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Rebel Commander in Libya Fought Against U.S. in Afghanistan
Pajamas Media ^ | March 25, 2011 | John Rosenthal

Posted on 03/25/2011 8:41:37 AM PDT by Kaslin

On his own admission, rebel leader Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi fought American troops in Afghanistan and recruited Libyans to fight American troops in Iraq.

Shortly after unrest broke out in eastern Libya in mid-February, reports emerged that an “Islamic Emirate” had been declared in the eastern Libyan town of Darnah and that, furthermore, the alleged head of that Emirate, Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, was a former detainee at the American prison camp in Guantánamo. The reports, which originated from Libyan government sources, were largely ignored or dismissed in the Western media.

Now, however, al-Hasadi has admitted in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that he fought against American forces in Afghanistan. (Hat-tip: Thomas Joscelyn at the Weekly Standard.) Al-Hasadi says that he is the person responsible for the defense of Darnah — not the town’s “Emir.” In a previous interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail, he claimed to have a force of about 1,000 men and to have commanded rebel units in battles around the town of Bin Jawad.

“I have never been at Guantánamo,” al-Hasadi explained to Il Sole 24 Ore. “I was captured in 2002 in Peshawar in Pakistan, while I was returning from Afghanistan where I fought against the foreign invasion. I was turned over to the Americans, detained for a few months in Islamabad, then turned over to Libya and released from prison in 2008.”

Al-Hasadi’s account is largely confirmed by investigations conducted by Praveen Swami, the diplomatic editor of the British daily The Telegraph. Swami originally wrote about al-Hasadi’s background in the Afghan jihad in a March 21 column. In response to a query from the present author, Swami was able to obtain confirmation of al-Hasadi’s arrest and transfer to Libya from what he describes as a “senior source” in the Afghan government.

According to a separate UK intelligence source contacted by Swami, al-Hasadi was released by the Libyan government as part of a deal that was struck with the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIGF). The LIGF has long opposed the rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya.

On February 25, al-Hasadi had issued an ambiguous statement claiming that he had been a “political prisoner” and accusing the “Dictator Gaddafi” of spreading “lies.” Al-Jazeera provides an English translation of the statement here. (Scroll down to “12:46pm”.) A video of al-Hasadi reading his statement is available here.

In his more recent remarks to Il Sole 24 Ore, al-Hasadi admits not only to fighting against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but also to recruiting Libyans to fight against American forces in Iraq. As noted in my earlier PJM report here, captured al-Qaeda personnel records show that al-Hasadi’s hometown of Darnah sent more foreign fighters to fight with al-Qaeda in Iraq than any other foreign city or town and “far and away the largest per capita number of fighters.” Al-Hasadi told Il Sole 24 Ore that he personally recruited “around 25” Libyans to fight in Iraq. “Some have come back and today are on the front at Ajdabiya,” al-Hasadi explained, “They are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists.” “The members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader,” al-Hasadi added.

The revelations about al-Hasadi’s involvement in the anti-American jihad are particularly troubling in light of clear evidence that Western forces are coordinating their attacks on Libyan government targets with rebel forces.

Reporting from the outskirts of Ajdabiya yesterday, Antoine Estève of the French news channel i-Télé noted that just “minutes” after rebel positions had been hit by artillery fire from Libyan government forces, the Libyan government positions were then bombarded by coalition aircraft. (Estève’s report can be viewed here.) In a March 19 dispatch from Benghazi for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, correspondent Lorenzo Cremonesi cites rebel leaders as saying that they were given the opportunity to provide NATO with a map indicating enemy targets that they wanted bombed.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: alhasadi; alqaeda; aq; cluster; islam; jihad; libya; libyalrebels; libyanrebels; ligf; power; sinjar; sinjarrecords; soros; wot; wwspd
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To: skeeter

Destabilization of the World - opening a door for the AntiChrist to come on the scene to “bring peace”______ for a time..............


21 posted on 03/25/2011 9:09:05 AM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: DTA
CENTCOM wages war against AQ while AFRICOM supports AQ

Well said! That sums our policy up very nicely, all in one sentence.

While some people (like Pat Buchanan and Michael Savage)see the utter insanity in this, most people (Bill O'Reilly, etc) think it's just a dandy idea.

22 posted on 03/25/2011 9:10:50 AM PDT by Leaning Right (Why am I carrying this lantern, you ask. I am looking for the next Reagan.)
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To: Kaslin

23 posted on 03/25/2011 9:11:17 AM PDT by McGruff (So how's that Hopey Changey Thingy workin out for ya?)
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To: skeeter

Time is way overdue to flush the whole works out. We need to have jail doors a swinging and closing for the works of the treasonous treacherous traitors. Yesterday was not soon enough!


