The catch in Niger’s desert in June highlights some of the unwanted fallout that the Libyan uprising has had across North Africa. Not long after Libyan rebels took up protest banners and arms in February, Western and African security experts pointed to the uneasy ramifications the situation could have. As ragtag rebel forces drove the Libyan Army out of the country’s East, ammunition depots were abandoned by their guards and left to looters.

  A whole range of people took advantage of the security vacuum: Pro-Western rebels, bandits, and of course some Jihadis and their sympathisers, who have a traditionally strong support base in and around the ‘rebel capital’ Benghazi. This way, weapons ranging from heavy machine guns to anti-aircraft guns to ‘SAM-7’ portable anti-aircraft missile launchers have most likely found their way into the arsenal of ‘Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’ (AQIM).

  AQIM is the new name of the Algeria-based ‘Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat’ (GSPC, or ‘Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat’) which was re-branded as an Al Qaeda affiliate in early 2007. At the time, the GSPC had been under heavy pressure from authorities, its strength was dwindling. The move was intended to open up new sources of funding from pro-jihadi donors in the Gulf region and elsewhere, and to attract badly needed recruits.

  However, the re-branding was perceived as controversial amongst the group’s leadership and their rank and file. Despite the occasional attack in its homeland Algeria and some kidnappings of Westerners across the Sahara plains, AQIM basically remained stuck with their backs to the wall. Membership was going down to merely 300 by some accounts, as the group was struggling to get their hands on explosives and was in need of cash and weapons. That was until earlier this year; the Libyan uprising has unintentionally provided the Al Qaeda-linked extremists with a new perspective, putting yet more stress on the already shaky regional security situation.

  The discovery and disabling of the weapons convoy in Niger in mid-June again shows the collaboration with regional nomadic tribes that the GSPC and later AQIM have long relied on. The place where the three Toyotas were fired upon by Nigerien soldiers, Ourarene, lies deep within Touareg territory, situated well away from routes that are normally used by overland traffic. But the case also demonstrates that even such clandestine convoys are not immune from detection.

  In fact, as Nigerien security officials contend, ‘human intelligence’ about the convoy was picked up well before the vehicles actually entered Niger. According to a tip-off, two Toyotas packed with explosives and other weapons passed the city of Sebah in south-west Libya in early June. Instead of heading directly south to the border with Niger, the cars first drove west into Algeria. There, the 4x4s turned left towards the Hoggar, a region characterised by a bizarre rock landscape, scarcely inhabited by Touareg nomads.

  Sometime between 08 and 10 June, the two Toyotas crossed from Algeria into Niger, where they linked up with a third vehicle – most likely the one with weapons trafficker Abta Mohammed at the steering wheel. At this stage, the convoy was almost doomed. Phone calls made by the passengers were tapped and their movements tracked until the convoy was raided on 12 June in Ourarene.

  Despite the counterterrorism success in June, security services in the West look upon the newly energised weapons flows in North Africa with great concern. In the past few months, similar weapons convoys have been reported heading to Mali and even into Senegal. Untold amounts of explosives have entered the black market in the region since the advent of the ‘Libyan spring’. Not least, the potential terrorist threat against civilian and other aircraft by portable air defence weapons, not just in Africa, is rising again after decades of laborious counter-proliferation efforts. Whatever the outcome of the Libyan rebellion, regional security will remain affected by the unintended consequences for years to come.

by Malte Roschinski

The Rest @ at I-O- Magazine

Libyan Tribes in The Context of Civil War

The following analysis suggests that the current struggle in Libya breaks down along tradition tribal Lines and alliances.

This means that Gadaffi stepping down will not resolve the conflict. A separation into two countries, East and West, with an agreement for sharing interior oil revenue is a solution worth consideration.....

Shimron Issachar

*****************

One of the pillars of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s regime is his ability to control Libya’s tribes. Though he has consistently maintained ties with many smaller tribes affiliated with the other officers who formed the Revolutionary Command Council which carried out the 1969 coup that put Gadhafi in power, the foundation of his rule has been maintaining ties between his own tribe and the two largest tribes in the country. Because of the tribes’ importance to Gadhafi, a grasp of Libya’s tribal dynamics is important in understanding the current conflict in the country.

