Libyan prison break: 120 prisoners escape Tripoli jail
Libyan prison break: Security guards at a jail in Tripoli, Libya, are suspected of having taken bribes to free the prisoners.
Libya’s Supreme Security Committee says 120 prisoners have escaped from jail in the capital city of Tripoli, where security guards are suspected of having accepted bribes to free them.
Spokesman Abdel-Moneim al-Hurr says only two of the 120 have been arrested since their escape Monday. It is the second jailbreak in Tripoli this year.
Prisoners say that since Libya’s uprising, some have been languishing in prisons without charge. They also say the courts have not moved to hear their cases.
Al-Hurr says no security guards were injured during the escape, leading him to suspect the guards may have received bribes to release the detainees.
The North African country has been reeling from a security breakdown and a weakened judiciary following last year’s eight-month civil war.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/1015/Libyan-prison-break-120-prisoners-escape-Tripoli-jail
How the Arab Spring’s prisoner releases have helped the jihadi cause
This latter fact makes Jamal part of a trend that has gone largely unremarked upon in the public sphere since the beginning of the “Arab Spring” uprisings: prisons in affected countries have been emptied, inmates scattering after being released or breaking free. In many cases, it is a good thing that prisoners have gone free: the Arab dictatorships were notorious for unjustly incarcerating political prisoners, and abusing them in captivity. But jihadists have also been part of this wave of releases, and we are now beginning to see the fruits of the talent pool that is back on the streets. …
The potential for danger was actually apparent very early in the events of the Arab Spring. In January 2011, even before Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power, it was widely reported that thousands of prisoners had escaped from Egyptian jails, including militants. A lengthy hagiographical account of how “the mujahedin” had escaped from the Abu Za’bal prison soon appeared on the Ansar al Mujahedin Network, a jihadist web forum. …
Nor were jail breaks and prisoner releases limited to Egypt. They have also helped to change the shape of both jihadist and also more moderate Islamist currents in Tunisia, Libya, and also Yemen. Underscoring this, a September article from jihadist intellectual Abu Sa’d al Amili directed toward members of an al Qaeda front group in Yemen extols the virtues of imprisonment. “Prison might be a period of education or further strengthening for the prisoner,” he wrote. “God the Almighty is preparing the prisoner for great events and heavy responsibilities that he could not have borne before his imprisonment or if he had remained free.”
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2012/10/13/how-the-arab-springs-prisoner-releases-have-helped-the-jihadi-cause/
It’s looking like obama is actually going to try and pull off a hit. Suddenly, this guy is in all the news out of literally nowhere.
If he does this and Khattalah is a zawahiri protege, all hell will break loose across North Africa where we just happened to send American Troops.
Don’t like the smell of this one bit..
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443624204578060412061421202.html
BY MARGARET COKER
BENGHAZI, Libya—The founder of Libya’s Islamist militia Ansar al-Sharia was at the U.S. consulate compound during the deadly attack here, Libyan officials say, but he remains free a week after those allegations were disclosed to Libyan political leaders and U.S. investigators.
Ahmed Abu Khattalah—who current Libyan officials and former Islamic militants describe as propagating an al Qaeda-style ideology—was seen during the Sept. 11 attack at the diplomatic mission where two of the four Americans died, said two senior Libyan security officials familiar with the investigation.