24 posted on 03/25/2011 9:11:51 AM PDT by himno hero
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To: Missouri gal

It looks that way


25 posted on 03/25/2011 9:12:10 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: PGR88

Question - lets say hypothetically that a similar circumstance erupted right here in the US - people take up arms against an oppressive government that is Hell-bent on destroying this nation... would Obama not do exactly the same thing that the Libyan dictator did - at least as far as he could?

The revolution in Egypt now appears to be what many of “us” feared - a much more radical Islamist government...

What does Obama think will happen in Libya? Much worse.

As has been stated, there is something FAR larger at work here...and Obama is just the “yes man” to something far darker.


26 posted on 03/25/2011 9:12:51 AM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: skeeter

You tell me


27 posted on 03/25/2011 9:13:06 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Gator113

Impeach that arrogant pos


28 posted on 03/25/2011 9:15:38 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin

CHURCHILL ON ISLAM

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.

No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

Sir Winston Churchill; (Source: The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 London )


29 posted on 03/25/2011 9:15:50 AM PDT by KeyLargo
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To: MrInvisible

Steve Doocy from Fox and Friends and others on Fox news were asking if we support the rebels wouldn’t we support Al Qaeda, as most were connected to that organization


30 posted on 03/25/2011 9:19:30 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Virginia Ridgerunner

Folks tried to laugh off Gaddafi’s assertions that the rebels were AQ... yet the truth comes out...

And now we are HELPING AQ. Absolute insanity.


31 posted on 03/25/2011 9:21:13 AM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: skeeter

“Tell me again, just what do we hope to accomplish in Libya?”

We should be bombing BOTH Khaddafi AND the rebels...

They are ALL our “enemies”, considering the true nature of the struggle in which we are engaged....


32 posted on 03/25/2011 9:21:42 AM PDT by Grumplestiltskin (I may look new, but it's only deja vu!)
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To: Kaslin
Carter created Iran, and Bummer is going to join it to the Atlantic
33 posted on 03/25/2011 9:22:16 AM PDT by Christian Engineer Mass (25ish Cambridge MA grad student. Many younger conservative Christians out there? __ Click my name)
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To: himno hero

Jail doors? Not hardly. We need to handle this the “old fashioned” way - gallows or firing squad.


34 posted on 03/25/2011 9:22:39 AM PDT by TheBattman (They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature...)
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To: Kaslin

Rush is on this now!


35 posted on 03/25/2011 9:24:12 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: Kaslin

Way to go, obammy!!

This whole endeavor is a huge mistake and I have said so fifty times from the time people started saying we should impose the No-Fly-Zone.

It’s turned into the exact cluster-f&*k I said it would.

How could ANYBODY, including FReepers, think oscumsucker could do this right or would even have a desire to do it right?

Muzzies are our enemies. They WANT to kill us. It’s in their Koran-thingy. They’ve been after us for years and years. So, when muzzies are killing muzzies, let ‘em effing KILL EACH OTHER!! DUH!!!!!!!!!! It’s such a no-brainer!!!


36 posted on 03/25/2011 9:27:29 AM PDT by ratsreek
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To: Kaslin
Impeach that arrogant pos

The libs and the MSM are so in love with the first black president, they refuse to see him for what he is (or isn't).

37 posted on 03/25/2011 9:27:34 AM PDT by jersey117
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To: Kaslin

I Defy anyone here to get a drivers licence without a birth cert, but this is what happens when America elects an unknown muslim Named Obama Hussein.

These are the people we will be fighting for around the world as long as the POTUS is a muslim POS.


38 posted on 03/25/2011 9:28:23 AM PDT by bill1952 (Choice is an illusion created between those with power - and those without)
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To: Kaslin

Why are the ONLY choices in mooslimville between these two?

1. secular corrupt

or

2. Mooslim radical

It’s always a pick your poison choice.


39 posted on 03/25/2011 9:28:52 AM PDT by NeverForgetBataan (To the German Commander: ..........................NUTS !)
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To: Leaning Right

I have many times defended Bill O’Reilly, because before the arrogant pos moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, he was a true Independent as he went both after the right and the left. Then after he had his first interview with the “I Won” he started to lock his lips an his ass and has not let go, and I find myself yelling at my TV a lot


40 posted on 03/25/2011 9:34:20 AM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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