Libya has an estimated 140 tribes, only about 30 of which are viewed as having any real significance. They live in the three historical zones that make up Libya — regions which have only recently been grouped together as one political unit. These regions are Tripolitania, site of the capital city Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast in northwestern Libya; Cyrenaica, which touches the Mediterranean but also extends into the Sahara and serves as home to what was for a time the alternate capital of Benghazi; and Fezzan, the only region located entirely in the desert.

In an attempt to simplify an exceedingly confusing topic, we have divided Libya’s tribal groups into two overarching categories: the coastal tribes residing mostly in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, and the interior tribes which mostly live in Fezzan. Not all of the “coastal” tribes live along the Mediterranean, but they do live within the rough vicinity of the Libyan core. The second category encompasses the tribes who reside solely in the desert interior.



Most people in Libya fall into the first category. The coastal strip is home to the typical Libyan — a person of mixed Arab-Berber descent (there are very few pure Berbers left, and though Bedouins in the interior take pride in their “pure” Arab blood, the amount of mixing over the years has made this very rare). There is a difference between the family trees of the Tripolitania tribes and those of the tribes in Cyrenaica dating back to the 11th century, when the Banu Hilal and Banu Salim Arabs settled in the respective regions. This division is felt to this day.

Cyrenaica is where the current uprising began in mid-February. This is a territory that Gadhafi — or any ruler of Tripolitania — has always struggled to control. In part, this is due to geography, as a vast stretch of desert and the Gulf of Sidra separate the regions. This division has reinforced their separate historical developments. Cyrenaica has long been oriented toward Egypt and the eastern Islamic world, with Tripolitania more oriented to the western Islamic world and the Maghreb. Cyrenaica was also the home region of modern Libya’s first ruler, King Idris I, who was overthrown by Gadhafi in 1969. (This is why so many towns in eastern Libya have begun flying the old flag of the Libyan monarchy in recent days.) Idris came from a line of rulers of the Sanussi order, a Sufi religious order founded in 1842 in Al Bayda, that practices a conservative and austere form of Islam. The Sanussiyah represented a political force in Cyrenaica that preceded the creation of the modern state of Libya, and whose reverberations continue to be felt to this day. It is no coincidence that this region is the home of Libyan jihadism, with groups like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). (The Gadhafi family has thus been calling the current uprising an elaborate Islamist plot, blaming nearly everything on the influence of al Qaeda, and accusing several people once imprisoned for their affiliations with LIFG of having established Islamic emirates in various eastern towns.)



A very small percentage of the Libyan population lives in the areas populated by the second category of tribes, including all of Fezzan and a significant portion of Cyrenaica. The desert simply does not allow for a large population to develop. Much of Libya’s oil and natural gas is within this region, however, and that is what makes an understanding of the tribal dynamics there important.

The Coastal Tribes
Tripolitania
The Gadhafi Tribe
This is the tribe of the Libyan leader, who was born in a desert town about 50 miles south of Sirte. There are six Gadhafi subtribes, whose members can be found in the two largest Libyan cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, but their main stronghold is in the territory stretching from Sirte to the Fezzan district of Sabha (where Gadhafi attended secondary school).

The Gadhafi tribe is not historically a force in Libya, in part because there simply are not that many members. The Gadhafi did not play a big role in the war against the Italian occupation, for example, nor did they have any influence during the monarchy, during which they mainly worked as herders. But the Gadhafi were allowed to join the armed forces and the police during this time, which is how the young Capt. Moammar Gadhafi found himself in the position to be able to lead the coup in 1969. (He promoted himself to colonel after the revolution.) As Gadhafi hails from the air force, this tribe continues to be very influential in this branch of the armed forces, which has been involved in some of the most severe crackdowns in eastern Libya and beyond.

Like any person in charge in a tribal society, Gadhafi has long favored members of his own tribe, especially in appointing leaders in the security forces, from regional military commanders to his personal bodyguard. But since the Gadhafi tribe is not especially large, the Libyan leader has been forced to form confederations with others. The foundation of the Gadhafi power structure for the past four decades has largely rested on an alliance with the two largest tribes in the country: the Warfallah and the Magariha, neither of which hails from eastern Libya.

