Reply #58: Western nations have ‘nothing to fear’ from Libya [View All]

[tabatha]

TRIPOLI A Tripoli military commander with suspected Al Qaeda links, Abdelhakim Belhaj, said: “The West has nothing to fear” from Libyan revolutionaries and thanked Nato for its support.

“I can assure you that the Libyan revolutionaries have no natural agenda to spark fears from the East or West,” Belhaj, head of Tripoli’s military council, said in an interview late on Tuesday.

“We have no ideological link with Al Qaeda. The only thing is that we found ourselves on the same field of operations (Afghanistan) with this organisation, and that does not mean we have the same ideological values,” he added.

According to French daily Liberation, Belhaj was a founder of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), close to Al Qaeda. He was arrested by the American CIA in 2004 before being handed to the Gaddafi regime.

Letters recently discovered in Tripoli documenting the collaboration between western intelligence services show that the CIA informed Libyan authorities that Abdullah Al Sadiq (Belhaj’s fighter name) and his pregnant wife were travelling from Kuala Lumpur to Bangkok where the American agency should ‘grab’ and deliver him to the regime.

“We are grateful for all those who supported our cause, a support which has notably been demonstrated by UN Security Council Resolution 1973,” that authorised the protection of civilians and made western intervention in Libya possible.

Belhaj also paid homage to Nato for having helped liberate Tripoli by providing air cover to the operation launched by fighters against the capital, which on August 23 led to the conquest of the Bab Al Aziziya fortress, Gaddafi’s powerbase.

http://www.omantribune.com/index.php?page=news&id=100231&heading=Middle%20East