When Gadhafi first took power, he was heavily influenced by the ideology of then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Arab nationalism was his guiding force. This later manifested in the Jamahiriya project that Gadhafi implemented in 1977. “Jamahiriya,” a word coined by Gadhafi which describes a new system of governance he defined as the “state of the masses,” was billed as a unique brand of Arab socialism. Ostensibly, it was to do away with antiquated notions of tribalism and focus on national identity. But in reality, these power relationships never went away.

The Warfallah Tribe
The Warfallah is the largest tribe in Libya. Its members can be found living in Tripoli and Benghazi but the tribe’s stronghold is centered on the Wadi Warfallah and Bani Walid and reaches into Sirte. With an estimated 1 million members, the Warfallah tribe represents roughly one-sixth of the country’s entire population. This is the dominant tribe in Tripolitania.

The Gadhafi and Warfallah have blood ties, and have been in alliance for much of Gadhafi’s 41 years in power. There have been times when all was not well between the Gadhafi and Warfallah tribes, however. In October 1993, after 55 military officers from the Warfallah tribe were implicated in a failed coup attempt, Gadhafi ordered a wave of arrests targeting the tribe. This sparked a backlash from among the Warfallah — most notably in Bani Walid, where there was an uprising in response. This event did not cause a permanent rupture in the alliance, but it would lead to the establishment of a law in March 1997 designed to prevent this kind of tribal unrest from happening again. The so-called “code of honor,” approved by the parliament in March 1997, meant that tribes and families could be collectively punished through the withdrawal of government services should members of the tribe get involved in opposition activities.

On Feb. 20, shortly after violence exploded in eastern Libya, a group known as the Warfallah Tribal Elders released a statement in which they condemned Gadhafi, his sons, and all members of his tribe. The Warfallah Tribal Elders speak on behalf of the Warfallah confederation, which consists of six subtribes: the Matarfa, Zakarwa, Lotyyin, Fogyyin, Faladna and Mrabtin.

Other Important Tribes in Tripolitania
The Bani Walid Tribe
The Bani Walid overlap geographically with the Warfallah, and also stretch northward toward the coastal town of Misurata. After African mercenaries contracted by Gadhafi were used to violently suppress demonstrations in Misurata, the Bani Walid defected en masse from their units, and are now part of the opposition.

The Tarhuna Tribe
The Tarhuna are another large Libyan tribe, especially in the capital, where they comprise an estimated one-third of the population. As just over 1 million people reside in Tripoli, that puts the total number of Tarhuna at a minimum of 350,000, with some estimates putting membership at two or three times that (though this is likely an exaggeration). There even used to be a district in Libya called Tarhuna district, located right next to Tripoli. The Tarhuna, who are heavily integrated into the Libyan military, have also joined in the anti-Gadhafi protests.

The Zentan Tribe
The Zentan are located around the towns of Nalut and Zentan, around 100 kilometers (km), or slightly more than 60 miles, southwest of Tripoli in the Nafoosa Mountain range, next to the Tunisian border. The Zentan are known as heavy participants in the Libyan army, but they, too, have shown signs of siding with the protesters.

There have been several reports of clashes between protesters and security forces in Zentan areas since Feb. 16, with images of people burning photos of Gadhafi and burning an armored personnel carrier belonging to the Libyan military, among other demonstrations.

Cyrenaica
The Zuwaya Tribe
The Zuwaya might not be the biggest tribe in Libya, but they are still a considerable force, if only because of the geography the tribe covers. Its members are spread out all across Cyrenaica, from the areas around the oil export facilities on the Gulf of Sidra to the interior regions around the actual oil deposits, as well as the Al Kufrah oasis.

The Zuwaya, along with the Warfallah, are one of the major tribes that have been the most vocal in their denunciations of Gadhafi since the crisis began. Zuwaya tribal leader Shaykh Faraj al-Zuway said in a Feb. 20 interview with Al Jazeera that the Zuwaya would halt oil exports if the army did not stop shooting at demonstrators. Faraj insisted that his words were to be taken as “a warning from the Zuwaya tribe,” and gave a 24-hour ultimatum for Gadhafi to order the military to cease in the use of force to suppress the revolt. There are no signs that the Zuwaya have carried out their threat, however.

The Zuwaya reportedly control the Sarir, Messla and Aquila oil fields. And though Libya’s oil production has been significantly affected by the overall environment of unrest in the country, this appears to be because the foreign companies and local technicians needed to operate the fields and export facilities have either evacuated or are no longer showing up for work. The Zuwaya, rather than attacking oil facilities, appear to be protecting them.

A WikiLeaks cable from 2008 stated that the Zuwaya are a heavily armed tribe, though these weapons are restricted to hunting rifles and other automatic rifles given to them by the Libyan government during the war with Chad over the Ouzou Strip in the 1980s. Their presence in the Toubou tribe’s traditional heartland, namely the oasis town of Jaloo, has caused tension between the two tribes, at times breaking out into clashes that the Libyan army is forced to suppress.

Other important tribes in Cyrenaica
The Misurata Tribe
The Misurata tribe is said by some to be the largest tribe in eastern Libya, though there are no concrete numbers to prove this. The tribe took its name from an area in northwestern Libya — the town called Misurata — where they used to live in great numbers before a wave of emigration after World War II. The town of Misurata is due west across the Gulf of Sidra from the Misurata stronghold in Cyrenaica. Today, the Misurata live mainly in the cities of Benghazi and Darnah.

The al-Awaqir Tribe
This tribe is most prevalent in Al Bayda, the city in which the Sanussi order was established and where the current uprising began in mid-February. When Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam made reference to those who had established the “Islamic Emirate of Al Bayda” in his Feb. 20 speech on Libyan state television, it is quite possible that he was referring to members of this tribe. The al-Awaqir are known for the prominent role they played in the war against Ottoman and Italian colonialism, and historically have played a prominent role in Libyan politics, both during the monarchy and during the Gadhafi era.

The Obeidat Tribe
The Obeidat are centered in the far northeastern military garrison town of Tobruk. Two top officials in the regime that come from this tribe have made very public defections in recent days: Maj. Gen. Suleiman Mahmud (whose full name is Suleiman Mahmud al-Obeidi), commander of the Tobruk military region, and Maj. Gen. Abdel Fattah Younis (whose full name also includes “al-Obeidi” at the end), the former interior minister. The latter announced his defection on Al Arabiya television Feb. 23. Mahmud, meanwhile, insisted after his defection that the tribes are not as fractious as Gadhafi claims, disputing the notion that Gadhafi’s removal would lead to chaos.

Fezzan
The Magariha
(The Magariha technically are not a coastal tribe, but since Gadhafi took power members of the tribe have come to play an integral role in the affairs of the Libyan core. Thus, we are grouping them into this category.)

The Magariha tribe is the second-largest in Libya. In addition to the Warfallah, it is the tribe that Gadhafi has consistently sought to keep in alliance throughout his time in power. The Magariha are the dominant tribe in Fezzan, though many Magariha live in Tripoli and other large cities on the coast, as is the case for almost all of the Arab-Berber tribes in Libya.

The most powerful member of the Magariha tribe is Col. Abdullah al-Sanussi, the head of the Jamahiriya Security Organization (JSO), which includes both the Internal Security Organization and the External Security Organization, an organization which employed Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, better known as the Lockerbie bomber (Megrahi’s surname is a clear indication of the fact that he hails from the Magariha tribe). Al-Sanussi is married to a sister of Gadhafi’s second wife, Safia Farkash, and is famous for directing the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre in which more than 100 Islamist prisoners were executed. This incident has been often cited by the eastern opposition as a core grievance that has led to the current uprising.

Al-Sanussi remains loyal to Gadhafi, and was explicitly accused by Bani Walid tribal leaders of directing the crackdown on Misurata. Likewise, protesters in the northwestern city of Zawiya on Feb. 24 told reporters that a Gadhafi aide named Abdullah Megrahi (whose tribe is revealed by his surname) had come to the town Feb. 23 to deliver a warning: End the resistance, or “there will be a massacre.” One day later, Libyan military units allegedly used anti-aircraft missiles and automatic weapons to attack a mosque in Zawiya that contained protesters.

There are prominent Magarihas, however, who are said to have joined forces with the opposition. The most famous of this group is Abdel Salam Jalloud, al-Sanussi’s cousin and a former classmate of Gadhafi’s at Sabha. He is also one of the 12 members of the Revolutionary Command Council that carried out the 1969 coup. He served as prime minister for five years in the 1970s, and was once regarded as the second most powerful man in Libya. But after the failed 1993 coup, Jalloud fell out of favor with Gadhafi due to suspicions of his involvement. He was officially pushed out of the Jamahiriya leadership in 1995.

Jalloud has retained influence with the Magariha tribe, however, and a source included him as part of a rumored plot by several current or former military officers to overthrow Gadhafi. A separate source also reporting on this rumored plot indicated that another Magariha long known to be a member of Gadhafi’s inner circle, Brig. Gen. Al-Mahdi al-Arabi Abdel Hafiz, had been chosen to lead the revolt. If there are indeed such plans, they have yet to be implemented.

The stance of the Magariha as a tribal unit is unclear. While Al Jazeera reported Feb. 21 that the entire Magariha tribe had renounced Gadhafi, there are clearly certain elements that are not of this persuasion, and the exact extent of the divide is unknown. Certainly there are elements of the Magariha that have joined the opposition camp, but it does not appear to have been a clean break just yet. Gadhafi’s fate could hinge on this tribe’s decision.

Interior Tribes
Fezzan
The Tuaregs
As Fezzan is largely unpopulated, the tribal dynamics that affect only Fezzan and do not play out in the coastal areas are largely unimportant in terms of determining the outcome of the current conflict in Libya. The Tuaregs, however, matter because of their ability to attack oil and natural gas infrastructure deep in the Libyan desert.



The Tuaregs are a nomadic people who roam around the Sahara and Sahel regions. A Berber people, the Tuaregs have a much different culture and history (not to mention language and appearance) from the Arabic peoples along Libya’s coastal regions, as well as the “pure” Arab Bedouins who live in other parts of the Libyan desert. They live in small groups mainly in the southwestern part of the country, concentrated primarily around the Ghadamis and Ghat oases.

The Tuaregs have joined the calls of the Warfallah, Zuwaya and other tribes in demanding that Gadhafi step down, clashing with security forces in the towns of Ghat and Ubary on Feb. 20. Tuaregs live near the Waha natural gas deposits on the Algerian border, as well as in the vicinity of the large Elephant oil field owned in part by the partially state-owned Italian oil firm ENI and Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corporation. Indeed, Tuaregs reportedly took over the headquarters of an oil company in Ubari on Feb. 22, though details are scarce on what exactly transpired.

Cyrenaica
The Toubou Tribe
Like the Tuaregs, the Toubou tribe is not a substantial factor in the conflict under way within the Libyan core. The Toubou are the most distinct tribe in Libya simply because of their skin color: they more closely resemble sub-Saharan Africans than their countrymen to the north. (Indeed, when reports first emerged about African mercenaries employed by Gadhafi to suppress the uprising, there was some confusion as to whether they might have been Toubou elements of the Libyan military mistaken for foreigners.) Toubou, like the Tuaregs, live in small groups in harsh desert conditions, albeit on the other side of the country, in southeastern Libya near the Tibesti Mountains along the Chadian border and in the vicinity of the Al Kufrah Oasis.

Also like the Tuaregs, the main threat posed by the Toubou is to oil infrastructure. A rebel group called the Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya threatened in 2008 to sabotage the Sarir oil field, located almost 400 kilometers from Al Kufrah.

The Toubou have shown allegiance to Gadhafi in the past, but this was based on money more than anything else. Their loyalty to anyone as far away as Tripoli is not going to be permanent. Indeed, the Toubou tribe reportedly denounced Gadhafi as well on Feb. 20.

The Tribes in Context
Eastern Libya is no longer under the control of the government in Tripoli, which is relatively normal in the history of this part of North Africa. The tribes of the east — who view themselves as descendants of the Sanussi order and, before that, the Arab Banu Salim who populated this region — have for the moment re-created the old region of Cyrenaica, which has not formally existed since before the days of the monarchy.
Across the Gulf of Sidra, in the capital of Tripoli, Gadhafi is holding on for the moment, and the portion of the armed forces still loyal to him are trying to push back against protesters fighting for control of cities in Tripolitania. Having lost the support of the largest tribe, the Warfallah, as well as all of the tribes of the east, Gadhafi is now relying primarily on members of his own tribe, individuals who feel more loyalty to the regime than to their own tribesmen who have revolted, and an unknown segment of Libya’s second largest tribe, the Magariha.

Tuaregs and Toubou in the Libyan desert continue to pose a threat to the country’s oil and gas production, but have not shown any serious inclination that they seek to shut down production at this time. Their activities are not of any pressing concern to Gadhafi, who for the moment is entirely focused on staying in power. To do that, he must ensure that the tribes loyal to him continue to stay loyal and hope that the use of force will help him to overcome the widespread opposition to his rule. Source: Stratfor

The Rest @ The Security Guy

Hundreds of Billions at Risk in Libya

The objective of the war against Libya is not just its oil reserves (now estimated at 60 billion barrels), which are the greatest in Africa and whose extraction costs are among the lowest in the world, nor the natural gas reserves of which are estimated at about 1,500 billion cubic meters. In the crosshairs of "willing" of the operation “Unified Protector” there are sovereign wealth funds, capital that the Libyan state has invested abroad.

The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) manages sovereign wealth funds estimated at about $70 billion U.S., rising to more than $150 billion if you include foreign investments of the Central Bank and other bodies. But it might be more. Even if they are lower than those of Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Libyan sovereign wealth funds have been characterized by their rapid growth. When LIA was established in 2006, it had $40 billion at its disposal. In just five years, LIA has invested over one hundred companies in North Africa, Asia, Europe, the U.S. and South America: holding, banking, real estate, industries, oil companies and others.

In Italy, the main Libyan investments are those in UniCredit Bank (of which LIA and the Libyan Central Bank hold 7.5 percent), Finmeccanica (2 percent) and ENI (1 percent), these and other investments (including 7.5 percent of the Juventus Football Club) have a significance not as much economically (they amount to some $5.4 billion) as politically.

Libya, after Washington removed it from the blacklist of “rogue states,” has sought to carve out a space at the international level focusing on "diplomacy of sovereign wealth funds." Once the U.S. and the EU lifted the embargo in 2004 and the big oil companies returned to the country, Tripoli was able to maintain a trade surplus of about $30 billion per year which was used largely to make foreign investments. The management of sovereign funds has however created a new mechanism of power and corruption in the hands of ministers and senior officials, which probably in part escaped the control of the Gadhafi himself: This is confirmed by the fact that, in 2009, he proposed that the 30 billion in oil revenues go "directly to the Libyan people." This aggravated the fractures within the Libyan government.

U.S. and European ruling circles focused on these funds, so that before carrying out a military attack on Libya to get their hands on its energy wealth, they took over the Libyan sovereign wealth funds. Facilitating this operation is the representative of the Libyan Investment Authority, Mohamed Layas himself: as revealed in a cable published by WikiLeaks. On January 20 Layas informed the U.S. ambassador in Tripoli that LIA had deposited $32 billion in U.S. banks. Five weeks later, on February 28, the U.S. Treasury “froze” these accounts. According to official statements, this is "the largest sum ever blocked in the United States," which Washington held "in trust for the future of Libya." It will in fact serve as an injection of capital into the U.S. economy, which is more and more in debt. A few days later, the EU "froze" around 45 billion Euros of Libyan funds.

The assault on the Libyan sovereign wealth funds will have a particularly strong impact in Africa. There, the Libyan Arab African Investment Company had invested in over 25 countries, 22 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, and was planning to increase the investments over the next five years, especially in mining, manufacturing, tourism and telecommunications. The Libyan investments have been crucial in the implementation of the first telecommunications satellite Rascom (Regional African Satellite Communications Organization), which entered into orbit in August 2010, allowing African countries to begin to become independent from the U.S. and European satellite networks, with an annual savings of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Even more important were the Libyan investment in the implementation of three financial institutions launched by the African Union: the African Investment Bank, based in Tripoli, the African Monetary Fund, based in Yaoundé (Cameroon), the African Central Bank, with Based in Abuja (Nigeria). The development of these bodies would enable African countries to escape the control of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, tools of neo-colonial domination, and would mark the end of the CFA franc, the currency that 14 former French colonies are forced to use. Freezing Libyan funds deals a strong blow to the entire project. The weapons used by "the willing" are not only those in the military action called “Unified Protector.”

Il Manifesto, April 22, 2011

Translated from Italian by John Catalinotto

The Rest @ Global Research (Canada)

Manlio Dinucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research

AQIM now may have Russian SA-7s.

This is a separate source confirmation that AQIM now has Surface to Air Missiles, probably SA-7s. The means and route of transport suggests that the convoys discussed below are being led or contracked by Abdelmalek Droukdel, of AQIM.

-Shimron Issachar

*******

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda is exploiting the conflict in Libya to acquire weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, and smuggle them to a stronghold in northern Mali, a security official from neighbouring Algeria told Reuters.

• The official said a convoy of eight Toyota pick-up trucks left eastern Libya, crossed into Chad and then Niger, and from there into northern Mali where in the past few days it delivered a cargo of weapons.
• He said the weapons included Russian-made RPG-7 anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov heavy machine guns, Kalashnikov rifles, explosives and ammunition.
• He also said he had information that al Qaeda's north African wing, known as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), had acquired from Libya Russian-made shoulder-fired Strela surface-to-air missiles known by the NATO designation SAM-7.

(picture of Nicaraguan Soldier with SA-7, source)

"A convoy of eight Toyotas full of weapons travelled a few days ago through Chad and Niger and reached northern Mali," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The weapons included RPG-7s, FMPK (Kalashnikov heavy machine guns), Kalashnikovs, explosives and ammunition ... and we know that this is not the first convoy and that it is still ongoing," the official told Reuters.

• "Several military barracks have been pillaged in this region (eastern Libya) with their arsenals and weapons stores and the elements of AQIM who were present could not have failed to profit from this opportunity."
• "AQIM, which has maintained excellent relations with smugglers who used to cross Libya from all directions without the slightest difficulty, will probably give them the task of bringing it the weapons," said the official. Continued...

The official said that al Qaeda was exploiting disarray among forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and had also infiltrated the anti-Gaddafi rebels in eastern Libya.

The rebels deny any ties to al Qaeda. U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe, said last week intelligence showed only "flickers" of an al Qaeda presence in Libya, with no significant role in the Libyan uprising.

"AQIM ... is taking advantage by acquiring the most sophisticated weapons such as SAM-7s (surface-to-air missiles), which are equivalent to Stingers," he said, referring to a missile system used by the U.S. military.

Algeria has been fighting a nearly two-decade insurgency by Islamist militants who in the past few years have been operating under the banner of al Qaeda. Algeria's security forces also monitor al Qaeda's activities outside its borders.

The security official said the Western coalition which has intervened in Libya had to confront the possibility that if Gaddafi's regime falls, al Qaeda could exploit the resulting chaos to extend its influence to the Mediterranean coast.

"If the Gaddafi regime goes, it is the whole of Libya -- in terms of a country which has watertight borders and security and customs services which used to control these borders -- which will disappear, at least for a good time, long enough for AQIM to re-deploy as far as the Libyan Mediterranean."

"In the case of Libya, the coalition forces must make an urgent choice. To allow chaos to settle in, which will necessitate ... a ground intervention with the aim of limiting the unavoidable advance of AQIM towards the southern coast of the Mediterranean, or to preserve the Libyan regime, with or without Gaddafi, to restore the pre-uprising security situation," the official told Reuters.

The Rest @ Reuters

Did AQIm Get SAMs from Libyan Insurvgents?

The algerian Government appears to believe that AQIM now has anti-aircraft missils it aquired from an al qaeda group now figthing with Libyan Rebels..... -Shimron Issachar *********************** ALGIERS - Algeria has tightened security at the border with Libya because of the situation there to "prevent any attempt of infiltration" of al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) on its territory, according to the daily “L’Expression”. According to the newspaper, some 7,000 policemen and five army battalions were dispatched to the Algerian-Libyan border to include "any attempt to prevent delivery of weapons and infiltration" of members of AQIM in Algeria. This information has not been confirmed by official sources.

• AQIM "managed to acquire heavy weapons and anti-aircraft missiles from its new allies, the Libyan insurgents," said L'Expression citing "security sources".

• "The alert is maximum especially that the head of state will make a visit on April 5 in Tamanrasset. There is no question of leaving the slightest flaw in the security grid in the south," said the French-language daily.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will make Tuesday a working visit and inspection in the Department of Tamanrasset in the far south of Algeria, according to an official source.

The Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said March 24 that the events in Libya might encourage "terrorism" in an interview with L'Expression.

"What happens in Libya can be considered one more chance we give to terrorists," he said, holding that this situation will be "exacerbated by foreign intervention"

The Rest @ Ennahr Online

Said Of Libya's Rebel leaders: "In this Council there are people who tortured our nurses"

Wars are won with force, and force in the 21st century is manifested in fire power and ammunition. To the hapless rebel, the man who has lived his life in the shadows of brutality and the silhouettes of barbarism, a gun is a beautiful thing. Likewise, In a society built on inequality and oppression, bullets can quickly become the only equaliser, and hold the promise of emancipation. In places like Benghazi, Sitre and eventually Tripoli the utter simplicity of kill or be killed is a frightening simplifier of morality and it doesn’t take a huge leap of faith to imagine ourselves also looking on with jealousy and hatred as our thuggish oppressors open fresh supplies of AK 47s and ground-to-air missiles. It is therefore understandable that the Libyan National Council (LNC) should look to their new grossly over-armed western allies for a supply of freedom-promising weaponry. But when the question is asked of us the answer must ring out loud and clear that, even if the coalition forces were legally allowed to take sides, that side would not be the LNC. The de facto government, now recognised by most of the EU and NATO as the legitimate opposition to Gadaffi, finds its strong hold in Benghazi between the oil harbours of Azzuwaytinah and Al Hariqa. The council is made up of largely dissident figures, many of whom have longs histories of criticism and pasts riddled with government ‘attention’. But when making the choice to give arms to an unelected and hitherto unknown band of merry men slightly more background research is required to sure up the move. The research has been done, and the recipients found wanting.

• Far from the voice of liberal democracy and civil compassion the LNC’s Chairman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil has a history of ruthless legal absolutism and political vapidity. As a graduate of Shari’a and Law from the Libyan University, and links with Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, fears of Islamist tendencies are justifiably rife.

There is a form of soft racism that often clouds the discussion of Islamic forces in the region but the facts are clear; almost every group that has either been elected or seized power on an Islamist or Shari’a platform in the Middle East has not taken long to instil the key virtues of tyranny, the oppression of women and the brutalisation of ethnic minorities.

It was facilitated by Soviet Russia in Afghanistan during the Proxy Wars of the 1970s and 80s, historically reinforced by the west in the name of ‘stability’ and could well find purchase here.

• Then there are Jalil’s dubious decisions as a Judge and President of the Libyan court of appeal. For instance, he twice upheld the decision to execute 5 Bulgarian nurses and 1 Palestinian doctor for ‘infecting hundreds of children with a HIV’, a crime that was never proven and heard in a case overseen by Gadaffi himself.The intervention by the EU to save their lives was vehemently opposed by the now leader of the free Libya, a move that earned him Gadaffi’s praise as ‘a faithful among the faithful’ and a position in his cabinet for 3 years.


• But he resigned, he has broken his links with Gadaffi, he has, to quote the most sickening of condescending platitudes, ‘seen the light’. That may be so, but let’s not kid ourselves; loyalties aren’t quickly forgotten and moral doggedness not quickly forgiven, especially in Libya. Even the bluntest of imaginations can look on the fractured Libyan society and foresee a time that the LNC also has to defend itself from the disenfranchised masses.

Add to the considerations as well the history Idris Laga, the LNC’s military coordinator, who oversaw the skewed investigation into, and rape and torture of, the above mentioned nurses, and has been described by middle eastern academic Vladimir Tchoukov as ‘a greedy and unscrupulous man, animated by a deep hatred of the West’.

The outburst by the Bulgarian Prime Minister in Brussels this month said it best when he said it simply: ‘In this Council there are people who tortured our nurses’.

For the disheartened, the disparate and the slain guns are a beautiful thing, but its beauty is recognised as well by the ogre who walks amongst them, and the irrational megalomaniac who one day wants to. We should know, beyond doubt, which of them we are dealing with, especially when we are dealing in death.

The Rest @ The Independant (UK)